Balancing a portfolio of worldwide investment and business activity, to include emerging and developing markets is the key to riding the current economic storm, according to JBS Associates Managing Director, Jonathan Stokes.
The international recruitment company, which itself has a worldwide presence including Eastern Europe and the Middle East, has seen its own business and those of its clients grow significantly in the emerging markets in which it operates.
However those clients whose major focus is the Western markets are having to adjust forecasts and recruitment plans in the light of global financial caution.
“Whilst the emerging markets have been a higher risk area of global business portfolios in the last decade, it is these markets which currently show most stability and growth prospects,” says Stokes.
“With news today that investors have pulled £50bn out of equity funds in the first three months of this year, we are seeing investors become increasingly cautious about traditional Western stock markets and mainstream investments. A role reversal is taking place. Those enterprises which have invested in developing markets such as Russia and China are now reaping the rewards at a time when trade is slowing in the West.”
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JBS Associates predicts that markets such as Russia, China, Brazil and India will continue to remain bullish, whether the West dips into recession or not.
Stokes continues: “Territories like these are supported by strong inward investment programmes and national commercial growth which far outstrips typical GDP in the West. Recuritment in these markets continues at an all time high, with experienced senior executives and mid-level executives with local language skills particularly in demand.”
