Hello im Adrian Finnigan and this is counting the cost of aljazeera a weekly look at the world of business and economics this week 2020 we pick through what could be the hot geo political and geo economic topics of the year from the most important election in the free world will President Trump win another term and what does that mean for trade wars and dispute could the world come together to tackle Global Warming and globalization and will we see more people on the streets of it them so that wealth is unequally spread across society. The International Monetary funds new managing director krista laid out hell give a has described the Global Outlook as precarious trade tensions could cut Global Economic growth by not point 8 percent or 700000000000. 00 now thats roughly the size of the swiss economy central bankers have been pretty clear that any slowdown this year would require governments to. Step in with stimulus packages why well because Monetary Policy that is Interest Rates and quantitative easing is that the limits of what can be achieved and there are so many variables the u. S. Election a lack of leadership as the United States steps back on the world stage and Climate Change and if 2019 is anything to go by well see more protests over a sterile of the economic model that has led to wage growth stagnation over the last few decades. Weve got together a panel of experts to cost an eye over the year ahead and to give us some insights as to what to expect joining us here in doha park khan who is senior director of Asset Management at alderaan investment bank. Cando whos the residence professor at Northwestern University at castle and a latin america analyst and from london joining us is charles heck a charles is a senior part the at control risks gentlemen welcome to you all charles lets begin with you the u. S. Election of course is going to be keenly watched thats an understatement weve had a president but show little regard for liberal world order attacking allies the World Trade Organization hes demoted the the reassuring of industry whichever way you look at it how is that going to change the way the world works in 2020 you know if youre absolutely right people are going to be watching the u. S. Campaign more closely than ever and its probably one of the more important president ial campaigns in recent memory and before we even know the final candid it pairing the very fact that theres a president ial campaign in United States next year runs the risk of changing geopolitics a little bit there are a few things that were watching particularly carefully number one of course is the relationship between the United States and china the u. S. Economy is fragile and facing a bit of a slowdown and. Do you think that that might force the president s hand to sign some sort of at least preliminary trade deal with china the risk there though is that the deal could be superficial and wont hold up to scrutiny if the president doesnt sign a trade deal with china and the trade conflict escalates of that presents another set of both economic and Political Risk and the other thing that the president has to be careful about in the coming year is that everyone understands that during a campaign the appetite for military conflict is incredibly low and that may encourage some other actors to take action around the world and and understand that the United States may not respond so were looking at north korea what if north korea starts its missile Testing Program again and sort of pushes the geo political envoy lope a little bit knowing that theres not that much the president may be able to do in a Campaign Season same thing in iran and perhaps iran may consider some sort of tactical military activity in the gulf of with the understanding that the United States will have its hands tied in terms of how strongly it can respond militarily during the Campaign Season. For most of 2019 there was tension in the middle east when it isnt there but it seemed to be much higher this year it ratcheted up throughout the year then we had those attacks on the Oil Facilities in saudi arabia and suddenly. Everythings much quieter so globally when you have nations that have had disputes with each other. Resolutions which are sustainable are generally those which involve which which where the dissolution actually comes from the players involved there are some cases where external help or arbitration can provide a solution but those are generally the exceptions so if the players involved in a dispute are the ones that are finding a resolution and are finding their way through whatever disputes they have thats probably a good to point to a more meaningful and more sustainable solution are you talking about the gulf crisis in particular here with with the blockading of cancer or are you talking about that the region in general you know you can talk about the gulf crisis you can talk about issues of the iran. So i think i think if the players in the region who have more to gain or lose depending on which directions things go in if theyre the ones in control of the conversation you probably have a more sustainable solution so they dont need trump were going to have to a certain extent hes the sidelight is hes out of hes out of their calculations. I think you can no country can ever have the largest country in the most powerful country in the world out of the calculations but i think if youre trying to negotiate and find a solution between your neighbors its probably helpful if youre talking to each other directly then into an intermediary and thats whats happening as far as the blockade of cancer is concerned