Asia is facing a triple policy challenge that could see even the region's fastest-growing economies fall into the 'middle-income trap', according to new research by Asia House.

The report highlights Asia's position at a crossroads, with countries' trajectories towards becoming advanced economies at risk of being derailed by economic scarring from the COVID-19 crisis, the disruptive impact of climate change, and a slow pace of digitalisation.

Without urgent and robust policy action to address these challenges, Asia's economies face being caught in a middle-income trap that hampers development and puts the region's long-term growth at risk, the report finds.

'A shift is needed towards policies that specifically address both the immediate economic scarring of the pandemic and secure longer-term resilience and prosperity,' the report recommends.

'For the 21st century to become the Asian Century, with Asia's economies set to take a share of over half of global GDP by 2050, only a determined effort by the authorities to fill an evident policy gap will enable growth to continue at the required levels. Adopting a trio of priorities now will enable a robust economic tomorrow: green finance, digitalisation and enhanced regional cooperation.'

The London-based think tank assessed eight key economies in Asia across metrics conducive to meeting these challenges. In two new indices published today, Asia House analyses the performance of China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam in the critical areas of green finance and digitalisation readiness – areas that will unlock future productivity and enable sustainable growth.

China leads the Asia House Economic Readiness Indices, but will see economic growth slow in 2022 due to the ongoing disruption of COVID-19. While India is expected to be the world's fastest-growing economy this year, its ranks lowest for digital readiness out of the eight economies assessed. Closing its digital divide will be essential for its long-term growth.

Japan ranks second across both indices, and is likely to experience a moderate acceleration in growth in 2022, but authorities must speed up digitalisation efforts, the report finds. Within Southeast Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia lead in green finance readiness and digital transformation respectively.

The indices form part of the inaugural Asia House Annual Outlook, published by the think tank to track key economic trends across Asia and provide a forecast for the region's growth.

Phyllis Papadavid, Head of Research and Advisory, Asia House:

"Our research underlines the critical importance of green finance, broader digitalisation, and greater regional coordination for Asian economies if they are to avoid being caught in a middle-income trap that holds them back from greater development.

"If Asian economies can respond effectively to this triple policy challenge, then sustainable, equitable and productivity-driven growth will likely follow, along with brighter prospects for the 'Asian Century'.

"For this to happen, we need to see unprecedented investment for energy transitions, including fast-tracking green finance, and more diversified digitalisation in Asia. More comprehensive policy cooperation by regional economies will be critical to achieve these shared objectives."

Michael Lawrence, Chief Executive of Asia House:

"The Asia House Economic Readiness Indices shed new light on the progress of Asia's economies at a critical time in their development. Alongside the Asia House Annual Outlook report, we hope they will serve as valuable insights into the region's transition, and will aid policymakers in identifying areas where action is needed.

"Asia is estimated to account for half of global GDP by 2050, but as our research shows, this is not guaranteed. Asia House will be publishing the indices annually to track this trend and add to global understanding of this key region for the world economy."

What constitutes a flourishing business in the Philippines? Here are examples of booming enterprises that you may start right now. When examining thriving firms in the Philippines, several elements come into play, but the present market is one of the most important.

Although the industry is constantly changing, numerous internet business ideas in the Philippines are beginning to emerge due to the Covid pandemic, which is responsible for a high growth rate in unemployment. As a result, several firms in the Philippines are seeing rapid growth.

Small Remote Auditing Businesses - Auditing is a type of business where you may audit and assist other companies in growing. For example, some websites have thousands of visitors each day who come to obtain various types of information that can help them grow. High traffic means more opportunities to make money. As a result, individuals may share their knowledge and secrets with other bloggers to help them flourish and may decide to become an auditor to assist them. An auditor may be referred to as a coach or mentor.

Real Estate Businesses In The Philippines - Despite the continuing post effects of the epidemic, the Philippines' real estate industry has been thriving. According to data, the Philippines received around 19 billion pesos in foreign investment in the first quarter of this year. A significant portion of this is classified as real estate. There are several methods for a real estate firm in the Philippines to prosper and numerous possibilities. Running an internet business, offering an investing strategy course, authoring a book, or becoming a real estate broker are all possibilities. Many sectors of the Philippines are seeing real estate expansion, and the future appears bright.

Digital Marketing Business Philippines - Another thriving business in the Philippines is in the field of digital marketing. The main good thing about digital marketing is that it may take various forms, including search engine optimization, influence in marketing, public relations, affiliate marketing, social media advertising, and many more. Offering services on Fiverr is a terrific way to get started with a digital marketing business in the Philippines. In the Philippines, affiliate marketing is among the most intriguing options for many Filipinos. This may be a terrific source of passive income, especially if you can generate relevant traffic, which frequently means affiliate marketing works well if you have a YouTube channel, a blog, or a podcast.

