World Bank: it’s easier to do business in Russia than China

World Bank: it’s easier to do business in Russia than China

Oct 29, 2013 12:05am by Luke Smolinski

The World Bank’s annual Ease of Doing Business indicators were published on Tuesday – and they make a pleasant read for Russian policy makers. In the last year, Russia has climbed 19 places to position 92, and is now the leading Bric nation. (That is, the country is 92nd out of 189 nations when it comes to the ease of doing business.) Ukraine – the country that has improved the most over the past year – rose 28 notches to 112. Read more of this post

Water, wealth and whites – South Africa’s potent anti-fracking mix

Water, wealth and whites – South Africa’s potent anti-fracking mix

11:03am EDT

By Ed Cropley

NIEU-BETHESDA, South Africa (Reuters) – Stretching across the heart of South Africa, the Karoo has stirred emotions for centuries, a stunning semi-desert wilderness that draws artists, hunters and the toughest of farmers. It is now rousing less romantic passions. If energy companies and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) get their way, it will soon be home to scientists and geologists mapping out shale gas fields touted as game-changers for Africa’s biggest economy, and working out whether fracking will work here. Read more of this post

The German Miracle, Riding on Bad Roads

The German Miracle, Riding on Bad Roads

Chancellor Angela Merkel won re-election in Germany with an impressive share of the vote, but talks to form a coalition remain jammed over whether to establish a minimum wage. This focus is myopic. The next government — probably a grand coalition between Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party — will need to concentrate on fundamental issues affecting the next generation that have been neglected under Merkel as she concentrated on balancing the budget. Read more of this post

Fed Seen Avoiding Historic Loss by Holding Mortgage Debt

Fed Seen Avoiding Historic Loss by Holding Mortgage Debt

The Federal Reserve can avoid unprecedented losses by never selling mortgage-backed securities from its record $3.84 trillion balance sheet, according to updated estimates by Fed economists in Washington. The Fed every month is purchasing $85 billion in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities in a program aimed at fueling economic growth and combating unemployment, which was 7.2 percent in September. Read more of this post

Fed Bubble Agonistes Persists as Zero Rates Prompt Debate

Fed Bubble Agonistes Persists as Zero Rates Prompt Debate

Financial-market bubbles are proving a more pressing threat than inflation to Federal Reserve officials who’ve bought trillions of dollars in bonds and kept the target for short-term interest rates near zero since 2008. “There is a threshold out there somewhere” where markets will become too frothy or the balance sheet becomes too large and the central bank will have to react, said Michael Gapen, a former member of the Fed board’s Division of Monetary Affairs and now a senior U.S. economist at Barclays Plc in New York. “The problem since the beginning of quantitative easing three is there isn’t significant enough clarity for what is the stopping rule.” Read more of this post

Beirut Real Estate Boom Makes Buyers Choose Smaller Flats

Beirut Real Estate Boom Makes Buyers Choose Smaller Flats

When Fadia Srour’s husband proposed 38 years ago, one of her conditions was an apartment of no less than 180 square meters (1,940 square feet) in Beirut or suburbs, so she would have living space similar to her parents’ house. Srour advised her two eldest daughters to do the same when they married more than a decade ago, when middle-income families in Lebanon could afford mortgages on such spacious homes. Now, Srour has one daughter left at home, and she knows she can’t expect the same if her youngest marries. Read more of this post

An Intriguing Product That’s Too Complex for Many; Alternative mutual funds have been gaining in popularity, but some advisers urge caution

October 25, 2013

An Intriguing Product That’s Too Complex for Many

By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

The sales pitches go something like this: A mutual fund that promises to zig when the rest of the stock market zags. Bond funds that protect investors when interest rates rise. Access to the most sophisticated hedge fund managers in the country, even if you’re not particularly wealthy. Many investors and their financial advisers have been lured into these alternative mutual funds, which use an array of complex investment strategies meant to protect clients against steep market declines, for instance, or hedge against interest rate movements. Billions of dollars have poured into these funds during the economic uncertainty of recent years, and total assets, which stand at $234 billion, are already up nearly 33 percent from 2012.

