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

After a Decade, SAC Capital Blinks; The Justice Department’s deal with SAC Capital caps an investigation that turned a mighty hedge fund into a symbol of financial wrongdoing

NOVEMBER 4, 2013, 8:54 PM

After a Decade, SAC Capital Blinks

By BEN PROTESS and PETER LATTMAN

SAC Capital first sought to fend off a federal indictment. Then the hedge fund, run by the billionaire Steven A. Cohen, offered to pay about $700 million to settle. Finally, SAC suggested it plead guilty to only some of the criminal charges in the five-count indictment. But at every turn, the government refused. And so on Monday, SAC agreed to plead guilty to all five counts of insider trading violations and pay a record $1.2 billion penalty, becoming the first large Wall Street firm in a generation to confess to criminal conduct. The deal caps a decade-long investigation that has turned a mighty hedge fund into a symbol of financial wrongdoing. Read more of this post

The Chinese are anxious over the future; The deep-seated concern about the next stages of growth

The Chinese are anxious over the future

By Fred Hiatt, Monday, November 4, 9:05 AM

BEIJING

Traveling here last week after America’s partial government shutdown and near-default, I expected to encounter a surge of confidence in China’s inevitable, eventual emergence as the world’s greatest power. That is not what I found. Some people here do take pleasure in the travails of democracy in the world’s greatest hectorer on the subject. Some shed crocodile tears about America’s decline and President Obama’s failure to attend a recent summit in Asia. Read more of this post

New warning on overcapacity in China; Banks told not to lend to projects in five sectors

New warning on overcapacity

Updated: 2013-11-05 00:17

By Zheng Yangpeng (China Daily) Read more of this post

Less sin, more Shrek in Macau as China takes aim in corruption fight

Less sin, more Shrek in Macau as China takes aim in corruption fight

Monday, November 4, 2013 – 09:10

Reuters

MACAU – The media scrum surrounding the politically connected chairman of a Chinese financial services company was interested in one particular unpaid loan. The amount – US$1.3 million (S$1.62 million) – was nothing extraordinary. But the story behind it was. Xie Xiaoqing, chairman of Rongzhong Group, was sued in January for failing to repay the money to Sands China Ltd, US billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s Macau gambling unit. Read more of this post

How China became the biggest boy in the playground

How China became the biggest boy in the playground

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 – 05:00

Peh Shing Huei

The Straits Times

After five emperors, two regime changes and millions of lives lost in a century, China has completed almost two-thirds of its great revival. To be precise, the job is 62 per cent done. Chinese economist Yang Yiyong has it down pat. “If you can grade beauty in a pageant and measure emotional intelligence, I don’t see why you can’t count a nation’s revival,” he said, grinning. Read more of this post

Home ownership an unobtainable dream in China

Home ownership an unobtainable dream in China

CNN
November 5, 2013, 12:20 am TWN

CNN–Cui Shufeng is a retired government worker in Beijing. She is one of the lucky homeowners who bought her place long before the housing sector galloped out of reach for the average Chinese salary worker. “It is ridiculously high,” she says pointing to apartments in her neighborhood. “These homes near the school here are CNY 70,000 (US$11,400) per square meter. It’s not even worth CNY 7000 (US$ 1140) per square meter because it’s not even good quality.” Read more of this post

China’s Tesla Risks Overcharging

China’s Tesla Risks Overcharging

ABHEEK BHATTACHARYA

Updated Nov. 3, 2013 11:06 p.m. ET

Tesla Motors TSLA +8.03% isn’t the only stock exciting investors about the future of electric cars. Chinese electric-car maker BYD 1211.HK -0.39% —backed by a major investment from Warren Buffett —has seen its Hong Kong-listed shares soar 153% in the past year, even as Chinese auto stocks are up 66%. This charge could be set to power down. Read more of this post

China plans to prove the sceptics wrong; It is unclear whether a system that is geared to growth can also provide clean air and water

November 4, 2013 7:00 pm

China plans to prove the sceptics wrong

By Gideon Rachman

It is unclear whether a system that is geared to growth can also provide clean air and water

