Thai Amnesty Plan Could Be a Strategic Blunder

November 5, 2013, 3:58 PM

Thai Amnesty Plan Could Be a Strategic Blunder

JAMES HOOKWAY

BANGKOK—It might be too early to call time on Thaksin Shinawatra’s influence over Thai politics, but his sister Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s plan to introduce a wide-ranging amnesty enabling him to return to Thailand a free man increasingly looks like a strategic blunder. And already there are signs that the Thaksin camp is beginning to ease off its full-court press as thousands of protests continue to demonstrate against the controversial bill, which was passed by the lower house of parliament on Friday. Read more of this post

South Korean Businesses Quit Kaesong

November 5, 2013, 5:18 PM

South Korean Businesses Quit Kaesong

By Kwanwoo Jun

South Korean businesses are exiting the Kaesong industrial park in North Korea,making Seoul’s efforts to attract foreign investment to the site an even tougher sell. At least nine South Korean firms have ended or have decided to end business at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, just north of the inter-Korean military border, because of uncertain investment prospects and financial crunches following a five-month operational halt amid cross-border tensions. Read more of this post

Beijing to Reduce New Vehicle License Plates by 38%, Daily Says

Beijing to Reduce New Vehicle License Plates by 38%, Daily Says

China’s capital will reduce the number of new passenger vehicles allowed on the city’s roads by 38 percent next year as part of efforts to ease pollution and traffic congestion, according to the Beijing Daily. Beijing will cut the annual number of new license plates to 150,000 in 2014 from 240,000 now, according to the report posted on the city government’s website today. By 2017, 90,000 of the plates will go to conventional autos, with the rest reserved for new-energy vehicles, the report said. Read more of this post

World’s Richest Add $200 Billion as Global Markets Surge

World’s Richest Add $200 Billion as Global Markets Surge

This year’s top 100 billionaires own discount supermarkets and luxury brands, oil refineries and cement factories. They span the decades from millennial Mark Zuckerberg to 93-year-old Karl Albrecht. This diverse bunch enjoys a unifying characteristic: Most spent the year making more money. Their collective fortunes have soared $200 billion to $2.1 trillion since Bloomberg Markets published its inaugural list in December 2012. Read more of this post

China Is Choking on Its Success

China Is Choking on Its Success

Walking through Beijing’s Tiananmen Square last week, a German family of five surrounded me, all wearing large face masks and sunglasses. They weren’t robbing me, just asking me to take their photo. When I yelled the customary “Say ‘cheese,’” the dad joked: “We are smiling under here.” Only China’s pollution bubble is no laughing matter, and tourists tell the story. Thanks to extreme air pollution, foreign arrivals plunged by roughly 50 percent in the first three-quarters of the year. Beijing could see even fewer visitors to the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the famous square dominated by a painting of Mao Zedong thanks to images of acrid smog that have been beaming around the globe. Read more of this post

Is Germany Repeating American Errors at Bretton Woods?

Is Germany Repeating American Errors at Bretton Woods?

At the founding of the Bretton Woods international monetary system in 1944, the world’s dominant creditor nation, the U.S., set out to revive a fixed exchange-rate system by offering a war-torn, debt-ridden world a new deal in monetary relations, one to be supported by concessionary dollar loans from a new International Monetary Fund. Today, Germany is trying to resuscitate the periphery of the crisis-stricken euro area in much the same way, and it is worth looking back at the formation of Bretton Woods for clues as to how this will play out. Read more of this post

Curious crowds disrupt Istanbul’s new Europe-Asia rail service

Curious crowds disrupt Istanbul’s new Europe-Asia rail service

Wed, Oct 30 2013

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turks intrigued by Istanbul’s new underwater rail line linking Europe and Asia are overcrowding trains by riding to and fro under the Bosphorus, forcing closure of one station and causing delays by pressing emergency stop buttons, state railways said. The service was also hit by a brief power cut in the morning rush hour, prompting television footage of passengers walking through the tunnel next to a stationary train. Read more of this post

Master Kong owner apologises as food scandals hit Taiwan

Master Kong owner apologises as food scandals hit Taiwan

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 – 22:20

AFP

TAIPEI – The owner of the Master Kong instant noodle brand apologised Tuesday after its Taiwan units were ordered to recall tens of thousands of bottles of adulterated cooking oil. Ting Hsin International Group made the public apology amid a string of scandals involving several major cooking oil retailers that have rocked the island. The group was on Sunday ordered to remove from shelves 21 types of cooking oil that were tainted with copper chlorophyllin. Read more of this post

Italian banks near saturation point on government debt

Italian banks near saturation point on government debt

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 – 17:47

Silvia Aloisi and Valentina Za

Reuters

MILAN – Italian banks are near saturation point after two years spent frantically buying their own government’s bonds, forcing the Treasury to find alternative investors at home and abroad to finance a 2-trillion euro debt. Lenders’ ability to soak up yet more Italian sovereign debt depends largely on the European Central Bank – which in turn says Italy is crucial to the fate of the entire euro zone. Read more of this post

