Asian News - Asia Pacific: Oil prices and asset bubbles rank as biggest risks
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Apr 2016
Energy price shocks are ranked as the top risk to doing business in Asia Pacific (APAC), followed by asset bubbles, according to the Global Risk Report released by Zurich Re last month.
Predominantly developing countries including Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka named oil price shocks as the top risk while both developed and developing APAC nations – including Australia, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Myanmar and Thailand – named asset bubbles as the biggest risk.
The report covering significant and wide-ranging risks facing Asia Pacific is based on Zurich Insurance’s own research and work with the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2016, where Zurich is a strategic partner.
Cyberattacks, catastrophes and climate change
The APAC research findings of the 2016 Global Risks Report, which are based on a survey of 750 experts and draw on the views of more than 13,000 business executives, also revealed that cyberattacks are rated as the seventh biggest risk to doing business. Singapore, Japan and Malaysia singled out cyberattack as the risk of highest concern.
In addition, two of the top 10 perceived risks to doing business in APAC are environmental: natural catastrophes (ranked fourth) and man-made environmental catastrophes (ranked ninth).
The top three Asia Pacific countries that named natural catastrophes as their biggest risk to doing business are New Zealand, Philippines and Japan. China singled out man-made environmental catastrophes as the second biggest risk to doing business, assigning it a share of risk that is three times the global average. The Global Risk Report names a failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as the highest-impact risk facing the world.