Europe In for More Nasty Surprises: Chief Investor
Of all the regions in the world, Bhaskar Laxminarayan, chief investment officer at Pictet Asia, told CNBC he has the least confidence in Europe right now and warned that there could be more negative surprises coming out of the region.
"A safety net has been provided for Greece. So for the time being, the contagion has been sidelined to some extent," Laxminarayan said Tuesday.
But the problem of other euro-zone countries using their tax revenues to bail out countries with "lax governments" and "fiscal imprudence" will continue to weigh on the European Union and finding a "median is not going to be easy," he added.
What complicates matters in the euro zone is that there are 17 countries with the same currency and ten countries using their own currency, which make policy decisions very, very complex, Laxminarayan said on "Squawk Box Asia."
"These summits raise more questions than they actually answer," he said of the EU summit which took place in Brussels at the tail end of last week.
"Asia has to live with the fact that the developed markets aren't doing that well," Laxminarayan said. "Europe is not going to be the driving force for Asia in the coming decade. Consumption and domestic economies are going to be the driving force."
"There's a clear refocus from Asian governments to move away from trade orientation to more of a domestic consumption base," he added.
Laxminarayan sees Asian markets continue to perform in the medium to long term. He likes consumption plays, including banking stocks.