Wal-Mart Sells Coors Almost at Cost to Be Largest Beer Seller

Wal-Mart Sells Coors Almost at Cost to Be Largest Beer Seller

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is so committed to becoming America’s biggest beer retailer that it has been selling Budweiser, Coors and other brews almost at cost in at least some stores. The markup on a 36-pack of Coors Light cans at a Los-Angeles-area store was 0.6 percent, compared with 16.2 percent for a package of Flaming Hot Cheetos, according to internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Companies typically don’t release information about markups so the March data provide a rare glimpse of Wal-Mart’s alcohol pricing strategy. Read more of this post

London designers seek to defy tough markets with luxury pieces

London designers seek to defy tough markets with luxury pieces

6:15pm EDT

By Marie-Louise Gumuchian

LONDON (Reuters) – London designers are seeking to entice more demanding fashion followers with luxurious materials, rich embellishment and vivid colors, hopeful that the country’s luxury industry will grow despite continuing global economic woes. London Fashion Week, effectively a trade show that sees hundreds of buyers, journalists and celebrities descend on the British capital, is expected to result in orders worth more than 100 million pounds ($159.35 million) during its September 13-17 run. Read more of this post

Crocs Wants You To Forget About Its Signature Product

Crocs Wants You To Forget About Its Signature Product

ASHLEY LUTZ SEP. 16, 2013, 1:46 PM 2,617 2

Crocs, maker of the notoriously unstylish rubber clog, is trying to break into high fashion. The shoe line will release “high-heeled pumps, sleek flats, and ankle-strap thongs,” early next year, reports Kyle Stock at Bloomberg Businessweek. The fancy new shoes will be manufactured in Italy — not the brand’s Colorado headquarters. Prices will range from $80 to $120. The line is part of Crocs’ push to distance itself from the clogs that made it famous. Businessweek, reported earlier this years that the company is trying to double sales in the next five years and doesn’t feel it can do it with the polarizing clogs. A visit to Crocs’ homepage shows that the brand is promoting ballet flats and wedges alongside its signature product:

Read more of this post

Wooing, and Also Resenting, Chinese Tourists

September 16, 2013

Wooing, and Also Resenting, Chinese Tourists

By DAN LEVIN

TOKYO — The Ugly Americans terrorized Europeans and Asians with their booming voices and tennis shoes in the years after World War II. Decades later, Japanese tour groups descended from their air-conditioned buses to flash peace signs as they shot photos of every known landmark as well as laundry on backyard clotheslines. Now it is China’s turn to face the brunt of complaints. The grievances are familiar — they gawk, they shove, they eschew local cuisine, and last year, 83 million mainland Chinese spent $102 billion abroad — overtaking Americans and Germans — making them the world’s biggest tourism spenders, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Read more of this post

The property bubble in 14 Chinese cities is in danger of bursting, an NDRC adviser to the nation’s highest planning body has warned

Property bubble fragile in 14 cities, expert warns
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
The property bubble in 14 mainland cities is in danger of bursting, an adviser to the the nation’s highest planning body has warned. Guo Shiping, consultant to the National Development and Reform Commission, claims to have predicted the property market crash in 1997, news portal 163.com reported. He said cities such as Ordos in Inner Mongolia, Wenzhou and those in Hainan have already slumped. Home prices in Ordos, which is also known as “ghost city,” have slumped more than 92 percent in nearly 1 years to 1,700 yuan (HK$2,153) per square meter in August from 22,000 yuan per sq m in March last year, Guo said. In Wenzhou, defaulting borrowers have surrendered their homes to banks for public auction, Southern Weekly reported. It added more than 10,000 units were involved. Home prices in Zhejiang fell for the 23rd consecutive month, official data showed. But property markets remained red hot in Guangzhou and Nanjing, which saw new projects sold out on the launch date. China’s new home prices rose for the 15th consecutive month in August, according to Soufun, the nation’s largest real estate information platform. The central government has noticed the trend and will continue to send inspection teams to discuss the situation with local governments, China Times reported.

GRACE CAO

In China, the Devil doesn’t wear Prada

In China, the Devil doesn’t wear Prada

5:03pm EDT

By Donny Kwok

HONG KONG (Reuters) – The Devil, it seems, wears anything but Prada in the eyes of Chinese bloggers determined to expose corrupt government officials flashing luxury labels way past their pay grades. Prada is among a few premium brands reporting solid growth in the world’s second largest luxury market even as a government campaign against conspicuous spending and gift-giving hurts firms with instantly recognizable brands like LVMH, Compagnie Financiere Richemont and Kering SA. Read more of this post

Danone’s Baby-Food Brand Probes Report of China Doctor Payments

Danone’s Baby-Food Brand Probes Report of China Doctor Payments

Danone’s (BN) Dumex said it will immediately start an investigation into a Chinese media report that alleged the brand made payments to hospital doctors and nurses to sell its baby formula products. Dumex paid hundreds of thousands of yuan annually to doctors and nurses at hospitals in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin amid “fierce competition” among baby-formula makers, the state-owned China Central Television reported yesterday, citing an unidentified former sales manager from the brand. Read more of this post

