‘Beautiful China’ tourism pitch clouded over in smog

‘Beautiful China’ tourism pitch clouded over in smog

October 24, 2013

Beijing: Forget all the headlines about eye-watering pollution in Beijing and Shanghai — the Middle Kingdom’s latest tourism slogan invites visitors to “Beautiful China.” Adorning buses and trains in cities such as London, the marketing effort has been derided as particularly inept at a time when record-busting smog has drawn attention to the environmental and health costs of China’s unfettered industrialisation. Like this year’s typically clunky theme for visitors “China Ocean Tourism Year,” the slogan highlights the tin ear of an industry that has ridden the coattails of China’s rapid economic growth and increased global prominence but failed to keep up with international travel trends. Read more of this post

Baidu Raises Eyebrows by Promising High 8% Yield on New Investment Product; Baidu Can’t Guarantee Returns on Online Fund Products, CSRC Says

10.23.2013 16:28

Baidu Raises Eyebrows by Promising High Yield on New Investment Product

Search engine company pledges 8 percent return, but then deletes the weibo post that made the guarantee

By staff reporter Liu Zhuozhe

(Beijing) – Baidu, China’s version of Google, is in the spotlight over exceptionally high returns it promised for an investment product the company plans to unveil. The search engine firm said on October 21 on weibo, the country’s Twitter-like microblog service, that it will introduce a wealth management service on its website on October 28 in cooperation with China AMC, the largest public fund management company in China. The service, called Bai Fa, will have an annual yield of 8 percent and investors can withdraw money from their account at any time, the announcement said. Baidu did not explain how it works. Read more of this post

South Korea’s education system: The great decompression; There are perils for a country in having all your children working too hard for one big exam

South Korea’s education system: The great decompression; There are perils for a country in having all your children working too hard for one big exam

Oct 26th 2013 |From the print edition

FEW countries have done better than South Korea over the past half-century. Within the span of a single working life, its economy has grown 17-fold, its government has evolved from an austere dictatorship into a rowdy democracy, and its culture, once scarred by censorship, now beguiles the world with its music, soap operas and cinema. Scholars enthuse about the speed and precocity of its “compressed development”. Read more of this post

Mercedes Halves Costs as Gangnam Showrooms Boom: Korea Markets

Mercedes Halves Costs as Gangnam Showrooms Boom: Korea Markets

Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Korea Co. slashed borrowing costs by more than 50 percent as record demand for imported cars in Seoul’s Gangnam luxury-goods district spurs its lending business. The unit of German automotive group Daimler AG (DAI) sold 130 billion won ($122 million) of two-year notes on Oct. 14 at 3.38 percent, 57 basis points more than similar-maturity government bonds, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That’s lower than both the spread on 2014 securities sold in November of 123 basis points and the average premium for two-year A+ rated finance debt of 73. The sale was expanded by 30 percent to meet demand. Read more of this post

Word of mouth has turned Yeti’s sturdy ice chests, which are priced as high as $1,300, into a cult brand

The Most Expensive, Bear-Proof, Thief-Baiting Way to Keep Your Beer Cold

By Keenan Mayo October 17, 2013

When he went fishing, Roy Seiders had a habit of breaking his coolers. It was 2005, and the Austin (Tex.)-based builder of fishing boats was desperate for something tougher than a typical Igloo or Rubbermaid (NWL). “Everything about my boat was durable except for the coolers, which you need to store fish and keep drinks cold,” he says. “But you also need them as seats—or as a casting platform where you can stand and cast to the fish.” So Seiders and his older brother Ryan, who makes fishing rods (their father owns Flex Coat, which creates an epoxy “wrap finish” for fishing rods), set out to make a cooler that could stand up to their own abuse. Read more of this post

Bunge may struggle to lure suitors for loss-making sugar mills bought four years ago for $1.5 billion when they were considered the crown jewels of a burgeoning biofuel industry

Bunge may struggle to lure suitors for loss-making sugar mills

12:25am EDT

By Chris Prentice and Reese Ewing

NEW YORK/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – When Bunge Ltd (BG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) bought five sugar mills in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state four years ago for $1.5 billion, they were considered the crown jewels of a burgeoning biofuel industry. Now, they may be little more than millstones, hard-to-sell assets at a time of crushed margins and weak prices. In the industry’s first major capitulation to depressed market conditions, Bunge’s new chief executive announced on Thursday he will explore options, including a sale, for the loss-making business. Read more of this post

