Transcript
So, we think it’s important to not try and lock in a ten-year view. But if you were to look at the next ten years and think about where there might be some major changes, I think there’s three areas what would be very interesting to look at. The first is the changes in approach to how economies and even how politics and society work in The Gulf.
So, the potential opening up of places like Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Their attempts to diversify away from energy and energy-related materials, and their attempts to build completely new industries, for example, tourism in Saudi Arabia. To see how those play out, I think, will be very interesting. If they are successful, that will be a major change in the emerging market economic landscape.
Secondly, China remains the workshop of the world, and ongoing geopolitical tensions between China and the West are likely to lead to relocation of manufacturing, particularly, away from China and towards other areas. I think some areas that might be interesting to watch, one is Vietnam, which remains an extremely attractive destination for investors. Currently seen as a frontier market, it’s certainly worth watching.
Second is India, which despite the size of its economy and the strength of some of its services exports remains very underrepresented in manufacturing. And clearly, has a huge workforce, potentially, able to pick up some of that.
And then, thirdly, based more on geography, one of the main losers of the rise of China was Mexico, and the potential reshoring of manufacturing from China to Mexico might have some very significant positive implications for Mexico.