China’s iron & steel industry needs to act swiftly to defuse financial risks as the companies are running out of cash

China Steels Teeters amid Financial Risks: Official

09-16 17:21 Caijing

China’s iron & steel industry needs to act swiftly to defuse financial risks as the companies are running out of cash, Xu Kuangdi, president of the Chinese Society for Metals, told a forum on Friday. Over 30 of 86 big and medium-sized steel companies reported a debt-to-assets ratio of above 75 percent in the first half of the year, government data shows. 20 companies posted a debt ratio of above 80 percent while five of them are actually insolvency, with their debt ratios above 100 percent. Read more of this post

China to expand margin trading and short-selling programme

Updated: Tuesday September 17, 2013 MYT 11:19:03 AM

China to expand margin trading and short-selling programme

SHANGHA: China’s securities regulator has approved a plan to expand participation in a pilot programme allowing margin trading and short selling and triple the number of stocks that can be traded on margin, as Beijing moves to deepen and diversify investor participation in its equities markets. The China Securities Finance Corporation Ltd, the semigovernmental agency that runs the trial, named 19 new brokerages that will be allowed to participate in the project, bringing the total number of brokerage participants to 30 from the original 11. Read more of this post

China to become No. 2 market for Starbucks; Illy in China: no catering to local taste

Illy in China: no catering to local taste

Sep 16, 2013 3:37am by Peter Vanham

Is not tailoring your food and drinks to Chinese taste a form of “food neo-colonialism”, as Roland Decorvet of Nestle China put it last year? Illycaffe, the Italian premium coffee roaster, thinks not. Even as it looks to grind away Nestlé’s and Starbucks’ lead in China – a market that’s posting double-digit growth and which is worth about $1.5bn last year – the company says it has no plans to “localise” it product for the Chinese market. “You don’t like our espresso? Then drink our cappuccino. But that’s about as far as I’ll go in adapting to local taste,” Andrea Illy, the company’s third-generation family CEO, told beyondbrics on the sidelines of the WEF in Dalian, China. “Our strategy is executed in exactly the same way in any country.” With this approach, Illy is hoping to replicate the successes of a select club of other global brands whose products are the same across the world. “It’s like a perfume, it has to be the same around the world,” Illy said. “Otherwise you’d be disappointed.” But Illy faces an uphill battle to win over the local coffee drinker in China. Asians are known for not liking the bitter taste of black coffee and Nestlé and Starbucks have both adapted their products accordingly. As the FT’s Patti Waldmeir noted: Read more of this post

Beijing subway failure raises concerns about safety and operator’s abilities to tackle emergencies

Beijing subway failure raises concerns

English.news.cn   2013-09-16

BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) — A technical glitch that disrupted passengers on the subway in Beijing for nearly two hours Monday morning has raised questions about safety and operator’s abilities to tackle emergencies. Subway Line 4, a major underground service that runs 50 kilometers through western Beijing from north to south, suspended its operation after a signal failure at 7:22 a.m.. Read more of this post

All that glitters: Diamonds outshine gold for Chinese brides as diamond market more than tripled to $22.8 billion over the last five years

All that glitters: Diamonds outshine gold for Chinese brides

5:41pm EDT

By Adam Jourdan

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Under a black-and-white framed photo of the New York skyline, a bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne cools in the private bridal salon at Tiffany & Co’s flagship Shanghai store, while white roses and love poems set the mood for China’s Romeo to pop the question to his Juliet. The room, dotted with splashes of the jeweler’s iconic eggshell blue, has been busy of late, as young Chinese, drawn by the allure of diamonds, increasingly choose the sparkling gems over traditional gold baubles to mark their marriage vows. China’s diamond market, now the world’s second largest after the United States, has more than tripled to $22.8 billion over the last five years, according to data from market research firm Euromonitor, steadily gobbling up market share from gold and far outstripping the growth rate in China’s 465 billion yuan ($76 billion) jewelry sector. Read more of this post

A Look Back at the Zhu Rongji Era

09.16.2013 15:03

A Look Back at the Zhu Rongji Era

A book event attended by key American and Chinese figures was an opportunity to revisit interesting times – and peer ahead with some apprehension

By Robert Kapp

I had a chance to go to a delightful gathering of Chinese and American “veteran cadres” in New York on September 9 to celebrate the publication by the Brookings Institution, in cooperation with the China International Publications Group, of the first volume of English-language translations of speeches and writings by former premier Zhu Rongji. The Chinese title of the original publication is Zhu Rongji Jianghua Shilu, and the English collection has been very sensibly titled Zhu Rongji on the Record. Read more of this post

India’s Rising Hindu Nationalist; Narendra Modi, a politician who started off as a tea seller, is beloved and despised

September 16, 2013, 7:11 p.m. ET

India’s Rising Hindu Nationalist

Narendra Modi, a politician who started off as a tea seller, is beloved and despised.

