STOCK MARKET WATCH - Thursday, 5 January 2012

[Demeter]

75. Global Growth Slows to 3.9% as O’Neill Sees BRICs Diminished by Population

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-02/global-growth-slows-to-3-9-as-o-neill-sees-brics-diminished-by-population.html

...Aging and shrinking labor pools are also poised to curb expansion across the other so-called BRIC nations that contributed almost half of global growth in the past decade. With fewer youths keeping factories going and more pensioners to support in those markets, the world economy is set to slow, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) says.

The number of people older than 65 in Brazil, Russia, India and China will rise 46 percent to 295 million by 2020 and to 412 million by 2030, according to United Nations projections. The pool of 15 to 24-year-olds, the mainstay for factories like Liu’s that drove China’s boom for three decades, will fall by 61 million by 2030, about the population of Italy...As the BRICs slow down, global growth probably will peak at about 4.3 percent this decade and fall to 3.9 percent in the 2020s, according a Dec. 7 report by Goldman analysts. That’s prompting fund managers including Mark Mobius to invest in so- called frontier markets such as Nigeria, Vietnam and Argentina, where average annual growth is set to rise to 5.1 percent this decade, from about 4.3 percent in the previous 10 years...Goldman Sachs Asset Management Chairman Jim O’Neill, who coined the BRICs acronym a decade ago, said other emerging economies may now be better investments -- especially Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt and Mexico. “These four countries could be in the top 10 contributors to global GDP this decade, adding well over $2 trillion,” London-based O’Neill said in an e-mailed response to questions on Dec. 29. “With large young populations, these countries could become powerful growth stories.”

While Goldman started its N-11 fund (GSYIX) in February covering the “Next Eleven” emerging nations to “benefit from superior growth potential,” O’Neill said the size of the BRICs economies means they will remain “the most dominant and positive force in the world economy.” Together, Brazil, Russia, India and China account for about 25 percent of world gross domestic product, according to Goldman...

SO NOW GOLDMAN IS GOING INTO FAMILY PLANNING? MUCH MORE AT LINK