Jade sales slump big time in Asia; “The bubble of low to middle end jade has burst first given the little fear of raw material shortage. By the end of the year, the prices will start to drop from the sky.”

Jade sales slump big time

Wednesday, Sep 18, 2013

The New Paper

Prized as a magical imperial stone, jade is a status symbol of the super rich in Asia. But rocketing prices in the top-end of the market have left traders in Hong Kong struggling to find buyers. The price of raw jade has risen over the past eight years. Driven up by the appetite of wealthy Chinese, the rising cost of jade is also being fuelled by fears of a shortage in supply from Myanmar, the key source. “Consumers cannot accept the current high prices, therefore, no deal is reached,” Hong Kong jade dealer Li Kwong-kei told AFP at the Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fair last Friday. Read more of this post

The US might be drowning in oil, but the world is still dependent on Saudi Arabia; Record Saudi Arabia oil output fills supply gap

September 16, 2013 5:45 pm

Record Saudi Arabia oil output fills supply gap

By Ajay Makan

The US might be drowning in oil, but the world is still dependent on Saudi Arabia. Indeed, Saudi Arabia is pumping out more crude than at any time since at least the 1970s. In neighbouring Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates meanwhile, oil production levels hit record highs. Read more of this post

Naptha Is The Key Ingredient For A Saudi Petrochemicals Boom

Naptha Is The Key Ingredient For A Saudi Petrochemicals Boom

THE ECONOMIST SEP. 17, 2013, 6:59 PM 661

Although plans are well advanced for constructing one of the world’s biggest combined cycle petrochemicals plants in the kingdom, being built by the Sadara Chemical Company (a joint venture between the state oil company, Saudi Aramco, and Dow Chemical of the US), in reality the petrochemicals sector has mostly taken a back seat in the country’s rapid industrialisation of recent years. This is primarily due to the shortage of ethane-rich associated gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs), which are both linked to crude oil production. However, this may well change if a new strategy planned by Saudi Aramco bears fruit. Read more of this post

Companies Unplug From the Grid, Delivering a Jolt to Utilities

September 17, 2013, 11:05 p.m. ET

Companies Unplug From the Grid, Delivering a Jolt to Utilities

REBECCA SMITH and CASSANDRA SWEET

On a hill overlooking the Susquehanna River, two big wind turbines crank out electricity for Kroger Co.’s KR +2.19% Turkey Hill Dairy in rural Lancaster County, Pa., allowing it to save 25% on its power bill for the past two years. Across the country, at a big food-distribution center Kroger also owns in Compton, Calif., a tank system installed this year uses bacteria to convert 150 tons a day of damaged produce, bread and other organic waste into a biogas that is burned on site to produce 20% of the electricity the facility uses. Read more of this post

From honey whiskey to pumpkin pie vodka, bold new flavors are the toast of the global drinks industry. At Diageo, drinks created in the past five years account for half of the beverage giant’s sales growth in that period

September 17, 2013, 4:33 p.m. ET

Spirits Soar on Flavored Liquors

Sales Growth Is Being Driven by Dessert-Inspired Vodkas and Other Innovations

SIMON ZEKARIA

BISHOP’S STORTFORD, ENGLAND—From honey whiskey to pumpkin pie vodka, bold new flavors are the toast of the global drinks industry. Diageo DGE.LN +0.62% PLC’s technical laboratory here, which makes drinks for Europe and Africa, is tucked away in a bland office block, but inside beverage scientists are playing with pipettes, spices and colored liquids. Drinks created in the past five years account for half of the beverage giant’s sales growth in that period. Some 80% of the company’s investment in innovation is directed to products launched within a three-year time frame. Read more of this post

After making billions in rough-and-tumble sectors, Suleiman Kerimov may have met his match in potash

September 17, 2013 7:06 pm

Mining: Gone to potash

By Courtney Weaver, Charles Clover Jan Cienski

After making billions in rough-and-tumble sectors, Suleiman Kerimov may have met his match

