International Business Opportunities

British Airways said on Tuesday it had cancelled flights to Pakistan indefinitely after a suicide truck bomb blast at a hotel in Islamabad at the weekend killed at least 53 people and heightened security fears.
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A report released yesterday over the attractiveness to investment of cellular communications markets in different countries, shows a high potential for growth in Asia and in the CIS countries (former Soviet Union).

The ten countries with the highest levels of attractiveness to investment include seven countries in South and Southeast Asia (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan) and three from the CIS (Russia in 5th place, Ukraine in 7th, and Uzbekistan in 9th). […]

Central and Eastern Europe have lost much of their investment potential over the last two years as they have become increasingly saturated in terms of cellular network coverage. So European countries are offering increasingly few opportunities for investors, as the U.S. and Canada are still considered good targets for investment.

The report was carried out by a group of experts from the London Business School, Cambridge University, and the Russian School of Economics. (source: kommersant)

In the speech - Feb 22, previewing his next trip to India and Pakistan, the President Bush found outsourcing helps the US economy, saying that the loss of jobs in U.S.A. due to outsourcing to foreign countries contributed to create markets for American businesses.

“”…India’s growth is creating new opportunities for our businesses and farmers and workers.India’s middle class is now estimated at 300 million people, that’s greater than the entire population of the United States……Younger Indians are acquiring a taste for pizzas from Domino’s, Pizza Hut….And Air India ordered 68 planes valued at more than $11 billion from Boeing” President Bush said.

Now it’s the turn of Thomas F. Siems, senior economist at the Dallas Federal Reserve, in underlining the economic gains in the long run achieved with offshore outsourcing.

In his newly released “Beyond the Outsourcing Angst: Making America More Productive” - in Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ Economic Letter, Thomas F. Siems writes that although offshore outsourcing can negatively impact jobs and wages for some workers, it is better for the economy to accept the challenge of competition.

Lower consumer prices, better products and higher productivity growth are among benefits of outsourcing to other nations.