as well in that seems to be some sort of for we have of course the the gulf cup the football tournament here in cast on all of the blockading nations participated and that seemed to go pretty well it did i mean to incent since june 17th when the blockade began that probably the most significant step where you had a final. In the where saudi in bahrain were playing and thats thats pretty newsworthy just by itself so you know clearly thats an interesting and positive development but i think for there to be movement on the blockade weve had several false dawns before i think all the countries which are against that there need to be united in seeking in wanting to move forward so thats important it doesnt seem to be the case at the moment or of the trumpet ministrations through its weight behind the opposition in venezuela in 2019 what can we expect in 2020 well 1st that. I think that things will continue the same for a while so we can wait for a serious or far move in terms of a rather than pushing the for regime change so i think thats going to take longer that the u. S. Administration really thought in fact the economists unit the Intelligence Unit changes forecasts from mother losing power to mother or staying in power and i think thats going to be true for the next few months at least but i think women are in the context of latin america is in terms of comics and politics is rather relevant now were talking about there are 3 Major Economies which are mexico or brazil. And argentina are facing very difficult very difficult challenge 1st of all those economies which failed in the past 20 years to reform really to restructure really are still very dependent on commodities and in the face of a fragile International Economy this fragility is going to start showing up the economy that you prize has not really move and in many cases come of the key ones have fallen down for example cooper that affects a lot of chile chile on the other hand which was the really the engine of growth for Latino America is now facing huge economic political true moyles which means that the forecast for growth of chile is dire saw Latino America is. In a crossroad at the moment you know has a new left wing press in from on this right. In from and this is not to have the room of maneuver their nest or christmas had theres nobody now like charles did in its time in his time to buy the bonds from chile they are from argentina they have huge debt and they will probably have to go to the i. M. F. Again and this is going to be very unpopular because that goes against all the promises he made to accompany him in brazil and also not has failed to reduce significant the deficit and is facing huge problems with a pension and thats not moving either and hes starting to see his base to erode so that with their big challenges ahead for latin america. There are you know you dont paint a very rosy picture lets go back to the london and charles 2019 as we saw street protests around the world we were talking about what was happening in chile and elsewhere in latin america its hard to think of a time. The has been such universal outrage at the political classes of a Climate Change of inequality over Wealth Distribution how is that going to play out in 2020 your absolute learoyd i mean i think you have to cast your mind probably all the way back to the 1960. Yes to see a time when almost the entire world was convulsed with social unrest driven by a sort of social and economic and political causes and while all of the social unrest weve seen around the world this year has had different triggers most of the underlying themes are exactly that as you pointed out its Climate Change its income inequality its creeping authoritarianism around the world and all kinds of social and political challenges. For 2020 v. Risks are are several 1st that this will continue and will worsen and then we also think for companies we think that theres a chance that theres going to be a certain amount of contagion and that these issues will move primarily out of the political arena most of these activities have been aimed at governments but there is a risk in 2020 that this sort of social unrest and civil unrest will be aimed in the commercial sphere and that companies are going to have to get on top of their games and ahead of the issues when it comes to. Slowing or acknowledging or dealing with Climate Control or in lets say gender representation on boards of directors or indeed in how they compensate their most Senior Executives and their most junior executives but companies are being forced to take stances on issues like gun control and so we think that theres a serious. Possibility that companies will become political actors in these fears and 2020 as well its fascinating its sounds also expensive is that going to affect the bottom line and how does that sort of change if you like in in it as youd in direction go down with with shareholders. You know youre right theres always a bit of a tradeoff and calculations that ideally need to be made in advance about what the costs of understanding Political Trends and social trends are and i think i would argue that the costs of misunderstanding or misreading the social winds of 2020 will be much more expensive to companies theyre anticipating and getting ahead of events or getting ahead of protest movements we have seen a fair share of protests to win the of social change blowing through the middle east in places like lebanon and iraq. What about the situation in lebanon right now theres a big deadline for the country coming up in march when it is expected to repay its debt is it is going to miss that deadline thats a 1000000000. 