China’s Top-Down Take on Innovation; State-Run Model Is Limiting, Some Chinese Economists Say

September 29, 2013, 4:18 p.m. ET

China’s Top-Down Take on Innovation

State-Run Model Is Limiting, Some Chinese Economists Say

BOB DAVIS

BEIJING—To understand why China has such a tough time producing world-class innovations, take a look at how the Chinese play games. Ping pong tables are everywhere in public spaces and open to all comers, from kids to agile retirees, producing a reservoir of talent that has made China a ping pong innovator and champion. By contrast, basketball courts in China are generally locked up. Entrance is controlled by the state—in this case, school officials—shrinking the talent pool and the chance for youngsters to hone their moves. The result: basketball mediocrity. Read more of this post

Xi Jinping hopes traditional faiths can fill moral void in China

Xi Jinping hopes traditional faiths can fill moral void in China: sources

5:30pm EDT

By Benjamin Kang Lim and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – President Xi Jinping believes China is losing its moral compass and he wants the ruling Communist Party to be more tolerant of traditional faiths in the hope these will help fill a vacuum created by the country’s breakneck growth and rush to get rich, sources said. Xi, who grew up in Mao’s puritan China, is troubled by what he sees as the country’s moral decline and obsession with money, said three independent sources with ties to the leadership. Read more of this post

Global banks cautious on Shanghai free-trade zone

September 29, 2013 4:44 pm

Global banks cautious on Shanghai free-trade zone

By Simon Rabinovitch in Shanghai

Overseas banks have given Shanghai’s much-hyped free-trade zone a chilly reception – Sunday’s launch included just two branches of non-Chinese institutions. The slow start for the zone contrasts with the high expectations for its future, with analysts saying it could herald the most ambitious push for financial reforms in China in more than a decade. The Chinese government has declared that it wants to use the zone – a small 28 sq km sliver of Shanghai – as a test bed for policies from interest rate liberalisation to capital account opening. Read more of this post

Foreign baby formula firms adopt strategies to enter Chinese hospitals; The top five foreign formula makers in China are Mead Johnson, which takes 12.3% of the market share, Dumex with 11.7%, Wyeth with 11%, Abbott with 7.7%, and Nestle with 3.7%

Foreign baby formula firms adopt strategies to enter Chinese hospitals

Staff Reporter

2013-09-29

Foreign dairy firms have made significant efforts to promote their infant formula in hospitals across China because the formula provided by hospitals has a significant impact on the purchasing choices of new mothers. According to a report by state broadcaster China Central Television on Sept. 16, foreign formula companies such as Dumex have bribed hospital personnel to use their formula to feed newborns. Read more of this post

China’s market feels muscle of first tourism law; both package and individual tour prices are expected to skyrocket from Oct. 1 when China’s first tourism law comes into force

China’s market feels muscle of first tourism law

English.news.cn   2013-09-29

BEIJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) — Experienced traveler Liu Qiang has scrapped his plan to go to Hong Kong because of what he sees as obsenely high prices during the upcoming National Day holiday week. “The cost of a four-day package tour to Hong Kong was about 2,500 yuan (around 400 U.S. dollars) previously, but it is as much as 5,000 yuan during the holiday,” said Liu, 27, who works for an Internet company in Beijing. The bad news for people like Liu is that both package and individual tour prices are expected to skyrocket from Oct. 1 when China’s first tourism law comes into force. Read more of this post

China’s grand makeover plan a work in progress; fuzzy on implementation

China’s grand makeover plan a work in progress; fuzzy on implementation

5:35pm EDT

By Kevin Yao and Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s leaders will lay out plans to transform the world’s second-largest economy at a key party meeting in November, leaving the question of how to do it largely unanswered as much of the reform agenda is still a matter of heated internal debate. People familiar with the discussions say that out of a long list of reforms that the Communist Party’s 200-member Central Committee is set to announce, only a mooted financial overhaul has reached a point where there is a plan and a roadmap. Read more of this post

China Tiananmen Square Makeover Meets Cost Complaints; A giant vase installed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square ahead of a national holiday has met with scathing criticism from Chinese Internet users after a newspaper revealed its cost

China Tiananmen Square Makeover Meets Cost Complaints

By Agence France-Presse on 2:27 pm September 29, 2013.

Workers install a giant vase containing fruit and flowers as part of the upcoming Chinese National Day celebrations at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on September 24, 2013. The seven-day holiday sees millions of members of China’s newly wealthy and mobile middle-class travel locally and abroad. (AFP Photo/Mark Ralston)

Beijing. A giant vase installed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square ahead of a national holiday has met with scathing criticism from Chinese Internet users after a newspaper revealed its cost on Sunday. An enormous psychedelic-looking red pot topped with huge fake flowers and imitation peaches was installed this week on the square, the symbolic center of the Chinese state. But it came at a cost of more than 570,000 yuan ($93,000) up 8,000 yuan from the previous two years, according to the state-run Beijing Youth Daily. Read more of this post