BOJ Struggles to Convince on 2% as Abenomics Shine Fades

BOJ Struggles to Convince on 2% as Abenomics Shine Fades

Half a year after Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda unleashed record monetary easing, economists see the bank failing to meet its inflation target, underscoring the case for stronger steps to revive the economy. While the median estimate of BOJ board members released last week showed the bank expects consumer prices to rise 1.9 percent in the 2015 fiscal year — in line with a 2-percent-in-two-years goal laid out in April — just two of 34 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News see the target met in that timeframe. Read more of this post

Harley Eyes Global Buyers for New Lightweight Bikes

Harley Eyes Global Buyers for New Lightweight Bikes

Harley-Davidson Inc. (HOG), which has long dominated the market for heavyweight motorcycles, is rolling out its first Harley-brand lightweight bikes in decades as it eyes a global market that is big and, in some ways, smaller. At events in Kansas City, Missouri, and Milan today, Harley is introducing the Street 500 and Street 750, the latest in its Dark Custom line of bikes that aim to bring Harley’s classic look and sound for a modern and younger audience. Read more of this post

Cotton Slumping as Glut Expands Record China Hoard

Cotton Slumping as Glut Expands Record China Hoard

China is hoarding a record amount of cotton to aid farmers as global production exceeds demand for a fourth consecutive year, increasing the risk of a supply surge that would tip prices into a bear market. The biggest producer and user will have 12.7 million metric tons in inventory by July 31, 62 percent of the global total and enough to make about 71 billion t-shirts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. The government may end its stockpiling program the following season, Macquarie Group Ltd. says. Prices will drop 8.4 percent to 69.5 cents a pound in a year, according to the median of 12 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Read more of this post

Thai Top Money Manager Sells Stocks as Protests Hurt Growth

Thai Top Money Manager Sells Stocks as Protests Hurt Growth

Thailand’s top-performing equity fund manager has reduced holdings of domestic shares on expectations that protests against the government’s amnesty bill will spur prolonged political conflict and curb economic growth. BBL Asset Management Co., which runs seven of the ten best-performing Thai equity funds during the past three years, has raised cash holdings since mid-October, Voravan Tarapoom, chief executive officer at Bangkok-based BBL, which oversees about $10 billion, said in an e-mail. The benchmark SET Index (SET) plunged 2.9 percent yesterday, the most since Sept. 23, as an estimated 10,000 protesters marched through Bangkok’s streets. Read more of this post

Shanghai Zendai Property plans to transform a Johannesburg suburb into the “New York of Africa” with an 80 billion rand ($7.8 billion) investment over the next 15 years

Shanghai Zendai Plans $7.8 Billion ‘New York of Africa’

Shanghai Zendai Property Ltd. (755) plans to transform a Johannesburg suburb into the “New York of Africa” with an 80 billion rand ($7.8 billion) investment over the next 15 years, Chairman Dai Zhikang said. The company, based in Hong Kong, will build a financial hub, as many as 35,000 houses, an educational center and a sport stadium in the 1,600 hectares (3,950 acres) of land it purchased from AECI Ltd. (AFE) in Modderfontein, eastern Johannesburg. The area, currently used for manufacturing, is about 15 kilometers (9 miles) east of Sandton, the city’s main financial center, and the same distance west of OR Tambo International Airport, Africa’s biggest airport. Read more of this post

Problems for bitcoin in China

Problems for bitcoin in China

Staff Reporter

2013-11-05

The sudden closure of an online trading platform of the virtual currency bitcoin in China brought to the fore the problems surrounding the new currency in the country, where such transactions are surging, the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly newspaper reported. Chinese users of GBL, a bitcoin trading platform that claims it is based in Hong Kong, were shocked when they found on Oct 26 that access to the service’s website was no longer available. Read more of this post

New township projects in China may cause bubble to burst

New township projects in China may cause bubble to burst

Staff Reporter

2013-11-05

Under the auspices of urbanization, many municipal governments in China have jumped onto the bandwagon of “new township” projects in recent years, fueling realty speculation and adding to concerns regarding the country’s property bubble, according to the news portal NetEase. Authorities in Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong province broke ground on construction of its New Knowledge City on Oct. 29. The project in Luogang district will encompass 75 billion yuan (US$12.3 million) of investment, and will spearhead the implementation of a further 10 new township projects in the city. Read more of this post

China premier warns against loose money policies

China premier warns against loose money policies

12:46am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) – China needs to sustain economic growth of 7.2 percent to ensure a stable job market, Premier Li Keqiang said as he warned the government against further expanding already loose money policies. In one of the few occasions when a top official has enunciated the minimum level of growth needed for employment, Li said calculations show China’s economy must grow 7.2 percent annually to create 10 million jobs a year. Read more of this post