International Living Magazine, which is based in Baltimore, USA recently published Living’s 2012 Retirement Index. The index ranked top 19 countries for the best retirement havens. This index is published annually.
The index is calculated based on a vast range of data points, from the average humidity to the cost of a taxi. The index is also emphasise on living cost such as the prices for real estate, rentals, and utilities like water, electricity, and cable TV. The cost of groceries, eating out, even specific medical procedures are considered too. Finally, International Living also took into account what kind of discounts retirees can get on travel, taxes and entertainment.
In 2012 index, Malaysia score really well at rank number 4 behind Ecuador, Panama & Mexico. The table below is the top 19 country according to Living’s 2012 Retirement Index.
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A.T. Kearney is a global management consulting firm. They publish Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Confidence Index to rank top 25 countries in the most attractive Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
The Index provides a look at the present and future prospects for international investment flows.
The Index, which first published in 1998, assesses the impact of political, economic, and regulatory changes on the FDI intentions and preferences of the leaders of top companies around the world.
In 2012 index, China, India & Brazil are the top 3 countries. Inthe same reports, Malaysia up 11 positions from 21st which obtained in 2010.
The table below is top 25 country according to 2012 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Confidence Index.
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World Bank recently published a new report regarding the easiest country to do business in the world for 2012.
The countries are ranked on their ease of doing business, from scale 1 – 183. A high ranking on the ease of doing business index means the regulatory environment is more conducive to start and operate a local firm.
These index averages the country’s percentile rankings on 9 topics, made up of a variety of indicators, giving equal weight to each topic.
Malaysia is at position 18th up to 3 positions from 21st in 2011. The top 3 countries namely Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand manage to retain its position as per 2011 rankings.
The table below is the rank of the top 30 countries.
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Most of the stock market in the world does not performing well in Q3 2011. When compare Q3 2010, only 13 out of 51 stock markets in the positive territory and Busa Malaysia was one of them.
In the same period, market capitalization for Bursa Malaysia increase by 1.10 percent if measured by Malaysian Ringgit but decrease 2.2 percent if the measurement made based on US Dollar. The decrease is due to strengthing of Malaysian Ringgit.
The top 2 world’s best-performing stock markets are Irish & Tehran stock exchanges. Both showed more than 40 percent increase. Meanwhile, the worst stock exchanges are Cyprus and Athens stock exchanges, which decrease more than 40 percent.
The table below is world stock exchange rank based on previous 1 year data.
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Previously, we looked at 2011 top 300 world’s largest pensions fund where Malaysian funds, namely Employees Provident Fund at position number 9. The different between sovereign and non-sovereign funds are the fund ownership.
Sovereign fund is established by national authorities for the meeting of pension liabilities. So, this raking is quite similar to world’s largest pension funds but without private funds such as General Motors pension funds.
EPF move 1 rank up from 6th spot in 2010 to 5th spot in 2011 with total assets grew from $109 billion to $146 billion. EPF even overtaking Singapore’s fund, Central Provident Fund
The table below shows top 26 world’s largest sovereign pension funds.
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