Tanzania's pharmaceutical market is among the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2017, Tanzania's pharmaceutical market was valued at TZS1.11trn (USD496mn), or 1.0% of GDP, with per-capita drug expenditure at just under USD9. This is fairly modest in global terms and even by regional standards. Due to low purchasing power, generic drugs comprise the majority of Tanzania's pharmaceuticals market, providing opportunities for companies focused on off-patent drugs. Patented drugs only hold a small market share as low per-capita drug expenditure continues to limit the capacity of most of the population to purchase higher-priced medication. Self-medication is prevalent in Tanzania, making the OTC medicine market an attractive prospect. Pharmaceutical sales accounted 26% of health expenditure.

Latest market and regulatory data suggests that the mobile market lost around 272,000 subscribers in 2017 before losing another 19,000 subscriptions in Q118. The mobile market ended March 2018 with an estimated total of 28.638mn subscribers, representing an y-o-y contraction of 0.7%. In late October 2017, the National Communications Commission (NCC) held an auction for six blocks on the 1,800MHz frequency band and 24 blocks of the 2,100MHz frequency band. Chunghwa Telecom, FarEastone, Taiwan Mobile and Taiwan Star Telecom all won spectrum, with Asia Pacific Telecom being the only mobile operator not to secure spectrum. The NCC is due to hold an auction for 5G frequencies in June 2019, although it recently stated that it is wary of allocating spectrum for operator trials, and prefers adopting a wait-and-see" approach. Upgrades to wireline (cable TV, xDSL, FTTH) facilitate improved delivery of bandwidth-intensive multi-play services, particularly premium TV services as well as connected home solutions.

Sri Lanka’s real GDP growth came in at 3.2% y-o-y for Q118, similar to the previous quarter, as the secondary sector underperformed. However, we expect growth to be broad-based and pick up over the rest of the year, helped by low base effects and government policies. Accordingly, we maintain our forecast for real GDP growth to pick up to 4.2% in 2018, from 3.1% in 2017.

There was volatility in computer hardware spending over the review period, a trend that reflected the impact of PC saturation, the diffusion cycle for tablet ownership, and upgrade cycles in key product categories. After a steep and sustained decline 2012-2015 the AV segment returned to growth in 2016-2017 based on demand for new products and technologies. The smartphone boom occurred early in South Korea, and therefore handset segment performance was weak over the review period.

Singapore's tourism industry benefits largely from its strategic location at the heart of Asia Pacific. It will continue to leverage its strong network of infrastructure for sea, road and air travel maintaining its position as a stopover destination in the region. The city-state, however, offers a diversified range of activities for tourists beyond this. Combined with a dynamic hotel sector offering, Singapore will continue to be an attractive place for investors.

The return to growth for Saudi Arabia’s all-important oil sector coupled with a strengthening of non-oil activity will ease the country out of recession over the course of 2018, underpinning a positive performance for the kingdom’s freight industry. The ongoing economic diversification efforts to reorient the economy towards non-hydrocarbons and high capital investments supporting construction and infrastructure development will maintain the relatively steady growth across the freight modes between 2018 and 2022.

Russia has enormous unexploited potential as a tourism destination; however, the structural challenges facing developers are commensurate with the rewards on offer. Outside of St Petersburg and Moscow, transport infrastructure is underdeveloped and there is only limited awareness of the attractions on offer. Corruption is a major barrier to private investors, as are bureaucratic hurdles which make new developments time consuming and costly. Despite these barriers, Russia remains an attractive market as inbound arrivals are increasing and the government is taking steps to develop tourism related infrastructure.

Historically, road freight has always dominated the freight sector. Rail freight has been important, although it has historically only accounted for just below 20% of the freight mix. The importance comes from a combination of the country's geography, the economic importance of commodity production and heavy industry in Russia, as well as by the limitations of other transportation networks. Russia is characterised by significant distances both between population centres and between suppliers of raw materials and their intermediate or end customers, which naturally benefits the development of rail freight. Russia's road freight is the fifth longest in the world after the US, India, China and Brazil. Historically, road network development has been of minor importance for the government. Little has changed in the freight mix over the past decade. Only road freight has increased its share slightly on the back of growing consumer purchasing power, whereas the other modes have remained unchanged.

The computer hardware trend turned negative in 2015-2016 when sol depreciation against the US dollar reduced affordability and resulted in deferred purchases.  Software and services segments were the strongest areas of the market throughout the review period based on the trend towards digitisation in both the public and private sector throughout 2012-2017.

Road freight like in many countries is the dominant freight mode in Panama and will continue to be so in 2018 and over the the course of our forecast period ending 2022. Strong canal usage will support and bolster all freight modes. Road freight has been steadily increasing its influence in Panama, rising from a 95.5% share in 2011 to a 96.6% share in 2018. Air freight and rail have shrunk, but that has not diminished their importance. The low fuel costs and flexibility offered by road have contributed to the speed and cost benefits of this form of transport, while lack of investment in the railways further weakened the rail stronghold.