To Expand Offshore Power, Japan Builds Floating Windmills; Harnessing wind in deeper waters off Japan could generate as much as 1,570 gigawatts of electricity, roughly eight times the current capacity of all of Japan’s power companies combined

October 24, 2013

To Expand Offshore Power, Japan Builds Floating Windmills

By HIROKO TABUCHI

OFF THE COAST OF FUKUSHIMA, Japan — Twelve miles out to sea from the severely damaged and leaking nuclear reactors at Fukushima, a giant floating wind turbine signals the start of Japan’s most ambitious bet yet on clean energy. When this 350-foot-tall windmill is switched on next month, it will generate enough electricity to power 1,700 homes. Unremarkable, perhaps, but consider the goal of this offshore project: to generate over 1 gigawatt of electricity from 140 wind turbines by 2020. That is equivalent to the power generated by a nuclear reactor. Read more of this post

Abe’s Farmers Fight Fat as TPP Means Tariff Cuts in Japan

Abe’s Farmers Fight Fat as TPP Means Tariff Cuts in Japan

From rice to control blood glucose levels to soybeans that reduce fatty acids, Japan is seeking new ways to make money from agriculture as pressure mounts to cut the tariffs its farmers rely on to make a living. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government estimates there’s a potential 600 billion yen ($6.2 billion) market for so-called functional foods, strains of mostly fruits, vegetables and grains with provable health benefits beyond regular nutrition. He’s put 2 billion yen into the agriculture ministry’s coffers for a three-year project to develop new varieties of rice, soybeans, barley, onions and buckwheat. Read more of this post

Tobacco Control Stumps Indonesia’s Health Minister; There are few places in the world where cigarettes are cheaper than in Indonesia. Indeed, they are affordable even for the poorest households and children

Tobacco Control Stumps Indonesia’s Health Minister

By Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Dina Manafe on 10:42 am October 24, 2013.
Tobacco industry lobbyists and lawmakers are rebuffing demands for stricter regulation, saying such a move would end millions of livelihoods. “Many small industries can no longer survive. We feel like we are going to get murdered and only big industry will survive,” said Hafash Gunaman, head of the Association of Kudus Cigarette Makers. Hafash was responding to renewed calls on the government to accede to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a treaty convened by the World Health Organization in 2003, after the world community singled out Indonesia as the only country in Asia, the Pacific or the G20 that has not attempted to pass tobacco control laws that meet even minimum international standards. Read more of this post

Jakarta Stands by Relentless Drive Against Dirty Officials

City Stands by Relentless Drive Against Dirty Officials

By Lenny Tristia Tambun on 8:45 am October 25, 2013.
Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama has denied that the administration of Governor Joko Widodo is on a witch hunt against officials from the term of the previous governor, amid an antigraft crackdown on senior city bureaucrats. “No, that never crossed our minds, we never had any such thoughts,” Basuki said at City Hall on Thursday. Basuki said it was the various law enforcement agencies that had flagged the alleged corruption by the officials in question, and that the Jakarta administration, especially Joko and himself, never intervened in the investigations. Read more of this post

Record-Low H.K. Home Sales Spur Realtor Loss: Chart of the Day

Record-Low H.K. Home Sales Spur Realtor Loss: Chart of the Day

The tumble in Hong Kong’s home sales to a record low signals further declines in Midland (1200) Holdings Ltd., the city’s largest listed realtor, according to Bocom International Holdings Co. The CHART OF THE DAY shows the three-month average of residential transactions in Hong Kong fell to 3,693 units in September, the lowest since at least 1996, according to government data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales have plunged even as Centaline Property Agency Ltd.’s housing-price gauge holds within 3.1 percent of a record high. The lower panel shows Midland had 9,576 employees at the end of June, according to the latest company statement, the most ever and triple the amount a decade ago, alongside the company’s stock price. Read more of this post

Just one in six Hong Kong students who take on student loans will be able to repay the full amount within the stipulated time, a survey has found

Students with loans feel the squeeze
Hilary Wong 
Friday, October 25, 2013
Just one in six who take on student loans will be able to repay the full amount within the stipulated time, a survey has found. The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups said yesterday the average loan of 727 students interviewed during August and September was HK$110,000, while those on self-financed programs borrowed about HK$190,000. Only 16 percent said they would be able to pay back the loans on time, it found. According to the Student Financial Assistance Agency, students have two ways to apply for a government loan. Read more of this post

Electric car manufacturer Tesla has a higher market capitalisation than it “deserves”, its chief executive said

