•  
• Tweet
•  
•        Print
•  
•         Track Keywords
•  
• 

From Matthias Knab The quality of your decisions is determined by the quality of your information. When it comes to investing and asset management, especially abroad, I have always believed it is helps to have a local base, access to “hands-down” expertise. Another dimension is acquired by visiting the country, at least once. Ideally you should give yourself enough time to get a feel of the country: to build meaningful insights and to learn about its economy, natural and “human” resources, its culture and its peculiarities.

The relevance of local knowledge or better, a local base For example, addressing India’s failure in the development of Chinese-style special economic zones, the Financial Times recently pointed out “if you’re sitting in a hedge fund somewhere in London or New York and spending much of your time reading panglossian BRICs reports, it’s quite possible to be completely oblivious to the social protests that are gathering pace and force across much of India. You will miss out, for example, on the fact that the government’s strategy to promote industrialisation through the development of Chinese-style special economic zones has all but run into the ground. The significance of this is hard to overstate: SEZs were supposed to provide red-blooded industrialists with capitalist enclaves where they could escape from the stifling inspector raj, burdensome labour laws and high tax rates that hamper businesses in the country at large. They were meant......................

To view our full article Click here