Jim O’Neil of Goldman Sachs had coined BRIC(Brazil, Russia, India and China) decades back and has continued to spouse this cause. No doubts on that. With the recent “Greek” flu plaguing EU and possible more defaults, PIIGS (Portugal, Italy,Ireland,Greece and Spain) has taken centre stage. Unfortunately,  for the wrong reasons. Economist, Bankers, Policy makers, World Bank, Politicians and the business community are pouring over data to get a real feel of how these economies would tackle their debt ridden economies. Come to think of it, how do countries manage to have national debt  exceeding  their GDP is something their leaders must explain to their citizens. In fact, citizens must demand an explanation on this, as these debts build over years and decades and there is never any talk of this until shit hits the roof. Talk of leadership, trust and transparency !

In the midst of all this, a new geography of economies has been building over decades. It still is more popularly known as Asean/South East Asia, but with Japan, China joining and India’s stronger lead, an East Asia block is taking great shape. With the recent zero tariff between partner countries, business is poised for strong growth.

One noticeable fact here – rather two. First, the second largest US Consular office outside of the US has always been Bangkok( largest is Cairo!). Second, while US FDI in India is $ 16 billion and in China is $ 68, it is $ 168 billion in the Asean Economies. Dosen’t this point to something? It’s your thought from here on.