China’s Promise of Prosperity Brought Laos Debt — and Distress
October 14th, 2023
Via The Washington Post, an article on Laos’ economy, pushed into distress by BRI infrastructure loans: At speeds of almost 100 miles an hour, the Chinese-built train zips over the Mekong River and careers through dozens of newly bored tunnels as it travels north from the capital. At its last stop, near the Chinese border, […]
Read more »Wil Laos’ Economic Zones Boost Growth?
October 10th, 2023
Courtesy of Nikkei Asia, a look at Laos’ border economic zones: Lae joked with her 12-year-old daughter, feeding her sticky rice with chili paste aboard a high-speed train barreling through northern Laos’ rugged landscape on its way to the Chinese border. The cheery conversation took a darker turn when they’re asked about their destination – Boten. […]
Read more »What A $6 Billion Rail Line in Laos Reveals About China’s Future
September 22nd, 2023
Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal, an interesting video look at how a $6B China-built rail line in Laos aims to jumpstart the country’s exports and provide China a key link to overseas markets.
Read more »Laos’ New $6 Billion Railway: Emerging Gateway Between China and Southeast Asia
July 23rd, 2023
Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, a report on Laos’ new $6B Chinese-built railway, allowing people and investments flow into Laos, making it ‘more like China’ and efforts to position the nascent Boten Special Economic Zone in Laos as a new gateway between China and Southeast Asia: Locals stopped selling mushrooms to watch a train […]
Read more »Laos Is Not in a Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ – But It Is in Trouble
April 27th, 2023
Via The Diplomat, a report on Laos, which is disturbingly reliant on investment from China – and no one knows how much, or under what terms: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) turns 10 this year. Much ink has been spilled, digitally and otherwise, about the global infrastructure project. The “debt-trap diplomacy” claims that arose […]
Read more »China Props Up Belt-and-Road Borrowers Via Unusual Channel
December 12th, 2022
Via the Wall Street Journal, a report on the People’s Bank of China use of currency-swap lines to support governments that borrowed heavily from Chinese banks via the BRI program: Hungry for foreign currency to shore up their dwindling reserves, some troubled countries have in recent years turned to an unusual source of funds: The People’s […]
Read more »Focusing primarily on The New Seven Sisters - the largely state owned petroleum companies from the emerging world that have become key players in the oil & gas industry as identified by Carola Hoyos, Chief Energy Correspondent for The Financial Times - but spanning other nascent opportunities around the globe that may hold potential in the years ahead, Wildcats & Black Sheep is a place for the adventurous to contemplate & evaluate the emerging markets of tomorrow.