Asia, as a whole, has witnessed tremendous growth in the past decades and city-states such as Hong Kong and Singapore have since joined the ranks of advanced economies. Asian giants are not only home to the largest number of millionaires in the world; Asian millionaires are also becoming increasingly wealthier. With US and European economics stuck in doldrums, could it be Asia’s turn to shine now?
The Rise of the Asian Financial Powerhouse
Could this be Asia’s turn to shine?
Photo Credit: Spreng Ben
Two recent speeches featured on the Monetary Authority of Singapore website give a pretty good indication of the momentum building up in Asia's desire to become a global financial super centre. By comparison with the established centers in the West, such as the City of London or Wall Street, Asia suffers from being a highly fragmented "zone". Indeed, it is so fragmented that it barely qualifies to be considered a zone, despite all the hype about the shift of financial power from West to East. The lack of a pan-Asian settlements infrastructure, the absence of a pan-Asian bond market and capital controls scattered like confetti across the region, all speak of the infancy of the Asian bloc by comparison with its Western rivals. However, it will not be ever thus, and things are changing fast.
Speaking on the occasion of the opening of the second Raffles Tower in Singapore (Raffles Tower One, opened in 1988, is still the third tallest building in Singapore) Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam spoke both of the rising affluence of Asia's middle classes and of the opportunities for Asian banks: "Asian banks, which are moderately leveraged, largely deposit-funded and generally conservative in lending, have in recent times, stepped-up their financing activities. As traditional European lenders continue to deleverage, there are opportunities in corporate funding, trade finance and infrastructure finance which Asian banks are well placed to take hold of."
