Inflation has returned to Japan after decades of near-zero price growth, with consumer prices rising close to 3% – the fastest since the 1980s. The cost-of-living squeeze, driven by food prices, helped topple the previous administration and propel Sanae Takaichi to power as Japan's first female prime minister. Her pro-growth, big government stance promises fiscal stimulus, but risks complicating the Bank of Japan's efforts to contain sticky inflation.

Taro Kimura, Japan senior economist at Bloomberg Economics and Bank of Japan veteran, joins John on the Asia Centric podcast. He explains why inflation may be higher for longer and what Takaichi's policies mean for BOJ independence. He also covers the prime minister's remarks on Taiwan that sparked tension with Beijing, adding a geopolitical layer to Japan's economic challenges.

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South Korea's Kospi Index has surged about 70% this year, driven by AI-linked tech stocks such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Retail investors, who poured more than $100 billion into US equities since the pandemic, are now turning their attention homeward. President Lee Jae Myung's pro-market and corporate governance reforms, including dividend tax cuts from 49% to a proposed 25%, are reshaping investor sentiment and capital flows.

Peter Kim, managing director and investment strategist at KB Securities, joins John on the Asia Centric podcast. Kim discusses the sustainability of South Korea's rally, Seoul's overheated property market and the geopolitical balancing act between China and the US.

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China's AI rollout diverges sharply from the US, favoring open-source models and broad adoption over high-cost infrastructure. China's top tech firms including Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba will invest less than 10% of the $370 billion that US hyperscalers plan to spend on AI capex this year. This cost-conscious approach aligns with Beijing's AI Plus strategy, aiming to embed AI across all sectors by 2027 to boost productivity.

Who will win the AI race? And are we in a bubble in AI infrastructure spending? Robert Lea, senior tech analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, joins John to discuss why China's broader economy, rather than its tech companies, may be the main beneficiary of the nation's AI rollout.

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Some of the world’s largest companies by revenue – such as Vitol, Trafigura, and Cargill – operate outside the public eye, trading oil, metals and grains at scale. These private firms have quietly become central to global supply chains, recording substantial profits since 2022 as wars and sanctions re-routed flows.

Giovanni Serio, former global head of research at Vitol, joins John and Katia to unpack how commodity traders operate, why scale and flexibility matter, and how satellite data and real-time analytics have transformed market transparency. Serio also discusses oil price dynamics, the rise of non-OPEC supply, and why most trading firms remain private despite their size.

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The world's demographic shift is often framed as a looming crisis, but new data suggests a more nuanced outlook. Hong Kong leads the longevity frontier with an average life expectancy of 86 years, having steadily increased by 0.25 years annually for over 150 years. Meanwhile, a landmark IMF study finds that today's 70-year-olds have the same cognitive ability as 53-year-olds in 2000, underscoring how healthier aging is reshaping workforce dynamics.

Kevin Daly, managing director and senior economist at Goldman Sachs, joins John and Katia to discuss why aging may not be economically detrimental, how healthier lives extend workforce participation, and why the “silver economy” narrative oversimplifies consumption trends.

Read Goldman Sachs’ related research: The Path to 2075 — The Positive Story of Global Aging (https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2025/05/20/2d3fe290-10b1-44be-8d0e-77b8d303928f.html)

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In this live episode, recorded at Bloomberg's Investment Management Summit in Singapore, we sit down with Matthew Michelini, head of Asia-Pacific business for Apollo Global Management. We explore his optimism about Japan, driven by its corporate governance reform and the vast $7.5 trillion in consumer deposits. We also discuss how private capital is shaping asset allocation and the challenges posed by intense competition in the private-equity industry.

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Singapore’s government is investing heavily to become a global hub for finance, commodities and transportation. The spending includes $3 billion for Changi airport’s terminals and infrastructure and equity market reform to attract more capital. Singapore’s household assets could nearly double to $4 trillion by 2030 and the MSCI stock index is set to double in the next five years, according to Morgan Stanley.

Nick Lord, research director for the Asean research department at Morgan Stanley and who authored a report this year on the subject, says the equity market reforms are key to unlocking growth. He discusses the latest developments in the city state with John and Katia.

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The competition is intensifying among global hedge funds giants to attract top traders and analysts. There's particularly high demand for talent at "pod shops", which allow portfolio managers to run their own strategies and manage allocated capital.

High-profile managers with strong track records can command pay packages in the tens of millions of dollars.

"The type of manager we're trying to hire, they are hiring us. It's not [us] hiring them", says Jay Luo, President of Dymon Asia Capital, a regionally focused alternative manager with about $5 billion in assets. He likens managing a pod shop to running a high-performance sports team and shares his insights on competing against global hedge funds like Millennium and Point72 -- with hiring the right person sometimes years in the making. He joins John and Katia on the Asia Centric podcast.

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