ATI Magazine October-November 2015 issue

IN ASIA2016, we allow two quite disparate themes to unravel – because one depends so much upon the other. Will the Internet save the world as we know it, or will it destroy jobs, businesses, governments and institutions as it becomes a plaything of the rich and powerful?

Multinationals and, indeed, some SMEs doing business across borders, face challenges from business regulators, who have moved on from the rather simpler issue of transfer pricing to the complexities of BEPS – Base Erosion and Profit Shifting.

And entrepreneurs and micro-multinationals growing rapidly as the Internet becomes a global shopping mall face more regulation. Asian governments are scrambling to finalise new consumer laws, and the EU has pioneered VAT on e-commerce transactions as authorities seek to claw back their tax base.

World trade is becalmed as China adjusts to lower growth levels. Greater domestic consumption is seen as the way forward for China, but other exporting nations are scrambling for a bigger slice of a dormant pie.

Also in ASIA2016 –

Jobs the challenge – Asia will need 23 million more each year; The Steel Dumpers – India facing onslaught as its market holds up; The Baby Farmers – Revitalising rural Japan to boost birth rate; What ASEAN offers - Australia’s new trade focus (20); Taiwan at crossroads – A break with the past?; Weighing the options – Filipinos to make critical choice; Back to Thaksinomics in Thailand; Vietnam on a roll; World Bank warns Laos to diversify (28); Challenges ahead for Cambodia; Modi wooing  the world; Sri Lanka focus on tourism, tea; Pyongyang’s Kim a stay-at-home; Crucial election for Myanmar.