Read more of this post

Insular Takeda adopts a global outlook

October 28, 2013 3:50 pm

Insular Takeda adopts a global outlook

By Jean-Louis Barsoux and Anand Narasimhan

The story. When Yasuchika Hasegawa took over as president of Takeda in 2003, the Japanese pharmaceutical company was experiencing sluggish domestic growth and facing a drop in revenue as lucrative patents expired. A fluent English speaker who had spent more than a decade working for the company in Germany and the US, Mr Hasegawa was the first non-member of the Takeda family to run the business. Read more of this post

A Quake Revives Japan’s Nuclear Nightmare

A Quake Revives Japan’s Nuclear Nightmare

As Tokyo shook early Saturday morning and loud shrieks from mobile-phone earthquake-warning alarms filled bedrooms around the city, one word immediately sprung to mind: Fukushima. Those who don’t reside 135 miles away from the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl won’t understand this reaction. But the first thing most of Tokyo’s 13 million residents do once things stop wobbling is check if all’s well at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant still leaking radiation into the atmosphere and the Pacific Ocean. Worse, a fresh spate of accidents there make some wonder if the Marx Brothers are in charge. I’m no engineer, gents, but next time you might want to avoid disconnecting the wrong pipe, dumping another 10 tons of toxic water into the soil and contaminating yourself to boot. Read more of this post

Abe’s Special Zones to Fuel Economic Reform, Hatta Says

Abe’s Special Zones to Fuel Economic Reform, Hatta Says

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s reforms may be aided by excluding the agriculture, trade and welfare ministries from oversight of special economic zones, according to the head of a working group on the plans. “Abe sees the strategic special zones as the heart of regulatory reforms,” Tatsuo Hatta, 70, said in an interview in Tokyo on Oct. 26. The prime minister is aware that the public is “fed up” over the sway that vested interests have had over policy in Japan, Hatta said. Read more of this post

The decentralisation of government has been a blessing to Indonesia. It has not only given people in far-flung parts a say in their affairs, but also talented individuals a chance to rise?

Updated: Tuesday October 29, 2013 MYT 6:48:01 AM

Indonesia shows the way

BY KARIM RASLAN

The decentralisation of government has been a blessing to Indonesia. It has not only given people in far-flung parts a say in their affairs, but also talented individuals a chance to rise.

FIVE years ago, I re-member asking the then-political analyst Bima Arya from Indonesia what he really wanted to be. At the time, we were sitting in his swish political consultancy office in Keba-yoran Baru, surrounded by all the latest technology for monitoring, gauging and displaying political trends. Read more of this post

Morgan Stanley-backed Continuum Wind Energy is dumping a 20-year model that helped Suzlon Energy dominate Asia’s second-biggest turbine market in India

Morgan Stanley’s Continuum Dumps Suzlon Model for Growth

Morgan Stanley-backed Continuum Wind Energy Pte, which plans a more than 10-fold surge in its India capacity, is dumping a 20-year model that helped Suzlon Energy Ltd. (SUEL) dominate Asia’s second-biggest turbine market. Continuum aims to build 1,360 megawatts of wind farms by 2017, almost all of that on its own, abandoning an industry practice of hiring turbine makers to execute projects on a turnkey basis, Chief Executive Officer Arvind Bansal said. The new model will help utilities manage the assets better and boost their profitability, he said. Read more of this post

India’s Farmers Start to Mechanize Amid a Labor Shortage; Move Increases Productivity and Provides Opportunities for Manufacturers

India’s Farmers Start to Mechanize Amid a Labor Shortage

Move Increases Productivity and Provides Opportunities for Manufacturers

BIMAN MUKHERJI

Oct. 28, 2013 7:27 p.m. ET

NEW DELHI—Each fall at harvest time, Leela Dhar Rajput used to hire 25 farm hands to work from dawn to dusk every day for a week bringing in the rice crop on his 20 acres of land in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. This year, he plans to use a combine harvester instead. With the machine and the help of two or three men, he expects to finish the job in a single day. Read more of this post

India raises interest rates again, warns on stubborn inflation

India raises interest rates again, warns on stubborn inflation

8:41am EDT

By Suvashree Dey Choudhury and Tony Munroe

MUMBAI (Reuters) – India’s central bank raised interest rates for the second time in as many months on Tuesday, warning that inflation is likely to remain elevated despite sluggish growth, and rolled back an emergency measure put in place in July to support the rupee. Facing some of the fiercest price pressures in Asia, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lifted its policy repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) to 7.75 percent, in line with expectations in a Reuters poll. Read more of this post

Cancer Express Carries Sufferers of India’s Deadly Waters

Cancer Express Carries Sufferers of India’s Deadly Waters

Mahendra Singh parts the crowd massed on the dimly lit platform to pull his ailing mother-in-law on board the train locals call the Cancer Express. The farmer from northern India jostles for space in the blue train before gently laying Charanjit Kaur down on the bare wooden bench. Cradling two small bags, the couple are bound on an overnight train for a hospital a state away in Rajasthan where she’s to be tested for suspected water poisoning. Read more of this post

Unilever’s Competitive Prowess Untarnished

Unilever’s Competitive Prowess Untarnished

By Erin Lash, CFA | 10-28-13 | 06:00 AM | Email Article

Unilever‘s (UL)/(UN) third-quarter update shed light on concerns that surfaced last month. The firm has stressed recently that emerging-markets growth is trending down (56% of consolidated sales), topping out at just 5.9% in the third quarter–a marked deceleration from 10.4% in the first quarter and 10.3% in the second. Conversely, developed markets posted minor sequential improvements, as sales ticked down just 0.3% compared with negative 1.9% in the first quarter and negative 1.3% in the second. North America was particularly weak, as sales tumbled 1.9%; this is even more dismal since it compares with a 3.5% drop last year. Beyond weakness in spreads and intentional pruning in its ice cream lineup, management cited increased competitive intensity in North American hair care and deodorants. Read more of this post