Foreign commentators and local bloggers regularly predict that China is heading for an economic and political crisis. But the country’s leaders are in strikingly confident mood. They believe that China can keep growing at more than 7 per cent a year for at least another decade. That would mean the country’s economy – already the second-largest in the world – would double in size. And, depending on the assumptions you make about US growth and exchange rates, it would probably mean that China becomes the world’s largest economy by 2020. Read more of this post

China’s manufacturers feel the squeeze as costs rise

November 4, 2013 8:15 am

China’s manufacturers feel the squeeze as costs rise

By Demetri Sevastopulo in Guangzhou

Perched in front of hundreds of vibrantly coloured backpacks, each bearing the name of a famous football nation, a middle-aged woman from Fujian province worries about the squeeze on her wafer-thin margins. Just before lunch on the opening day of the third phase of the Canton Fair – a huge trade show held in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province – Ms Lin has secured no orders. Read more of this post

China: Red restoration; Foreign companies are looking for signs that tough tactics are no more than short-term political moves

November 4, 2013 7:21 pm

China: Red restoration

By Jamil Anderlini

Foreign companies are looking for signs that tough tactics are no more than short-term political moves

In the tranquil surroundings of the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing two weeks ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping was almost effusive as he welcomed an all-star group of global capitalists. “Many of you are renowned entrepreneurs and business leaders in the world today and you all have profound insight into the global economy,” Mr Xi told the likes of Mike Duke, Walmart CEO, Indra Nooyi, the head of PepsiCo, Muhtar Kent, Coca-Colachairman, David Rubenstein, Carlyle Group founder, and Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the former AIG boss. “Your suggestions are a very important source of inspiration for the Chinese government.” Read more of this post

Big Brother blinded: Security fears in China as smog disrupts surveillance cameras

Big Brother blinded: Security fears in China as smog disrupts surveillance cameras

Tuesday, 05 November, 2013, 2:36am

Stephen Chen binglin.chen@scmp.com

Teams of scientists assigned to find a solution as heavy pollution makes national surveillance network useless, raising fear of terror attack

To the central government, the smog that blankets the country is not just a health hazard, it’s a threat to national security. Last month visibility in Harbin dropped to below three metres because of heavy smog. On days like these, no surveillance camera can see through the thick layers of particles, say scientists and engineers. Read more of this post

Fall of Brazil’s Batista embarrasses President Dilma Rousseff; Politicians sure to cringe at close links to failed entrepreneur

November 4, 2013 1:37 pm

Fall of Brazil’s Batista embarrasses President Dilma Rousseff

By Joe Leahy in São Paulo

Politicians sure to cringe at close links to failed entrepreneur

There must be moments in every politician’s career that make them cringe when recalling later on. For Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff one of these is probably the day in April last year when she helped failed entrepreneur Eike Batista commemorate the “first oil” from what are now his failed fields off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Read more of this post

Diageo Woos Africa With Johnnie Walker One Shot at a Time

Diageo Woos Africa With Johnnie Walker One Shot at a Time

In Africa, where most spirits are what the industry calls “unbranded” — meaning “homemade” — Diageo Plc (DGE) is betting smaller bottles can persuade more drinkers to sample its well-known labels instead. Diageo, the maker of Smirnoff vodka, Johnnie Walker whisky, and scores of other liquor brands, has introduced 20-centiliter containers — a bit less than a third the size of a normal bottle of spirits — in sub-Saharan Africa. The approach provides a cheaper way for friends to share one of Diageo’s global brands instead of choosing a local tipple or a beer. Read more of this post

Brazil’s oil groups fail to live up to hype of five years ago when vast offshore oil discoveries promised to transform the country

November 3, 2013 5:19 pm

Brazil’s oil groups fail to live up to hype

By Samantha Pearson in São Paulo

Bewitched by the sales pitch of its charming founder, investors had high hopes for the Brazilian oil company. But several years after going public, the Rio de Janeiro-based start-up has yet to find oil at any of its wells. Its cash is dwindling and its shares have slumped about 90 per cent during the past year. The company in question, however, is not Eike Batista’s OGX, which triggered Latin America’s largest corporate default last week by filing for bankruptcy protection, but the little-known company HRT. Read more of this post

