South Korea’s Spicy Kimchi Index to Rival Big Mac

South Korea’s Spicy Kimchi Index to Rival Big Mac

By Meeyoung Cho on 3:49 pm November 8, 2013.
If the Economist magazine’s Big Mac Index is too fattening, South Korea may have the answer with a Kimchi Index tracking the cost of ingredients in the pungent cabbage dish that is gaining fans worldwide as a healthy “superfood.” Kimchi-making season has just started in the Asian country and a shortage of locally produced cabbage has been enough to trigger hand-wringing editorials and the import of what Koreans regard as inferior Chinese cabbage to make their national dish. South Korea’s agriculture ministry launched the index on Friday, saying it would be published weekly to alert consumers if prices proved to be “seriously volatile.” Read more of this post

Large retail shops change consumers’ shopping pattern; E-Mart, Korea’s largest discount store chain, said its shop in Chang-dong located in the north part of Seoul, will mark its 20th anniversary

Large retail shops change consumers’ shopping pattern

Sohn Dong-woo, Lee Yu-jin

2013.11.08 16:35:00

E-Mart, Korea’s largest discount store chain, said Friday its shop in Chang-dong located in the north part of Seoul, will mark its 20th anniversary next Tuesday.
The 20-year-old retail shop and the advent of followers grew rapidly for a short period, changing the nation’s retail industry and consumers’ shopping practices completely. Large retail shops take up a significant part of Korea’s retail industry. Their market value reaches 38.8 trillion won ($36.44 billion), larger than that of department stores with 29.1 trillion won. The number of such shops amount to 470 in Korea and 627, including those outside Korea.  Read more of this post

122 Korean SMBs to go under restructuring

122 SMBs to go under restructuring

Lee Jin-myung

2013.11.08 15:56:54

South Korea’s 112 small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) will face restructuring. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) along with creditor banks conducted credit risk assessment of 1,502 SMBs with weaker financials Friday and thereby rated 54 companies as grade C, a rating reserved for companies that need workout, and 58 companies as grade D, a rating for those that need to go under court receivership or shut down business. The total number of SMBs subject to restructuring was up 15.5 percent from a year ago to the highest level unseen since 2010.  Read more of this post

Savings tapped as pay falls: ‘Abenomics’ on notice

Savings tapped as pay falls: ‘Abenomics’ on notice

31% of households lack financial assets

BLOOMBERG

NOV 8, 2013

The share of Japanese households with no financial assets rose to a record high as falling incomes forced people to dig into their savings, highlighting the potential for widening disparities under “Abenomics.” The proportion reached 31 percent, according to a Bank of Japan survey released Thursday in, up from 26 percent a year earlier and the highest since the poll began in 1963. The BOJ surveyed 8,000 households of two or more people aged 20 years or older from June 14 though July 23. Read more of this post

Indonesian finance minister Basri Sees Rupiah Back to 2009 Levels After QE Taper

Basri Sees Rupiah Back to 2009 Levels After QE Taper

By Bloomberg on 5:10 pm November 8, 2013.

Chatib Basri said the rupiah and bond yields will return to levels seen in 2009 after the Federal Reserve cuts stimulus that has buoyed emerging-market assets. (GA Photo/Defrizal)

Indonesia’s rupiah and bond yields will return to levels seen in 2009 after the Federal Reserve cuts stimulus that has buoyed emerging-market assets, Finance Minister Chatib Basri said. The currency traded at an average of 10,396 per dollar in 2009, compared with 11,408 as of 1:15 p.m. in Jakarta, according to prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg. Read more of this post

How the Holes in Indonesia’s Safety Nets Hamper Poverty Reduction

How the Holes in Indonesia’s Safety Nets Hamper Poverty Reduction

By IRIN News on 4:24 pm November 8, 2013.

Indonesia’s economy grew by roughly 6 percent in 2013, but its poverty reduction has nearly stalled with almost half the population living in poverty — and experts struggling to identify and serve the neediest among them. “It’s true that [social] targeting is not easy and it’s complicated,” Nina Sardjunani, the Indonesian government’s deputy development planning minister, told IRIN. Read more of this post

Luxury brands follow wealthy customers

November 8, 2013 9:04 pm

Luxury brands follow wealthy customers

By Rachel Sanderson

Call it the year of transition. A slowing in the Chinese luxury goods market, returning confidence among US buyers, the growing power of tourist shoppers and a relentless incursion from the digital world – from online shopping to smart watches – are all shaking up the industry of watches and jewellery. The cue for change came from Richemont, the industry’s bellwether. Johann Rupert, its billionaire tycoon owner, chose this year to take a sabbatical after a quarter of a century running the group whose other brands include Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels. Read more of this post

Shanghai raised the minimum down payment required for buyers of a second home to 70 percent from 60 percent as house prices in China’s financial hub surge

Shanghai Raises Home Down-Payment Requirement as Prices Jump

Shanghai raised the minimum down payment required for buyers of a second home to 70 percent from 60 percent as house prices in China’s financial hub surge. Counties and municipal departments should take measures to ensure the city’s annual price-control target is met, according to a statement on the local housing bureau’s website. The city also tightened the qualifications required for non-local home buyers and will increase residential land supplies, according to the statement. Read more of this post

History Suggests China Plenum Reforms Will Be Limited

History Suggests China Plenum Reforms Will Be Limited

By Bill Powell on 4:04 pm November 8, 2013.

