S2E69: Crisis creates openings: Why Asia will stand out after a post-Iran conflict

About this episode

The episode discusses how South-east Asia is positioned to handle the economic impacts of the Iran war, featuring insights from expert Thilan Wickramasinghe.

The Iran war is an unprecedented crisis but South-east Asia is better placed to handle it. Synopsis: Every second Friday of the month, The Straits Times’ senior columnist Ravi Velloor distils 45 years of experience covering the Asian continent, with expert guests. The US-Israeli assault on Iran, which led to the effective closure of the Straits of Hormuz, has seized up many Asian economies which are seeing rising fuel prices, soaring airline ticket costs and leaving restaurants short of cooking fuel. But South-east Asia, with memories of the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s still fresh in memory is better placed macro-economically to tackle the crisis - evidenced in investors’ confidence in stocks such as DBS, SIA and OCBC.   In this wide-ranging episode, host Ravi Velloor speaks with Thilan Wickramasinghe, head of research at Maybank Securities and an expert on the interplay of geopolitics, macro-economics and the stock market. They unpack the full dimensions of the crisis before discussing how Asia is likely to fare when it ends, as it must some day. Mr Wickramasinghe offers some advice: It has paid off for investors to be long on stocks, he…

People in this episode

Host: Ravi Velloor

Guest: Thilan Wickramasinghe

Topics covered

• geopolitics
• macro-economics
• stock market
• investor confidence
• crisis management
• Asian economies

Keywords

• Iran war
• South-east Asia
• investors
• stocks
• crisis
• macro-economics
• geopolitics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Maybank Securities, DBS, SIA, OCBC

Places: South-east Asia, Iran

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