I imagine that the drop in oil prices is keeping Gulf rulers occupied. The last time oil prices fell so steeply was shortly after the Asian crisis in 1998. Oil prices fell to $10 a barrel at the time. It cost just $15 to fill up the average mid-sized car versus $55 today. But a [...]
Gallery Archive
Use the past to serve the present
They’re back. Traders from across the Silk Road are again visiting Yiwu. The small coastal city is China’s largest distributor of small consumer goods. It sells mainly to Silk Road traders. But the city’s exhibition halls were empty when I visited in early July. Stall holders sat outside their empty shops playing cards with each [...]
‘Fatih’. The Silk Road’s secret glue
I was recently buying lunch in Damascus when two Iraqi immigrants entered the shop. It was an elderly mother and her daughter. The daughter asked a small boy working in the shop to find a chair for her mother. The heat outside was suffocating. ‘There’s so many of us in Syria’, the mother addressed the [...]
‘A once in a century event’ or ‘The start of a new century’?
The Dow Jones has fallen 14% in the past month. The Silk Road’s equity markets weren’t far behind. Malaysia fell 15%. Shanghai fell 25%. Riyadh fell 26%. The financial crisis is truly global. I’ve spent the past week trawling through Arab and Chinese newspapers. Editorial pages are filled with commentary on the financial crisis. The [...]
“China cheat sheet helps investors survive”, Bloomberg, September 1, 2010
“No more silver bullets for Beijing”, Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2010
“China’s historic return to the Gulf”, Foreign Policy, April 2, 2010