00 question actually 1200000000 to be precise. Yes the so clearly lebanon has the ability to pay the question is about the willingness if you look at their gold and Foreign Exchange reserves they are more than 45000000000. 00 so clearly they do have resources if you look at the value of all outstanding sovereign debt not just the one that thats a maturing in in march of this year its about 28000000000. 00 now the interesting thing is theres been discussions about what their options are should they simply default should they do a heck of it should they just they is normal. 20 of that 28000000000. 00 is actually held by domestic banks and its held within the country so youre not going to be hurting the foreign investor youre going to be hurting yourself so it would make a lot of sense for lebanon to actually make the payments so that they dont. Inflict further damage on themselves its easy politically to say oh dont worry lets not repay the foreigners the problem is the Banking Sector who owns a lot of that 20000000000 would would have significant problems and just generally the last last resort for a government is to default on sovereign debt you do that and youre closed for Capital Markets for a long long time you make repayments you then have the leave the door open that at some time in the future you may actually go back and tap the bond markets again and raise more money but that would that door would be closed if they were to do a default so from our perspective it makes a lot of sense for them to make that repayment they have the resources lets see what they do and you mentioned the new leader in argentina as what it is to extent is is there a similarity between argentina and whats going on in lebanon now how will he balance the budget how will he deal with these calls the street protests the virt and then to a sturdy well its i dont think theres going to be an end of austerity this by the restoring that he used during the campaign i mean no politician goes to the i. M. F. For their own will it has a political cost so when our mockery the British Press and went to i. M. S. He had delayed for some of the reforms he had to do early on the early stage and he had to pay that and its going to be the same with from on this difference this time with a pedo needs more in power contd to wynette or krishna or you really came to power is that in that time the venezuelan government was very wealthy and they bought the bonds so argentina didnt have to go to the i. M. F. Argentina now will have to go that m. F. The situation there of National Council very weak they will have to go and that is. A very big challenge because when you go come to power promising that you want to do that and then you end up doing that thats going to be the big problem well unless we see a big bailout from china which i really doubt. I think the positive stories in latin america its more its going to be in the near future mexico despite the rhetorical of the anti u. S. Rhetorical of the Mexican Government i think theyre very near to sign a trade agreement a renewed trade agreement with kind of in the United States and thats going to be a huge impulse to mexico a lot of the business i actually im very pessimistic with regards to the deal with china and i think the United States in that case a lot of the companies are pushing the administration to to sign the deal to mexico and start moving some of the operations into mexico in this case so i think mexico in terms of my perspective for 20 year 2020 has a more positive outlook all it will depend on how much Lopez Obrador managed to reconcile between his restoring and the reality of the economy but i am more more in the south and the continent brazil argentina and others have a much different well have a much more difficult Time Next Year i want to talk some more about china in just a moment but but 1st charles lets turn our attention to the Global Economy the risk of recession in 2020 is that off the table now or are we expecting a slowdown. Well you know for our political and Economic Forecasting we work with a Company CalledOxford Economics and oxford tells us that the risks of a potential recession in 2020 are rising but that is not the most likely scenario and so so far we do not forecast a Global Economic recession me that said Global Economic growth next year is going to be sort of in the 2. 5 percent area under 3 percent globally and that is grindingly slow 2019 was one of the slowest growth years since the start of the Global Financial crisis in 2008 and it looks like 2020 will not be much much better we forecast fairly slow growth in the eurozone fairly slow growth and dropping growth from 21000 in the United States and so while recession is not yet on the table it may be you know getting its elbows ready to rest right there. What extent will china be a drag on the Global Economy in 2020 or does that very much depend upon what happens in the trade war trade was clearly critical but also whats also important is chinas ability to to reflate to stimulate their own economy the resources that they have now available are more limited than than previously they several years ago they spent a lot of money and did a fantastic job in not only stimulating their economy but kickstarting some growth globally. Now they do have the ability and theyve been make taking some measures in the last few months particularly as as the trade conflict has has escalated we would assume that that would continue perhaps not quite as powerfully but also saying earlier look you know we have an election come. Up in the u. S. Later