China Markets Watchdog Embraces Risk After Everbright Fat Finger

China Markets Watchdog Embraces Risk After Everbright Fat Finger

China’s securities watchdog is forging ahead with rules that allow brokers to invest in complex financial products and enter risky new businesses even after an unprecedented $3.8 billion trading error roiled markets. In the past six weeks, the China Securities Regulatory Commission ended an 18-year hiatus on trading of treasury bond futures and said it would let more brokerages borrow stock for short selling. Those measures were disclosed after misplaced bets caused by faulty software at Everbright Securities Co. (601788) on Aug. 16 caused the wildest swings in Shanghai shares since 2009. Read more of this post

Shanghai free trade zone no game-changer for Hong Kong, for now

Shanghai free trade zone no game-changer for Hong Kong, for now

1:00am EDT

By Saikat Chatterjee and James Pomfret

HONG KONG (Reuters) – The launch of a Shanghai free trade zone heralds a new chapter in China’s drive to promote the yuan currency but it is unlikely to pose a competitive threat to Hong Kong any time soon and could instead provide more opportunities in the former British colony. Underpinned by its strong rule of law and freedoms under the “one country, two systems” formula since it was handed over to China 16 years ago, Hong Kong is a long-time beneficiary of preferential economic policies. Read more of this post

Tinker data, bankers, spies – daunting IPO landscape: Starting tomorrow, bankers and listing professionals could be jailed in the worst case scenario for their role in public listings in Hong Kong

Tinker data, bankers, spies – daunting IPO landscape
Vanson Soo
Monday, September 30, 2013

Starting tomorrow, bankers and listing professionals could be jailed in the worst case scenario for their role in public listings in Hong Kong. Up till recently the SAR has been a top capital-raising center and magnet for initial public offerings from mainland companies. The current clampdown on data and corporate investigations in China further complicates the situation. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission announced last December new measures to step up the regulatory regime for listing sponsors, including clarifications of their liabilities – up to civil and criminal liabilities – to be put into effect from October 1 and apply to all public listings filed from that date. Read more of this post

Hong Kong Poverty Line Shows Wealth Gap With One in Five Poor

Hong Kong Poverty Line Shows Wealth Gap With One in Five Poor

Hong Kong, a city with a surging number of millionaires and home to some of Asia’s richest people, finds a fifth of its population living in poverty. About 1.3 million people, or 19.6 percent of the population, were below the poverty line last year, according to a report commissioned by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying and released on Sept. 28. The benchmark, determined for the first time, was set at half of the city’s median household income, excluding impact of tax and welfare transfer, the report said. Read more of this post

Diesel founder taken aback by race for young designers; “Fashion is like soccer, only champions make a difference”

Diesel founder taken aback by race for young designers

9:43am EDT

By Astrid Wendlandt

PARIS (Reuters) – Renzo Rosso, the founder of Diesel, says competition for hot designers is now as intense as for football stars, as shown by the speed at which big luxury groups such as LVMH are investing in promising new fashion names. “Fashion is like soccer, only champions make a difference,” said the tattooed 58-year-old entrepreneur as he sat in the showroom of one of his brands, Maison Martin Margiela, in a converted 19th century convent in Paris. Read more of this post

Big in Japan? How James Packer’s push into Japan could help transform his empire

James Thomson Editor

Big in Japan? How James Packer’s push into Japan could help transform his empire

Published 30 September 2013 10:51, Updated 30 September 2013 12:52

Unlike his father and grandfather, James Packer is keen to expand his empire offshore. Photo: Louise Kennerley

There is a lovely scene in the recent television mini-series Power Games – which tells the story of a young Rupert Murdoch’s battles with Sir Frank Packer – where Sir Frank and his sons Kerry and Clyde are debating whether to follow Murdoch into the London market. Sir Frank scotches the move; the Packers will focus on Australia and let Murdoch blow himself up going global. Fiction though it is, the scene rings true. Neither Sir Frank nor Kerry Packer would make big investments overseas, preferring to build a formidable Australian empire that kept them amongst the richest and most powerful families in the country. Read more of this post

Ho Seeks Japan Casino as Development Limits Loom in Macau

Ho Seeks Japan Casino as Development Limits Loom in Macau

Lawrence Ho, son of Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho, plans to invest more than $5 billion in Japan if Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (MPEL) receives permission to build a casino there as he sees constraints on development at home. Ho’s maneuver to build projects in the world’s third-largest economy is part of his strategy to expand overseas for future growth, as government policies, limited land and a labor shortage in Macau could eventually restrict gaming development. Read more of this post

Stocks or Rent Choice Spurs Sales by Individuals: Korea Markets

Stocks or Rent Choice Spurs Sales by Individuals: Korea Markets

When Choi Jong Hyun found his 50 million won ($46,415) annual salary wasn’t enough to cover the 8 percent jump in rent for his Seoul apartment, he decided to cut back on stock investments rather than take on debt. “I would rather cash out the stocks I now hold and not pay additional interest,” Choi, 32, who works in the financial industry and has about 50 million won of investments, said by phone on Sept. 24. Read more of this post

