{"text":[[{"start":12.39,"text":"The writer, Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s chief global strategist, is author of ‘The Ten Rules of Successful Nations’ "}],[{"start":20.130000000000003,"text":"Emerging economies struggled to grow through the 2010s and pessimism shrouds them now. "},{"start":25.572000000000003,"text":"People wonder how they will pay debts rung up during the pandemic and how they can grow rapidly as they did in the past — by exporting their way to prosperity — in an era of deglobalisation. "}],[{"start":35.85,"text":"The freshest of many answers to this riddle is the fast-spreading digital revolution. "},{"start":40.604,"text":"Emerging nations are adopting cutting-edge technology at a lower and lower cost, which is allowing them to fuel domestic demand and overcome traditional obstacles to growth. "},{"start":49.522000000000006,"text":"Over the past decade, the number of smartphone owners has skyrocketed from 150m to 4bn worldwide. "},{"start":56.402,"text":"More than half the world’s population now carry the power of a supercomputer in their pockets. "}],[{"start":62.230000000000004,"text":"The world’s largest emerging market has already demonstrated the transformative effects of digital technology. "},{"start":68.297,"text":"As China’s old rustbelt industries slowed sharply over the past decade, and ran up debts that threatened to explode in crisis only a few years ago, the booming tech sector saved the economy. "}],[{"start":79.35000000000001,"text":"Now, often by adopting rather than innovating, China’s emerging market peers are getting a push from the same digital engines. "},{"start":86.292,"text":"Since 2014, more than 10,000 tech firms have been launched in emerging markets — nearly half of them outside China. "},{"start":93.209,"text":"From Bangladesh to Egypt, it is easy to find entrepreneurs who worked for Google, Facebook or other US giants before coming home to start their own companies. "}],[{"start":102.45000000000002,"text":"As well as the so-called Amazon of China, there are Amazons of Russia, Poland, Latin America and south-east Asia. "},{"start":109.39200000000002,"text":"Local firms dominate the market for search in Russia, ride-hailing in Indonesia and digital payments in Kenya. "}],[{"start":116.25000000000001,"text":"By one key metric, the digital revolution is already as advanced in emerging economies as developed ones. "},{"start":122.47900000000001,"text":"Among the top 30 nations by revenue from digital services as a share of gross domestic product, 16 are in the emerging world. "},{"start":129.734,"text":"Indonesia, for example, is further advanced by this measure than France or Canada. "},{"start":134.589,"text":"And since 2017, digital revenue has been growing in emerging countries at an average annual pace of 26 per cent, compared with 11 per cent in the developed ones. "}],[{"start":144.75,"text":"How can it be that poorer nations are adopting common digital technologies faster than the rich? "},{"start":150.117,"text":"One explanation is habit and its absence. "},{"start":152.797,"text":"In societies saturated with bricks-and-mortar stores and services, customers are often comfortable with and slow to abandon the providers they have. "},{"start":160.464,"text":"In countries where people have difficulty even finding a bank or a doctor, they will jump at the first digital option that comes along. "}],[{"start":168.4,"text":"Outsiders have a hard time grasping the impact digital services can have on underserved populations. "},{"start":174.192,"text":"Nations lacking in schools, hospitals and banks can quickly if not completely redress these gaps by establishing online services. "},{"start":181.484,"text":"Though only 5 per cent of Kenyans carry credit cards, more than 70 per cent have access to digital banking. "}],[{"start":188.45000000000002,"text":"The “digital divide” is narrowing in many places. "},{"start":191.604,"text":"Most of the big countries where internet bandwidth and mobile broadband subscriptions are growing fastest are in the emerging world. "},{"start":198.28400000000002,"text":"Last decade, the number of internet users doubled in the G20 nations, but the biggest gains came in emerging nations such as Brazil and India. "}],[{"start":207.15,"text":"The digital impact on productivity, the key to sustained economic growth, is visible on the ground. "},{"start":213.12900000000002,"text":"Many governments are moving services online to make them more transparent and less vulnerable to corruption, perhaps the most feared obstacle to doing business in the emerging world. "}],[{"start":223,"text":"Since 2010, the cost of starting a business has held steady in developed countries while falling sharply in emerging countries, from 66 per cent to just 27 per cent of the average annual income. "},{"start":234.267,"text":"Entrepreneurs can now launch businesses affordably, organising much of what they need on a smartphone. "},{"start":239.659,"text":"Lagos and Nairobi are rising as local fintech hubs, where leading executives vow to raise Africa’s “digital GDP” by widening access to internet financing. "}],[{"start":249.86,"text":"It’s early days, too. "},{"start":252.08900000000003,"text":"As economist Carlota Perez has shown, tech revolutions last a long time. "},{"start":256.757,"text":"Innovations like the car and the steam engine were still transforming economies half a century later. "},{"start":261.987,"text":"Now, the fading era of globalisation will limit the number of emerging economies that can prosper on exports alone, but the era of rapid digitisation has only just begun. "},{"start":271.592,"text":"This offers many developing economies a revolutionary new path to catching up with the living standards of the developed world. "}],[{"start":277.93,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/001092122-1618270199.mp3"}