Shanghai. If history is any guide, the next wave of Chinese reform is likely to be smaller and slower than before. As President Xi Jinping and other Communist Party leaders gather at the weekend for a landmark conclave, foreign investors hoping that wide-ranging reforms will follow should consider that previous such meetings have shown a pattern of diminishing returns. Read more of this post

Chinese Industrialization and its Discontents

Chinese Industrialization and its Discontents

BARRY EICHENGREEN

NOV 8, 2013

TOKYO – As the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party convenes in Beijing, China stands at a crossroads. Its recent growth record is stupendous; no country in history can match it. But China’s economic imbalances are also stupendous. The country has sustained its output growth by investing fully one-half of GDP, though no country can productively invest more than a third of national income for an extended period. Household consumption accounts for only one-third of GDP, compared to two-thirds in a normal economy. Read more of this post

Chinese Attacks Ignite Terrorism Debate; Tiananmen Square, Central China Violence Provoke Different Set of Reactions; “The government ought to contemplate the source of these conflicts. That’s more important than arresting and executing

Chinese Attacks Ignite Terrorism Debate

Tiananmen Square, Central China Violence Provoke Different Set of Reactions

JOSH CHIN

Nov. 8, 2013 3:32 p.m. ET

BEIJING—Two deadly attacks in China in the weeks leading up to a much-anticipated leadership meeting have ignited debate around the thorny question of what China considers to be terrorism. State media said the culprit in the latest attack, in which homemade explosives detonated outside a Communist Party building in central China, was “dissatisfied with society.” Meanwhile, officials and state media have said a suicide attack last week at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square was the work of terrorists. Read more of this post

China Can’t Be a Global Innovation Leader Unless It Does These Three Things

China Can’t Be a Global Innovation Leader Unless It Does These Three Things

by Anil Gupta and Haiyan Wang  |   1:00 PM November 8, 2013

When the Chinese Communist Party’s central committee wraps up the Third Plenum on November 12, 2014, a shift from efficiency to innovation will likely be one of the major planks in its vision for China.  The government’s imperatives are clear: It wants to double incomes by 2020 in the face of a declining population of working-age; an appreciating currency, and, relative to other emerging economies, high and rising wages.  Promoting innovation is also one of the eight key reform priorities in the “383” plan being circulated by the State Council’s Development Research Center. Read more of this post

A Chinese City Seeks to Turn Migrants Into Urbanites; Tongling’s Recipe for Growth: Giving Rural Workers Urban Benefits

A Chinese City Seeks to Turn Migrants Into Urbanites

Tongling’s Recipe for Growth: Giving Rural Workers Urban Benefits

BOB DAVIS

Nov. 8, 2013 7:01 p.m. ET

TONGLING, China—Tongling, a copper-mining center since the Ming dynasty, is running low on ore. The Yangtze River city wants to turn itself into a manufacturing center, but it lacks a critical ingredient: a steady supply of factory workers. So it is doing what many places in China are unwilling to do. It is inviting migrants and their families to settle, giving them the same rights to education, health care and housing as locals, and even letting émigrés from China’s villages retain their exemption from China’s notorious one-child policy, so they can have a second child. Read more of this post

Pension lessons from Down Under

November 8, 2013 7:11 pm

Pension lessons from Down Under

By Josephine Cumbo

Australia may pack less punch on cricket pitches and rugby fields these days, but when it comes to pensions, Aussies still reign supreme. Their national “superannuation” scheme, known locally as “super”, is the envy of the world. As many countries, including the UK, beginto tackle their pension savings crisis, Australia can quite comfortably boast that nearly 12m of its 23m citizens have a workplace pension pot, and are on course for a decent retirement. Read more of this post

UN Says Meth Boom Sweeping Asia

UN Says Meth Boom Sweeping Asia

By Agence France-Presse on 1:48 pm November 8, 2013.
Bangkok. The United Nations on Friday sounded the alarm over record seizures of methamphetamine across much of Asia as the illegal drug floods streets and clubs. Last year 227 million methamphetamine pills were seized in East and Southeast Asia — up 59 percent from the year before and a more than seven-fold increase compared with 2008, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said. Read more of this post