Author has a history of predicting accurate outcomes in oil, automobiles, banking

Apart from predicting the current global financial crisis, Adjiedj Bakas has made a number of accurate forecasts about the future.

In June 2006, he said oil prices would soar until the middle of 2008 and then drop sharply before taking off again to record heights.

This seems now like an uncannily accurate prediction, and most commentators expect steep increases in the price of oil once the current economic crisis eases.

In June 2005 at a conference in Germany, he projected that hybrid and electric cars would be the future -- not hydrogen-powered ones.

At the time, German car manufacturers were investing in hydrogen cars but have now had to perform a major U-turn and scrap their hydrogen programs.

As early as the summer of 1989, when Bakas was adviser to the Dutch Liberal party leader and later European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, he predicted that Islam would become the main religious force in Europe by the middle of the 21st Century.

This is now backed up by research from the Daily Telegraph newspaper in London that estimates 20 percent of Europeans will be Muslim by 2050.

In the winter of 1990, he predicted that China would become one of the world's top economic powers within 15 to 20 years.

At the time China was ranked 107th in the world in terms of GDP, according to the World Bank. Few predicted then that it would become the third-largest economy in 2009.

In January 2000, the trend watcher predicted at an internal conference at ING bank in London that non-banks with big brands would enter the financial services market.

He said he has been vindicated with airlines companies like Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet setting up banking operations.

Bakas said that he now believes established banks -- some in the West now in part-public ownership -- are even more vulnerable to takeovers from retailers.

"Google has a banking license in every country in the world, and it is a mystery what they want to do," he said.

(China Daily 08/31/2009 page12)