SADANAND DHUME

To gauge the political prospects of Narendra Modi, you don’t need to know his views on the fiscal deficit, relations with China or the death penalty. But it is important to understand why the man announced Friday as the prime ministerial candidate of India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party for next year’s general election evokes deeper devotion and fiercer opposition than any other politician in India. Read more of this post

Harvard of Korea Turns Out More Grads Aiming for Hyundai

Harvard of Korea Turns Out More Grads Aiming for Hyundai

For generations, a Seoul National University degree typically led to a job in law, the civil service or with a high-paying foreign company. Manufacturers like Hyundai Motor Co. (005380) weren’t for the elite. With Hyundai growing faster than any other global auto brand over the past decade, it’s now attracting graduates from the nation’s top schools. In the most recent study of grads from SNU — South Korea’s highest-ranked university and sometimes called the country’s Harvard — more business students in the Class of 2011 said they went to Hyundai Motor than any other employer. Two years earlier, none did. Read more of this post

Japan faces record-long trade deficit, little sign can reverse trend

Japan faces record-long trade deficit, little sign can reverse trend

7:55pm EDT

By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan is on course for its longest run of trade deficits, effectively marking the end of the nation’s decades-long reliance on exports from the likes of electronics giant Sony and automaker Toyota as a driver of growth and income. Trade figures due on Thursday are likely to show that Japan produced its 14th consecutive deficit in August, matching a 1979-1980 record run during the global oil shock. Economists say the deficits will continue. Read more of this post

Burned by China, Indonesia Coal Miners Turn to Power Stations

Burned by China, Indonesia Coal Miners Turn to Power Stations

By Janeman Latul & Fergus Jensen on 9:00 am September 17, 2013.
Two of Indonesia’s biggest miners are building power stations to reignite coal demand and counter a drop in global prices that has squeezed industry-wide profit margins to their slimmest in a decade and dulled the appeal of exports to top consumer China. Privately owned Adaro Energy, Indonesia’s second biggest coal miner by revenue, and the government-run Bukit Asam are taking the lead in trying to burn some of the extra coal piling up in global markets as China’s economic slowdown reduces its need for the fuel. Read more of this post

Rupiah Passes Rupee as Asia’s Worst Currency

Rupiah Passes Rupee as Asia’s Worst Currency: Chart of the Day

Indonesia’s record current-account deficit will drive away foreign investors and add pressure on the rupiah, the worst-performing currency in Asia since the beginning of June, according to Nomura Holdings Inc. The CHART OF THE DAY tracks Indonesia’s current-account balance as a percentage of gross domestic product and the rupiah versus the dollar. The currency has weakened 13.9 percent since the start of June, compared with the 10 percent drop in India’s rupee, to be the worst performer in Asia during the period. Read more of this post

Thailand equity rally belies underlying economic problems

September 16, 2013 3:14 pm

Thailand equity rally belies underlying economic problems

By Michael Peel in Bangkok

Asian emerging markets rallied on Monday, as investors pinned hopes on continued US bond-buying to help ease growing domestic economic pressures. Bangkok’s Set index had a particularly strong day, climbing 3.1 per cent and the baht rallied on relief at the news Lawrence Summers had backed out of the race to head the US Federal Reserve, leaving vice-chair of the Fed, Janet Yellen – seen as more dovish than Mr Summers – as the perceived frontrunner. Only Indonesian equities posted larger gains, rising 3.4 per cent. Read more of this post

Thai Government Faces Splinter Group of Angry Rubber Farmers

September 16, 2013, 9:49 PM

Thai Government Faces Splinter Group of Angry Rubber Farmers

By Nopparat Chaichalearmmongkol

Police cars were torched as police officers clashed with rubber farmer protesters at Nakhon Si Thammarat province, southern Thailand, Monday.

BANGKOK–Splinter groups of disgruntled Thai rubber farmers continued to protest on Monday, demanding more monetary support than the government recently approved amid low global rubber prices. The protesters represented only a small part of the rubber farming community, which overall accepted the government’s recent offer of help–a doubling of the subsidy they were receiving. But not all farmers were pleased. Read more of this post

Economist wants politicians to keep off Thai rail project

Economist wants politicians to keep off Thai rail project

English.news.cn   2013-09-17

By Surasak Tumcharoen

BANGKOK, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) — Thai politicians should keep off Thailand’s ambitious rail project so that it will be built in a transparent and graft-free manner and devoid of any shenanigans that are usually associated with politics, according to a noted economist here. Prof. Teerana Bhongmakapat, economics lecturer of Chulalongkorn University, said Monday the Thai government, headed by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, must see to it that the rail project, legislation for its implementation now deliberated in parliament, will be free of irregularities throughout its seven-year implementation that will last until 2020. Read more of this post