Hailing from a poor part of southern Russia, Suleiman Kerimov became a billionaire through iron determination and a gargantuan appetite for risks – some of which work out, some of which do not. He crashed a Ferrari Enzo on the French Riviera in 2006, sustaining burns for which he still wears oedema gloves. He poured $450m into Anzhi Makhachkala, a football club in Dagestan that so far has not lived up to his hopes. His highly leveraged investments in western banks almost cost him his fortune amid the collapse of financial markets in 2008, but he made it back. Some say he leads a charmed life while others attribute his good fortune to his solid political connections in the Kremlin. Whatever the case, Mr Kerimov may have gone too far when he – or more accurately his subordinates, according to people familiar with the matter – took onAlexander Lukashenko, the mustachioed president of neighbouring Belarus last July. Read more of this post

S Korea struggles to take in foreign workers

September 17, 2013 10:13 am

S Korea struggles to take in foreign workers

By Simon Mundy in Ansan, South Korea

As Sri Lankan music blares from an electronics shop across the road, Sherzod is struggling to count the nationalities of the customers at his café in Ansan, a town of 1m people in South Korea’s Gyeonggi province. “They come from Pakistan, Indonesia, Mongolia, Vietnam . . . there are more coming from Russia these days,” says the 39-year-old Uzbek, his country’s national dress proudly displayed on the wall behind him. Read more of this post

Drugstores in Korea are struggling to stay afloat as they are losing money due to cutthroat competition in the industry

2013-09-17 17:01

Drugstores struggle to beat competition

By Park Ji-won
Drugstores are struggling to stay afloat as they are losing money due to cutthroat competition in the industry. Recently, restrictions were placed on retail companies, making it difficult to open a new store. The regulations also limit operating hours. To avoid such restrictions, retail conglomerates CJ, GS and Kolon have invested in drugstores. As a result, the number of drugstores in Korea has exploded. Some market insiders expect the industry will reach 500 billion won this year and could reach 700 billion won by 2014.
While the estimates are encouraging, increasing competition is making it tough for some drugstores to stay afloat.  Read more of this post

Narendra Modi tempers Hindu nationalist message to woo India; Polarising figure has a sense of purpose and ‘rock star appeal’

September 17, 2013 3:19 pm

Narendra Modi tempers Hindu nationalist message to woo India

By Victor Mallet in New Delhi

Polarising figure has a sense of purpose and ‘rock star appeal’

The boast last month by Manmohan Singh, India’s 80-year-old prime minister, about how connected the country had become since he took office a decade ago may come back to haunt the ruling Congress party at the next general election – especially if the claim is true. “In 2004, only 7 per cent of the people had telephone connections,” Mr Singh intoned mechanically as he read out his independence day speech in Hindi from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi. “Today 73 per cent enjoy this facility.” India also had more roads, airports, electricity, schools and – he might have added – televisions. Read more of this post

Leprosy Return Shows Neglect in India of Ancient Blight

Leprosy Return Shows Neglect in India of Ancient Blight

Sandeep Gupta fidgets nervously in a Mumbai clinic while waiting to learn if the white patches and boils that appeared on his elbow a month ago are signs of leprosy — the disease that disfigured his cousin and maimed millions of people in India and elsewhere for 8,000 years. The lesions on the 12-year-old’s arm are a sign of leprosy which, left untreated, can cause disfigurement and nerve damage. While leprosy, described in Indian texts from the 6th century BC, has been cleared from the developed world, it’s regaining ground in India, which has become the biggest source of cases imported into the U.K. and Australia. Read more of this post

India Escalates Gold Capital Controls, Hikes Duty On Gold Jewerly Imports To 15%

India Escalates Gold Capital Controls, Hikes Duty On Gold Jewerly Imports To 15%

Tyler Durden on 09/17/2013 13:59 -0400

Anyone following the Indian economy and capital markets has been witness to what is the worst case outcome for a modern-day central banker: on one hand forced to keep inflation down, on the other fighting a fierce capital outflow which recently shocked Rupee holders by send the currency to all time lows against the dollar and sending gold priced in INR to record highs. All of this is, of course, happening as India fights tooth and nail to keep its monthly trade deficit under control, not overpay for oil, and keep businesses running now that inflation expectations are becoming unanchored. And, as we have reported previously, the biggest scapegoat to the Indian central bank and government is, understandably, gold, which has been the source of much of the population’s “wealth preservation” currency outflow. Read more of this post