Richemont’s Lancel: a risky bet on a struggling brand

Richemont’s Lancel: a risky bet on a struggling brand

9:51am EDT

By Astrid Wendlandt

PARIS (Reuters) – Potential buyers of Lancel see reviving the loss-making leather goods maker as a high-risk gamble that could take at least six or eight years to pay off, sources close to the matter say. Facing a struggle to offload the business, Swiss parent Richemont (CFR.VX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) would be ready to pay for two years of losses – up to an estimated 20 million euros ($28 million) – to entice bidders, the sources say. Read more of this post

LVMH’s DFS Group Plans To Open First Europe Shop in 2016

LVMH’s DFS Group Plans To Open First Europe Shop in 2016

DFS Group, an operator of duty-free shops controlled by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA (MC), said it plans to open its first stores in Europe to cater to Chinese consumers who travel more frequently to the region. The company plans to add “a few” outlets in Europe in 2016 and is looking at prime destinations for Chinese tourists, such as France, Italy and Switzerland, Chief Operating Officer Michael Schriver said. DFS, which gets more than half of its global sales from Chinese shoppers, currently has no outlets in Europe. Read more of this post

Coffee Heads for Longest Slump Since 1972 on Brazil Crop Outlook

Coffee Heads for Longest Slump Since 1972 on Brazil Crop Outlook

Coffee futures headed for the worst rout in more than four decades as wet weather boosted the outlook for crops in Brazil, the world’s largest grower.

Increasing precipitation in Brazil this week will improve conditions for crops that have been able to flower multiple times amid ample rain, MDA Weather Services in Gaithersburg, Maryland, said yesterday. Soil moisture will also gain in Colombia, the second-biggest producer, the forecaster said. Read more of this post

Sugar Falling as Brazil Blaze Seen No Bar to Glut: Commodities

Sugar Falling as Brazil Blaze Seen No Bar to Glut: Commodities

Sugar is retreating from a one-year high as traders judge that record stockpiles in China and accelerating exports from India will more than offset lost supplies from a warehouse fire in Brazil. Raw-sugar futures fell 6.1 percent in New York since the Oct. 18 blaze damaged Brazil’s biggest port. Prices will drop another 8.9 percent to average 17.25 cents a pound in the second quarter, Deutsche Bank AG says. While Brazil’s center south, the largest producing region, may ship 500,000 metric tons less at the peak of its production cycle in the third quarter, that will still leave a global export glut of 1.5 million tons, according to Kingsman SA, a Lausanne, Switzerland-based research company. Read more of this post

Here are the signs that China’s Lehman moment is inevitable

Here are the signs that China’s Lehman moment is inevitable

By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros October 27, 2013

Money market rates in China climbed again last week, prompting more worries of a deja vu of June’s cash crunch that spooked global markets. That was when the Shibor—the Shanghai interbank offering rate, which tracks the interest rates banks charge each other—soared, reminding many of the Libor leap that happened just before Lehman’s demise in 2008. The likely cause is that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) declined to inject funds into the interbank market for a third time in a row Friday. Cash will get even scarcer this week, when banks move cash back onto their balance sheets to meet reserve ratio requirements. For that reason, the PBOC will likely open its tills on Tuesday, soothing the Shibor once again. Read more of this post

China’s new law hits tourism industry

2013-10-20 15:48

China’s new law hits tourism industry

By Kim Bo-eun

A new Chinese law is taking its toll on Korea’s tourism industry. From Oct. 1, Chinese travel agents are banned from selling cheap travel packages that include stops to overseas shopping centers, including those in Korea. The law is feared to create a kink in Korea’s plan to attract 12.5 million foreign tourists this year, a 12 percent increase from 2012.
It is designed to protect its own citizens traveling abroad, but could significantly decrease the amount of tourists and money spent in Korea. Read more of this post

China May Revamp Rural-Land Rights as Part of Reforms

China May Revamp Rural-Land Rights as Part of Reforms: Economy

China Politburo member Yu Zhengsheng said the Communist Party would consider “unprecedented” economic reforms next month, as a top research agency proposed changes to rural land ownership rules and social security. The Development Research Center under the State Council, or cabinet, has also proposed adding “outside investors” to boost competition, China News Service reported Oct. 26, citing a publicly released plan. Yu’s comments in the southern city of Nanning were reported by the official Xinhua News Agency on Oct. 26. Read more of this post