Freelance Writing Businesses - Freelance writing is still one of the most profitable business opportunities in the Philippines. Because of the aggressive outsourcing tendency, this is still a thriving company in the Philippines. To put it another way, numerous firms both inside and outside the Philippines outsource writing jobs to freelance Filipinos. There are several strategies to monetize a freelance writing business. For example, you may work with a customer searching for an eBook writer on occasion, or you may be offered long-term employment as a writer for a blog site. There are also several options for working as an editor rather than a writer.

Rice Business (Bigasan) - Rice is essential to Filipino cuisine. Regardless of price swings, there will always be a high demand for rice. Rice sellers make a solid living in public markets, which are high-traffic venues with enough storage. This is a business with low initial expenses and a guaranteed profit. Rice has a steady and strong demand from consumers who order by the kilo and manufacturers that purchase by the bag. Profits are guaranteed because of a low start-up cost and high demand.

Virtual Assistance Business - The need for virtual assistance services is growing. Sometimes known as virtual assistants, freelancers, telecommuters, or home-based employees, these individuals work primarily from their homes. According to Elance, the Philippines account for one-eighth of its freelancers, or one million people. Businesses gain from virtual help since hiring full-time personnel is a less expensive choice. In the Philippines, virtual assistant fees begin at $3 per hour. If you work for approximately 8 hours a day and 22 days a month, your monthly income would be Php 25,000.

Transcribing - The Philippines is a top location for transcribing services. Approximately 5% of the $12 billion medical transcription business is outsourced to the Philippines. Many sectors demand transcription services. Law firms, film and entertainment enterprises, colleges, and sales firms are among these sectors. Transcription may be a lucrative job if you have a strong knowledge of English and are skilled at punctuation and sentence structure.

Weibo Corporation (NASDAQ: WB and HKEX: 9898), a leading social media for people to create, share and discover content, will announce its unaudited financial results for the first quarter 2022 before the U.S. market opens on Monday, May 30, 2022. Following the announcement, Weibo's management team will host a conference call from 7 AM - 8 AM Eastern Time on May 30, 2022 (or 7 PM - 8 PM Beijing Time on May 30, 2022) to present an overview of the Company's financial performance and business operations. As of the third quarter of 2021, Sina Weibo's daily active users amounted to 248 million in China, around 23 million more than the same quarter in the previous year. The microblogging company is one of the top social networking platforms in China with around around 573 million monthly active users. We're guesing currently around $40 billion valuation.

About Weibo Corporation

Weibo is a leading social media for people to create, share and discover content online. Weibo combines the means of public self-expression in real time with a powerful platform for social interaction, content aggregation and content distribution. Any user can create and post a feed and attach multi-media and long-form content. User relationships on Weibo may be asymmetric; any user can follow any other user and add comments to a feed while reposting. This simple, asymmetric and distributed nature of Weibo allows an original feed to become a live viral conversation stream.

Weibo enables its advertising and marketing customers to promote their brands, products and services to users. Weibo offers a wide range of advertising and marketing solutions to companies of all sizes. The Company generates a substantial majority of its revenues from the sale of advertising and marketing services, including the sale of social display advertisement and promoted marketing offerings. Designed with a "mobile first" philosophy, Weibo displays content in a simple information feed format and offers native advertisement that conform to the information feed on our platform. To support the mobile format, we have developed and continuously refining our social interest graph recommendation engine, which enables our customers to perform people marketing and target audiences based on user demographics, social relationships, interests and behaviors, to achieve greater relevance, engagement and marketing effectiveness

Safe Harbor Statement

This article contains forward-looking statements that relate to, among other things, Weibo's expected financial performance and strategic and operational plans (as described, without limitation, in the "Business Outlook" section and in quotations from management in this press release. Weibo may also make forward-looking statements in the Company's periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), in announcements, circulars or other publications made on the website of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the "Hong Kong Stock Exchange"), in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology, such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "confidence," "estimates" and similar statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, Weibo's limited operating history in certain new businesses; failure to grow active user base and the level of user engagement; the uncertain regulatory landscape in China; fluctuations in the Company's quarterly operating results; the Company's reliance on advertising and marketing sales for a majority of its revenues; failure to successfully develop, introduce, drive adoption of or monetize new features and products; failure to compete effectively for advertising and marketing spending; failure to successfully integrate acquired businesses; risks associated with the Company's investments, including equity pick-up and impairment; failure to compete successfully against new entrants and established industry competitors; changes in the macro-economic environment, including the depreciation of the Renminbi; and adverse changes in economic and political policies of the PRC government and its impact on the Chinese economy. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Weibo's annual report on Form 20-Fs and other filings with the SEC and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. All information provided in this press release is current as of the date hereof, and Weibo assumes no obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