Li Ka-Shing: I’m staying in HK – but I’m worried

I’m staying – but I’m worried
Karen Chiu and Imogene Wong
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Tycoon Li Ka-shing yesterday vowed to never leave Hong Kong. But the Cheung Kong Holdings chairman noted all his future investments in the SAR will depend on the prevailing political and economic situation. And he warned Hong Kong is getting less competitive. “I love Hong Kong and the country. Cheung Kong and Hutchison Whampoa won’t move away from Hong Kong after so many years of being here,” he said yesterday. Read more of this post

Li Ka-Shing Says Hong Kong May Lose Out to Shanghai; Hong Kong Most Costly City for Office, Home Rents, Savills Says

Li Ka-Shing Says Hong Kong May Lose Out to Shanghai: RTHK

Li Ka-shing, Asia’s richest man, said Hong Kong needs to raise its competitiveness if it wants to avoid losing out to Shanghai, where China is setting up a free trade zone, Radio Television Hong Kong reported. Li, the 85 year-old chairman of Hong Kong-based Cheung Kong Holdings Ltd. (1) and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. (13), said the Shanghai free trade zone “will affect Hong Kong heavily,” RTHK reported on its website, citing Li’s comments at a briefing today. Read more of this post

MTR in Hong Kong is probably the best-run metro in the world and that brand is what they bring with them

Updated September 17, 2013, 1:00 p.m. ET

Hong Kong’s MTR Rides Toward Expansion

Company Makes Tracks Toward Becoming World’s Top Metro-Train Operator

JEFFREY NG

A subway system with a 99.9% on-time rate would be a source of pride in most cities. In famously efficient Hong Kong, it elicits an explanation from the director of operations: “Zero delay is difficult to achieve on any railway system,” he said in a recent service update. Hong Kong’s MTR Corp. 0066.HK +0.82% is taking its high standards abroad, bidding to run subways in Europe, Asia and Australia. If it wins just a few of the bids, it will become the biggest operator of metro systems in the world. Led by a New Yorker, it is also considering other projects, even in Germany, another place that places a high value on efficiency. “MTR in Hong Kong is probably the best-run metro in the world and that brand is what they bring with them,” says Nigel Harris, managing director at the Railway Consultancy Ltd., a U.K.-based firm. Read more of this post

Vacant Japan Homes Show Holes in Abe’s Push for Housing Growth; “It used to be common that parents find ways to increase the value of what they have and pass it down to their children. But now, one can no longer expect much.”

Vacant Japan Homes Show Holes in Abe’s Push for Housing Growth

Broken wood pieces dangle and sway like autumn leaves from the window frames of vacant homes in Inariyato, part of Yokosuka in the greater-Tokyo urban area, where taped-over mailbox slots tell a story of abandonment. More than 50 houses and apartments, almost 20 percent of the quaint residential neighborhood of narrow streets and stairway paths leading into green hills, are empty here, an hour’s train ride south of Tokyo and 1,000 yards (900 meters) from the Yokosuka naval base, home of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. That hasn’t stopped developers from building at least eight new apartment blocks in the same city in the past two years. Read more of this post

Tens of thousands of Japanese homeowners are generating their own power with hydrogen fuel cells and solar panels, part of a post-tsunami revolt against electric utilities

Updated September 17, 2013, 11:34 p.m. ET

In Post-Tsunami Japan, Homeowners Pull Away From Grid

PETER LANDERS and MAYUMI NEGISHI

OSAKA, Japan—In a post-tsunami revolt against conventional electric utilities, tens of thousands of Japanese homeowners have started generating their own power from hydrogen fuel cells and solar panels, turning the country into the world’s leading laboratory for overturning the traditional grid and the century-old business model behind it. Two and a half years after a nuclear-plant disaster crippled a primary source of electricity, major home builders are incorporating the alternative technologies as a standard feature of new homes. Japan’s biggest builder of single-family homes,Sekisui House Ltd., 1928.TO +0.91% says more than 80% of those it produces have solar power and half have fuel cells, an emerging technology little-known in homes elsewhere. “If you’re going to use electricity, you might as well make it yourself,” said Sekisui executive Kenichi Ishida, describing the nation’s mood. Read more of this post