October 24, 2013 10:00 pm

Tesla admits market cap is supercharged

By Henry Foy in London

Electric car manufacturer Tesla has a higher market capitalisation than it “deserves”, its chief executive said. Tesla, which expects to sell just 21,000 cars this year, is worth about $22bn, roughly half the value of Ford and a third of the value of General Motors, which sold more than 9m vehicles last year. The California-based company, which counts Hollywood stars such as Cameron Diaz as customers, has seen its stock price rise about 400 per cent so far in 2013. “I think that we have quite a high valuation, and a higher valuation than we have any right to deserve,” chief executive Elon Musk said at an event to mark the opening of a new Tesla showroom in London. Read more of this post

Siam Cement Using Cash Pile to Accelerate Growth: Southeast Asia

Siam Cement Using Cash Pile to Accelerate Growth: Southeast Asia

Siam Cement Pcl (SCC), Asia’s biggest cement producer by market value, plans to buy as many as five companies in Southeast Asia as rising incomes boost demand for homes and governments increase spending on infrastructure. Bangkok-based Siam Cement is in talks with companies including a building-materials producer in Vietnam, President Kan Trakulhoon said, without naming them. The value of each deal will be between a few billion baht and 10 billion baht ($321 million), he said in an interview yesterday. Read more of this post

Korean financial authorities to build an online system to provide financial consulting services for ordinary people in April of next year

Online financial consulting system for ordinary people to be built

2013.10.24 15:03:11

Financial authorities have decided to build an online system to provide financial consulting services for ordinary people in April of next year. According to sources Thursday, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) recently invited industry bids to upgrade its financial consumer portal, which online financial analysis services for users are newly included.
Consumers will be allowed to choose a preferred analysis method to use services that will be offered on an independent website not through the financial consumer portal. Creation of this system will begin next month and is scheduled to be open to the public in April of next year. “Using this online system, consumers will be able to have their financial status checked and understand what they can do to increase their wealth,” said an FSS official. The decision reflects the fact that retired baby boomers pay growing attention to wealth management and investments, but appropriate financial consulting services are not available. Private banking centers run by banks and insurers are designed only for wealthy people whose assets exceed 1 billion won ($950,000).

Carmakers are rolling the dice on e-bikes in the US, fearing the death of the car

Carmakers are rolling the dice on e-bikes in the US, fearing the death of the car

By Roberto A. Ferdman @robferdman 11 hours ago

The notion of an electronic bicycle craze isn’t exactly new in bike-friendly parts of the world. But despite the many obstacles that have surfaced about taking e-biking mainstream in the US, a slew of carmakers appear determined to churn out newfangled high-concept e-bikes in the hopes of jolting demand. Take BMW’s latest offering. Its new Cruise e-Bike 2014, which weighs less than 50 pounds, comes equipped with a turbo function and will cost nearly $4,000. For now, the company is hedging its bets by restricting its initial sales to Germany, where e-bikes are gaining steam. Ford, on the other hand, is blazing straight into the US market with its new Pedego e-bike, which it intends to sell across the country starting in 2014. Audi released a prototype last year that could eventually reach the US, and Mercedes Benz launched its Smart e-bike in Canada in the spring of 2012. Read more of this post

Taiwan’s Shining, which owns the Lalu luxury hotel (涵碧樓) at Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan, said it is aiming to establish 30 hotels and shopping centers in China over the next decade

Taiwan’s Shining Group plans to build thirty hotels in China

CNA
October 25, 2013, 12:27 am TWN

TAIPEI — The tourism and real estate development group which owns the Lalu luxury hotel (涵碧樓) at Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan said Thursday it is aiming to establish 30 hotels and shopping centers in China over the next decade, starting with a complex that is under construction in Qingdao. The Lalu hotel and shopping mall in the northern Chinese coastal city will open in May 2014, said Shining Group (鄉林集團) Chairman Lai Cheng-i (賴正鎰) at a igning ceremony in Taipei to give space to 28 boutiques at the complex. Read more of this post

Trade: Into uncharted waters; A 30-year trend of trade growing at twice the speed of the global economy has ended

October 24, 2013 6:18 pm

Trade: Into uncharted waters

By Shawn Donnan

A 30-year trend of trade growing at twice the speed of the global economy has ended

The Tangerine Island, a bulk carrier sailing under the flag of the Marshall Islands, is moored in the Gulf of Panama after passing through the canal a few hours earlier. Off southern England, the 199-metre Turandot, a vehicle carrier, is setting a course for New York after leaving Southampton. In the Strait of Malacca off Sumatra, the Liberian-flagged Amazon River is steaming along at 16 knots. Read more of this post