Though off to a great start, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida faced myriad challenges in 2022. Amidst the Covid-19 surge, geopolitical conflicts with China, and slow economic growth. Beyond 2022 Kishida's greatest worry will be how to mend his damaged relationship with Shinzo Kibe, the Liberal Democratic Party supremo. The veteran politician resigned in September 2020 after outrage over claims of inefficiency in pandemic response as well as other scandals. Despite this, Abe was undoubtedly the unseen powerbroker in recent political developments in Japan. This is a fact that Kishida understands perfectly well. Kishida owes his Prime Minister title to "Shadkw Shogun" (Abe), who considered him a better candidate over other more popular candidates.

However, Kishida is likely to do better than Abe in economic reforms. Whilst Kishida's unmatched reforms would be a great stride for Japan's growing population; it would suggest crossing the hypersensitive Abe. Bearing in mind Japan's long history of factional politics, it isn't unrealistic to think that Team Abe might attempt to limit Kishida's ability to operate. This is especially so if Kishida proceeds to exercise political compromise towards South Korea and China and moves swiftly to rewrite Japan's past history of war. So why has Kishida earned the confidence and trust of many Japanese voters after assuming power in October?

Immediately after assuming office, Kishida improved on his immediate predecessor's efforts in mass vaccination against Covid-19. Currently, Japan has vaccinated over 78% of its population against Covid-19. Secondly, in just three months after assuming office, Kishida outlined a clear development path in jumpstarting Japan's economic growth, something that Abe failed to do in his eight years reign at the helm. Abe's notable achievement was what pundits called Abenomics; it gave a node to the Bank of Japan, ushering the infamous" trickle-down economics."

Kishida is currently reinventing a new wave of capitalism in a bid to redistribute economic development to the majority middle class. The plan includes giving incentives to companies through tax benefits on shared profits with workers. He's also working on partnering with Chief Executive Officers to boost economic development with emerging research and development expenditures.

More complications arise when you think about the fracas emanating from the BOJ that Abe returned in 2013. Abe appointed Haruhiko Kuroda, who was primarily responsible for the heavy lifting. A portion of this was projected at a 30% drop in the value of the yen compared to the dollar. In the days leading to this development, Kuroda changed his heart after discovering that the expenses of devaluation are far much greater than the benefits. While addressing journalists, Abe noted that depreciation of the yen is likely to impact negatively on household incomes through inflation. It is important to note that a strong. Japanese yen will result in Japanese goods becoming increasingly competitive in the international market. However, a weak yen will only push up the cost of imports with a negative effect on household and domestic retailers.

"A quantitative analysis by the bank's staff shows that the effects of the yen's depreciation is pushing up prices of durable goods have increased in recent years," Kuroda opined.

Even worrying is the fact that this development boost- from seemingly weakened exchange rates- did away with the need for Abe to effect disruptive structural reforms. Abe aborted his initial plan to weaken labor markets, encourage innovation, lower bureaucracy, and increase industrial productivity and women empowerment. This lack of tack in Abe's leadership left Japan's government extremely vulnerable to curbing the rise in Covid-19 infections and the resultant recession. Kishida's first assignment was to work towards putting into action what Abe promised to do.

There is a general feeling among the population that the government should cushion the economy in the short run. The cabinet approved a $ 940 billion budget to realize wealth distribution and achieve economic growth in Kishida's new capitalism manifesto. The budget is Japan's largest inaugural spending plan, a shift from the usual fiscal consolidation to a domestic product rate that is more likely sustainable.

Amid the rising cases of infections by the deadly Delta vibrant, the world's third-largest economy shrank by 3.6% in the period between July and September 2021. This decline affected consumption which accounts for more than half of the economy. Kishida's administration anticipates economic growth of about 3.2% in the 2022-23 financial year. This projection is up from the initial estimate of about 2.2%, which provided a foundation for the budget plan.

By all means, Kishida has proven to be his own man. Japan is likely to witness huge economic reforms. Kishida is distancing himself from his predecessor's nationalistic ideas, mainly centered on striking a balance between Japan and her Asian neighbors. These developments will result in economic growth this year. Japan will undoubtedly surprise the global economy in a good way.