Watch out for the year 2021!

Many natural phenomena and orders in this world happen in cycles, for example the four seasons one coming after another year after year, the day and night taking its turn everyday non-stop. Even the world economy happens in cycles, good times and bad times exchanging hands every now and then, stock markets go through ups and downs, so are the companies business performance, in general.

As I look back, I realise that economic downturns happen every 12 years. Twelve seems to be a magic number. There are 12 months in a year. In 1985, we were faced with a very bad recession. Many graduates were professionally unemployed the moment they graduated. In 1997, the Asian financial crisis created great financial and economic turmoils in this region. Again, in 2009, the very bad economic downturn almost paralysed the whole world including the United States of America where even giant corporations went bust and unemployment rate hit an all time high.

Learning from the past and looking forward into the future, the trend seems to suggest that the next major economic downturn might come in the year 2021! So, as soon as we ride through this 2009 economic tsunami, be prepared for the next one! We have 12 years to prepare, don't be just in time to be too late again.