Buyers Eye Hong Kong Banks for China Links

Buyers Eye Hong Kong Banks for China Links

Companies That Want to Enter China’s Banking Sector Look to Hong Kong Lenders With Chinese Licenses

ISABELLA STEGER and YVONNE LEE

Updated Nov. 4, 2013 10:04 a.m. ET

Chinese financial companies eager to break into banking in their country may have better luck looking outside the mainland, as a recent offer by brokerage owner Yue Xiu Enterprises (Holdings) Ltd. for Hong Kong’s Chong Hing Bank Ltd. 1111.HK -0.29%shows. Yue Xiu said Oct. 25 it has made an offer for a 75% stake in Chong Hing Bank for 11.64 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$1.50 billion), in what could be the first sale of a Hong Kong bank since 2010. The attraction, an official at Yue Xiu said, is less Chong Hing’s exposure to Hong Kong, a city of eight million, than its Chinese banking license, through which the family-owned bank has one branch in Guangdong. Read more of this post

Thai Protesters Opposing Amnesty Law Rally in Streets of Bangkok

Thai Protesters Opposing Amnesty Law Rally in Streets of Bangkok

Thailand’s biggest opposition party led thousands of supporters on a march through Bangkok’s streets today in an attempt to derail government efforts to pass an amnesty law for political offenses. About 10,000 demonstrators joined rallies that paralyzed traffic in separate parts of Bangkok, according to police estimates. The Democrat party has vowed to continue organizing demonstrations unless the government scraps the bill. Read more of this post

Backlash Over Thai Amnesty Bill Spreads; Plan to Absolve Former Leader Thaksin Draws Opponents to the Streets

Backlash Over Thai Amnesty Bill Spreads

Plan to Absolve Former Leader Thaksin Draws Opponents to the Streets

JAMES HOOKWAY

Updated Nov. 4, 2013 10:12 a.m. ET

BANGKOK—A backlash broke out on the streets of Thailand’s capital Monday over a bill that would absolve the country’s leaders of crimes committed over nearly a decade of political turmoil. Early Monday morning, thousands of protesters joined forces at an intersection near Bangkok’s commercial center to protest the proposed amnesty for Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as prime minister in a 2006 military coup that set off years of instability in Thailand. Mr. Thaksin, a 64-year-old telecom tycoon who ran Thailand for five years, has been living in self-imposed exile, evading imprisonment on a corruption conviction that he says was politically motivated. Read more of this post

Indian jewellery ad celebrates remarriage; Sites called divorceematrimony. com and secondshaadi.com, which means second marriage in Hindi, are popular

Indian jewellery ad celebrates remarriage

Tuesday, November 5, 2013 – 05:00

Nirmala Ganapathy

The Straits Times

INDIA – A new advertisement by a jewellery company showing a beautiful bride with a caramel complexion getting married as her daughter looks on has put the focus on remarriage in a country where many women are still hemmed in by conservative traditions. The advertisement, which is for the wedding line of India’s Tanishq brand, shows the bride putting on her jewellery, then walking hand in hand with her daughter to the stage for the marriage ceremony. Read more of this post

Gillette’s ‘Shave India Movement’

November 4, 2013 4:08 pm

Gillette’s ‘Shave India Movement’

By Srinivas Reddy and Christopher Dula

The story. While Procter & Gamble’s Gillette safety razors have become the dominant brand in nearly every developed market, sales of its flagship product – the three-blade Mach3 – in India were disappointing. Yet there was a huge potential market in India, where most of the 400m-plus men of shaving age used double-edge razors. By 2008, years of traditional marketing had failed to increase sales of Gillette razors. Sharat Verma, brand manager for Gillette India, decided it needed to adopt radical new tactics to expand its 20 per cent market share in the razor category. Read more of this post