Kanebo must focus on fixing the flaws in its corporate culture that caused this scandal

Kanebo’s costly scandal

SEP 16, 2013

The scandal involving Kanebo Cosmetics’ skin-whitening products shows that the company’s business-as-usual attitude has caused suffering for a large number of consumers. Both people in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries, and experts and officials engaged in examination of the safety of related products should draw lessons from the Kanebo scandal and ask themselves whether they are doing their best to ensure that its products are safe for consumers and taking timely action to issue product recalls when necessary. Read more of this post

Japanese Ask, What’s Wrong With a Little Deflation?

Japanese Ask, What’s Wrong With a Little Deflation?

By William Pesek – Sep 16, 2013

As Haruhiko Kuroda tries to spur Japan (JGDPAGDP)’s inflation rate, he faces a worrying question: What if his Bank of Japanpredecessor was right about why he will fail? In June 2011, then-BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa faced extreme pressure to double the monetary base, a step Kuroda took just days after replacing him in March. When Shirakawa, a University of Chicago-trained economist, was asked why he’d refused to budge, he offered a surprising excuse: Japan’s aging population, whose fixed incomes would be eaten away by rising prices. Politicians thought the rationale was a copout. Shinzo Abe’s first act as prime minister was to dump Shirakawa. Read more of this post

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s party is putting its presidential hopefuls through an American Idol-style contest that will see them criss-crossing the country for eight months

Yudhoyono Uses Idol-Style Test to Find Successor: Southeast Asia

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s party is putting its presidential hopefuls through an American Idol-style contest that will see them criss-crossing the country for eight months while footing some of the cost. The contestant who tops a nationwide public survey held by May will win the Democrat Party nomination for the July election, according to Suaidi Marasabessy, secretary of its convention committee. Among the 11 standing in the party primary are Pramono Edhie Wibowo, Yudhoyono’s brother-in-law and a former army chief of staff, and Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan, a former JPMorgan Chase & Co. banker. Read more of this post

Corporate Indonesia worries as rupiah wobbles

September 17, 2013 2:14 pm

Corporate Indonesia worries as rupiah wobbles

By Ben Bland

The slump in the value of Indonesia’s rupiah has revived bitter memories of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, when a currency collapse pushed companies with large US dollar borrowings into bankruptcy, tripping up the banking sector and sending the country spiralling into political and social turmoil. With dollar interest rates kept low by the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing programme, companies in Indonesia and other emerging markets have loaded up on dollar debt over the past few years. Read more of this post

Philippine Economy Withstands Latest Corruption Scandal

September 17, 2013, 12:20 p.m. ET

Philippine Economy Withstands Latest Corruption Scandal

President Aquino Renews Battle Against Graft, Bolstering Investor Confidence

JAMES HOOKWAY

The latest Philippine corruption scandal could bolster President Benigno Aquino III‘s own war against graft—and lead to further investor confidence in the country’s economy. Prosecutors this week filed graft charges against three prominent senators, two former lawmakers and a businesswoman for their alleged roles in misusing more than $200 million in state funds, a scandal that has rocked the Philippines’ political system. All six persons charged so far, including a former Senate president, have denied wrongdoing. Read more of this post

Don’t Catch The Liquidity-Impacted EM Falling Knife (Yet)

Don’t Catch The Liquidity-Impacted EM Falling Knife (Yet)

Tyler Durden on 09/17/2013 20:11 -0400

The Euro area is no longer the centre of all the stress… EM countries are! Despite their significant correction in recent months, SocGen notes that valuations remain far more extreme (or cheap) and outflows are dominating (despite a 24% discount on a price-to-book basis across EM stocks, they reain rich historically). Significant structural issues like balance of payments, deficit or inflation may lead to further turmoil in emerging markets, potentially destabilising the underlying economies.

Via Societe Generale,

Epicentre of the crisis is moving towards EM Countries

We read history in a simple way.

Read more of this post