Morning Brief – South Korea

South Korea

Known sometimes as “Delivery nation” and its citizens as “Delivery minjok” which means delivery race, even before Covid-19, the expectation is for everything to be available for delivery and often within hours. The delivery staff are often worked as hard if not harder than Amazon fulfilment centre workers- the difference being that often older buildings do not have lifts which makes the work more exhausting.
For all countries and not just in capital cities, the South Korean delivery expectation model will likely become the new normal everywhere following the now greater familiarity with home deliveries in the wake of Covid-19. South Korea’s best known delivery company is called Rocket Wow- all countries will have more Rocket Wows going forward.

Polish Zloty(PLN)

Policy makers in Warsaw are paying close attention to the recent Hungarian experience with the Forint (HUF) which has come under intense pressure in the past two weeks. As Poland launches its bond buying program in earnest those policy makers are taking care not to give the impression of an overly loose monetary policy but one sufficiently loose to protect the country’s businesses. The PLN is back to the same level of 4.22 versus the USD which was last seen in December 2016. For buyers of PLN this advantageous level apart from in December 2016 has not been seen for the past 20 years.

River Thames

For more than 2000 years the River Thames has transported London’s people, UK imported goods, products for export manufactured in the U.K. and been a key attraction for visitors to the U.K. capital given the views afforded of the architecture and sights from the multitude of pleasure steamers that normally go up and down the river.
Apart from infrequent tugs towing refuse and even more infrequent river police patrol boats, the Thames is today now as deserted as it’s ever been. Unless of course you count the 23 occasions between 1309 and 1814 when it froze over. The last time in 1814 which was the fifth such occasion that the ice was thick enough to hold a fair on it.
Here’s a tip: when normal service is resumed, those white and blue Thames Clippers that offer passenger services between Woolwich and Putney are set to get a whole lot busier as those who can, will choose to substitute travel to work by boat in place of the London Underground. Meanwhile William Wordsworth encapsulated it in this one of his most famous poems written in 1802:

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Discussion and Analysis by Humphrey Percy, Chairman and Founder

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