India has undergone significant structural changes in recent years and it is presently one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

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Analysis of headline GDP figures in Africa would presuppose a region going through a period of prolonged stagnation, with growth slowing down to 2.2% in 2016 (1) off the back of falling commodity prices and tighter Chinese economic conditions - but this needs to be put into proper context. Nigeria and South Africa are the two biggest regional economies and the main bulwarks behind the continent’s growth, and both markets have contracted. Slowdowns in these two countries tend to have a disproportionate weighting on the overall region’s growth figures.

Middle class savers are looking for long-term return solutions to insulate their savings but the artificial suppression of interest rates by central banks has constrained their options. Low rates of interest paid on cash deposits held in bank accounts is forcing people to identify new means by which they can grow and complement their existing income and savings.

The latest access channel between the Hong Kong and China financial markets went live on July 3 with the launch of the northbound Bond Connect – connecting international investors with the China Interbank Bond Market (CIBM). Previous China market access platforms – such as Stock Connect – have typically started slowly as investors exercise initial caution, before attracting proper momentum.

China has never been more important to foreign investors and the pace of liberalization in the country’s financial markets continues to accelerate. With MSCI’s inclusion of China A-shares into its emerging markets index and the launch of Bond Connect, we are nearing a critical point in the journey towards the complete opening of China’s financial markets to global investors.

For the second time in a little under two months, an audacious hack of major institutions spanning vast geographies was executed by cyber criminals. Companies operating in around 64 markets were breached as a result of malware, causing enormous cost and delays to their operations.

The sukuk market continues to expand, but some significant challenges remain for both investors and issuers wanting to access the Sharia-compliant market which are arguably holding it back from faster growth.

Chinese real estate firms have been the source of many of Asia’s high yield deals in the past few years. The landscape is changing, however, due to a complex mix of Chinese regulatory efforts to make domestic capital markets more accessible for issuers, prolonged renminbi volatility that has lowered the appeal of dollar funding, and increasingly stringent rules set by China’s National Development and Reform Commission that control offshore issuance by domestic firms. The NDRC recently went as far as naming and shaming issuers circumventing such procedures. At GlobalCapital's roundtable, held in Hong Kong at the end of May, hosted by Standard Chartered, leading market experts discussed the evolution of Greater China high yield, the challenges posed by ever lower yields and what the future drivers of issuance will be at times of rising policy uncertainty.

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