Grain production in Saudi Arabia stands on the threshold of disappearance, as the government aims to phase out wheat production. The national policy is aimed towards conserving water in the country and will result in virtually full reliance on grain imports to feed the growing levels of national demand. We expect steady growth in grains consumption out to 2022 with Saudi Arabia remaining a large importer of grains over the medium to long term.

In July 2018, Almarai became a boycott target of Saudi consumers after the company raised prices on its core dairy products. A social media campaign is circulating photos of a popular yogurt drink plastered with a red X and the phrase “let it go sour” and “change it with another” (in Arabic) after Almarai raised the price of a litre of milk by SAR0.25 (USD0.7). In a statement, Almarai said it raised prices because its own costs went up after the government cut energy subsidies and introduced new fees on foreign workers.

In May 2018, Austrian food group Agrana announced that it has suspended negotiations for the acquisition of Serbian sugar producer Sunoko due to the challenging European sugar market environment. In May 2018, Nestle announced the sale of its Serbian chocolate brand Cipiripi to Paracinka, a subsidiary of Serbian food distributor Silbo. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed with Nestle stating that the divestment was part of 'a continuous portfolio audit'. In June 2018, it was announced that Chinese poultry producer Qingdao Rongxing Foods is planning to build a logistics centre in northern Serbia as part of the company’s plans to expand its foothold in European markets.

We estimate that Singapore had a population of 5.6mn in 2016, one of the smallest in the South East Asian region. The population growth rate is quite high, at around 1.7% per annum, but this is influenced by the intake of foreign workers each year. The elderly, over 65 segment of the population represented 12.3% of the total population in 2016. This proportion is higher than all the other South East Asian countries. The country has some of the best vital statistics, for example, we estimate that the infant mortality rate stood at 1.7 deaths per thousand live births in 2016, one of the world's lowest rates. Life expectancy rates, estimated at 81.1 years for males and 85.4 years for females respectively, are also amongst the world's highest.

GM seed usage in Africa has strong potential, but the uptake will be inconsistent. We expect limited changes from new poultry import regulations in Saudi Arabia, whilst the cocoa giants, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, will struggle to maintain their share of an increasingly competitive market. Increasingly challenging environmental conditions will further heighten risks to political stability in Sub-Saharan Africa over the coming years, while a significant increase in smuggling in West Africa compels us to see downside risks to Ghanaian cocoa production over the coming years.

The main legislation governing the upstream industry is the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act; the act was amended in March 2014. Under the new terms, the state is entitled to a 20% carried interest in all new projects, and the state may increase its interest up to 100%, either by acquisition or through entering production sharing agreements. In earlier drafts, state ownership was capped at 50%, but this clause was subsequently dropped. The pricing terms for stake acquisition are also unclear, fuelling concerns of asset fire sales, in which the government buys into prospective acreage at heavily discounted rates. Another area of concern surrounds the proposed disbandment of the industry regulator PASA and the wider discretionary powers afforded to ministers.

South Korea's biomedical research and development sector will continue to flourish in line with growing investments by multinational drugmakers. The country's business-friendly environment, rapid drug approval time and increasingly stringent regulatory standards will further increase the country's appeal to foreign drugmakers. The South Korean government’s investment in the big data field will create wider access to genomic data by pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, potentially leading to increasing discoveries of treatable targets, and the ability to deliver more precise medical treatment. The South Korean pharmaceuticals market is one of the most developed in Asia, alongside Japan and Australia. In 2017, total pharmaceutical sales amounted to KRW19.2trn (USD17.0bn) with a per capita pharmaceutical spend of USD334.6. As a proportion of total healthcare expenditure, medicine spending amounted to 14.90% in 2017. However, we expect pharmaceutical spending to come under further pressure from cost-containment measures, with the government looking to rein-in public spending on medicines.

Sri Lanka has a small pharmaceutical market relative to many others within the Asia Pacific region. Although substantially smaller than peers India and Bangladesh, the country commands a larger drug market than Myanmar or Cambodia. In 2017, Sri Lanka's drug market reached LKR97.9bn (USD642mn). On a per capita basis, pharmaceutical spending amounted to USD30, with generic drugs remaining a dominant part of the sector. Healthcare expenditure in Sri Lanka amounted to LKR417.3bn (USD2.7bn) in 2017. Improving access to healthcare remains a key government priority, with public health spending accounting for 55% of total health spending and expected to continue increasing. While private healthcare spending will also continue to increase, public health expenditure will continue to dominate, increasing from LKR228.2bn (USD1.5bn) in 2017 to LKR449.6bn (USD2.7bn) in 2022.

Taiwan's disease profile will remain favourable for prescription drugs as the prevalence of chronic diseases continues to grow and authorities work to improve the drug approval process. This will cause a corresponding rise in demand for treatments in therapeutic areas such as cardiovascular diseases, oncology and dementia. A key risk facing multinational drugmakers seeking to commercialise products that target these disease groups will stem from the cost containment measures employed by the National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA). The Taiwanese pharmaceutical market amounted to TWD188.3bn (USD6.2bn) in 2017, accounting for 16.9% of total healthcare spending. It has one of the largest medicine market in the Asia Pacific, with a high per-capita pharmaceutical spending of around USD262. As with most developed countries, prescription drugs are dominant in the market, accounting for 92.5% of total sales in 2017 - the bulk of which (around 70%) came from patented drugs.

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