In this episode, I deliberate over the recently concluded IMF-World Bank annual meetings. The IMF Meetings in Washington DC featured some recognition of global resiliency amid geoeconomic fragmentation. Concerns about numerous risks at play have not faded though. Governments and firms are dealing with erratic policy making by the US. Trade, commerce, and tech adoption go on in spite of the persisting uncertainty. The IMF sees mild upside to growth risks in the near term. The US economy, buffeted by strong consumption and investment, is on 2% growth trajectory. For the rest of the world, stress lingers, but response is better than expected.

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Dr. Dong He, Chief Economist of ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), joins Kopi Time to discuss the regional outlook. Dong weighs in on the impact of high US tariffs on the regional economy, the growth outlook, space for fiscal and monetary support, implication of the weak dollar environment, financial stability issues, green transition, and the disruptive role of AI. Through these sweeping discussions, Dong taps into his deep financial sector expertise. He also touches on the massive role China is playing in regional capital flows, investment, and tech developments.

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Jeff Johnson, MD and General Manager for Asean at AWS, joins Kopi Time to talk about all things cloud. We begin with AWS’s reach and scale, spectrum of services, and regional engagement. Jeff provides a host of examples to underscore enterprise usage with disruptive technologies, both AI and GenAI. He also sets the ground with the foundational tech stack maintained and continuously ungraded by AWS. We discuss security, reliability, sustainability, and democratisation of AI; Jeff contextualises these aspects with his deep experience in dealing with businesses in the region. We end with two big questions; will AI eat jobs and will AI show up in company bottom line sooner than later. Fascinating observations from one of the industry leaders.

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We go deep into stablecoins, the idea and practice of which have been around for a while, but a few things have happened this summer to make the matter catch major momentum. To parse through these developments (especially the US GENIUS Act), outlook, and risks, we welcome back Eswar Prasad, the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. We touch on the stablecoin tech stack, legislations being passed around the world, international dimensions, use case, regulatory risks, and potential disruptions to central banking and traditional finance. Eswar wrote an excellent piece on the Financial Times recently on this topic. Kopi Time extends those thoughts.

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Mark Domitrak, CT Group’s head of research, spends his time figuring out the pulse of consumers and corporate boardrooms. In this wide ranging podcast, he explains how his team makes polls informative and useful at a time when people are anxious and not as responsive to traditional approaches. He then offers insights into consumer and business sentiment on issues ranging from cost of living to trade war, China-US relationship to forces of fragmentation. We discuss the ongoing evolution in company strategies, and how they vary across regions. These strategies involve upholding core values while being pragmatic and realistic. Whether it is climate change, trade war, future of jobs amid tech disruption, or managing China, there is a lot to consider in assessing the outlook. Mark’s insights are clarifying in this context.

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Having been an avid consumer of the output of Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for a few years, I have been keen to have its co-founder, Lauri Myllyvirta, on Kopi Time. Lauri delivers a tour de force here, going over the state of green transition in the US, Europe, China, and other emerging markets while taking into account geopolitics and regulation. We discuss wind, solar, nuclear, and hyrdo generation, while putting coal and gas into context. We also go over climate tech, touching on promising technologies. Lauri ends the discussion by explaining India and Indonesia’s climate change journey. Regardless of sometime conflicting signals from policy makers, climate finance and tech, green innovation and adoption, will go ahead; dedicated analysts like Lauri are on the right side of history.

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We connect with New York-based Torsten Slok, Chief Economist of Apollo Global Management, to discuss the US economy. This highly compelling discussion touches on the path of likely slowing of the US economy, outlook of inflation and jobs, labour productivity, impact of AI on jobs, Fed independence, likelihood of financial repression, fiscal dominance, bond market liquidity, investor sentiment, and stable coin. In all of these topics, Torsten has sharp insights; a must listen.

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For this podcast, it’s just yours truly. With 2H25 in mind, I go over trade wars, Middle East tension, and the US economy. Then I take a bunch of questions from clients and colleagues. We go over asset allocation, US debt outlook, attractiveness of Asian sovereign bonds, and a few non-market questions. Enjoy!

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