Mazurier, who has spent his career in European finance, most recently as chairman of the board of directors at Geneva-based investment firm Banque Pasche, is no stranger to the potential — and the perils — of developing economies. Mazurier has long taken up the causes of developing nations and emerging economies, and has closely monitored the growth surge in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In addition, his adopted home of the Bahamas, where up until recently Banque Pasche had a satellite location, is one of those emerging economies.
In his editorial, Mazurier noted with concern the findings of the 2014 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report, which was recently released to the public. In the report, the UN makes sure to state clearly that despite a general malaise in global economics, developing regions continue to show positive growth.
However, when Mazurier inspected the results more closely, he found significant regional and continental gaps in economic output and potential, whether as a result of regional unrest, strategic issues, or ideological differences. In other words, the wealth is being spread farther than ever before, but it’s not anywhere close to an even distribution.
The first gap is, like the UN’s report, a macroeconomic look at how global investment breaks down. Asia is growing faster than Africa; Africa is growing faster than the Middle East. Thanks to fewer armed conflicts, trade embargoes and a willingness and capability to diversify more readily than other regions, Asia will experience the most dynamic growth of any of them. Africa falls into line behind them, while the Middle East and central Asia continues to grow at a labored pace.
While this bird’s-eye view of the global economy is helpful, Mazurier saw upon closer examination that within each region, there exist more telling gaps. In China, growth is expected to increase at the current rate, 7.5 percent per year; India, at a slightly less encouraging 5.5 percent, and the Southeast Asian nations around 5 percent.
These numbers, while varied across the region, are still exceptionally high considering the entire global economy improved just over 2 percent over the past year. Africa, meanwhile, has much larger gaps in growth that, according to Mazurier, threaten to pitch the continent into greater inequality and uncertainty. While South Africa’s growth took a hit due to mining strikes, much of sub-Saharan Africa is showing positive signs and the region has an estimated 6 percent growth rate. However, North Africa is suffering from protracted political conflicts and issues with oil — falling global prices, specifically — and growth is suffering as a result.
In his editorial, Mazurier wrote that the balancing of the global economic scales was unquestionably a positive development. But looking under the surface of this widespread growth, it is clear to Mazurier that the wealth is not always equally spread.