Gangnam-Style Nip and Tuck Draws Tourists to Seoul’s Beauty Belt

Gangnam-Style Nip and Tuck Draws Tourists to Seoul’s Beauty Belt

Kylie Vu holds up a photo of her favorite South Korean actress on her iPhone and points. “I want a chin like hers,” she tells a beauty consultant at the BK Plastic Surgery clinic in Seoul’s upscale Gangnam district. Vu, 30, budgeted as much as $10,000 for a chin implant and face-lift after traveling 2,700 kilometers (1,680 miles) from Vietnam, where she manages five kindergartens. Read more of this post

Japanese savers are poised to pump $690 billion into stocks to benefit from new tax breaks as the government tries to avert a retirement cash crunch in the nation with the world’s oldest population and lowest interest rates

Nomura Sees Tax Breaks Driving $690 Billion Into Stocks

Japanese savers are poised to pump $690 billion into stocks to benefit from new tax breaks as the government tries to avert a retirement cash crunch in the nation with the world’s oldest population and lowest interest rates. The Nippon Individual Savings Account program, which opens for applications tomorrow, will allow individuals to buy 1 million yen ($10,143) a year of risk assets that are exempt from taxes on dividends and capital gains for five years. The plan will draw as much as 68 trillion yen through 2018, with 65 percent of users pulling money out of bank deposits to purchase securities, estimates from Nomura Research Institute show. Read more of this post

Abe Bets It’s Different This Time With First Tax Rise Since ’97

Abe Bets It’s Different This Time With First Tax Rise Since ’97

It’s different this time. The four most dangerous words in markets, according to former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. With Japan set to raise its sales tax for the first time since 1997, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s political future rides on a different outcome than last time — when the nation slid into a recession and the premier lost his job. To avoid a spending slump, Abe, 59, is poised to unveil a stimulus plan to counter the 3 percentage point bump in the sales levy. “Abe must know that breaking the economy would mean the end of Abenomics,” said Masayuki Kichikawa, chief Japan economist at Bank of America Corp. in Tokyo, referring to the initiative to reflate the world’s third largest economy after two decades of stagnation. “The miserable failure of the 1997 sales tax rise is stuck in the mind of Japanese politicians.” Read more of this post

Indonesia Inc. Feels Sting as Rupiah Languishes; Companies Review Business Plans With Currency Near Four-Year Low

Updated September 29, 2013, 1:26 p.m. ET

Indonesia Inc. Feels Sting as Rupiah Languishes

Companies Review Business Plans With Currency Near Four-Year Low

BEN OTTO

JAKARTA, Indonesia—The rupiah currency has missed out on a rebound in emerging markets since the U.S. Federal Reserve decided this month to keep the pace of its bond buying steady—and that’s bad news for Indonesia’s corporate sector. Currencies from the Brazilian real to the Indian rupee have moved higher since the Fed surprised markets Sept. 18 by not reducing its $85-billion-a-month bond-buying stimulus attempts. The decision to stand pat pushed down U.S. Treasury yields and made emerging-market assets relatively more attractive. Read more of this post

Record Defaults Seen on $40 Billion Recast Loans: India Credit

Record Defaults Seen on $40 Billion Recast Loans: India Credit

Restructured loans are defaulting at a record rate at Indian banks amid forecasts the worst economic slowdown in a decade will deepen, according to the investment banking unit of the nation’s biggest lender. As much as 20 percent of renegotiated credit in India’s banking system is now classified as in default, according to SBI Capital Markets Ltd. Such loans, which give borrowers a moratorium on payments, longer maturities or lower interest rates, more than doubled since 2009 to 2.5 trillion rupees ($40 billion) at the end of June, data from the Corporate Debt Restructuring Mechanism show. Read more of this post

Modi Slams India’s Gandhi Dynasty as Delhi Crowd Tops 100,000

Modi Slams India’s Gandhi Dynasty as Delhi Crowd Tops 100,000

India’s leading opposition figure Narendra Modi took aim at the Gandhi family political dynasty as he sharpened attacks on the ruling party before a crowd that topped 100,000 people ahead of state and national elections. Voters must choose between the Gandhis or a leader who once served tea on the railways and rose to prominence through hard work, Modi told supporters in New Delhi yesterday. He was making his first speech in the nation’s capital since the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party picked him as its choice for prime minister in a national election that must be held by May. Read more of this post

Gods forbid: India’s temples guard their gold from government

Gods forbid: India’s temples guard their gold from government

8:27pm EDT

By D. Jose

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (Reuters) – India’s Hindu temples are resisting divulging their gold holdings – perhaps nearly half the amount held in Fort Knox – amid mistrust of the motives of authorities who are trying to cut a hefty import bill that is hurting the economy. The central bank, which has already taken steps that have slowed to a trickle the incoming supplies that have exacerbated India’s current account deficit, has sent letters to some of the country’s richest temples asking for details of their gold. Read more of this post

Fonterra CEO Theo Spierings discusses how he managed the latest food-safety scare and the dairy exporter’s plans to rebuild consumer confidence

September 29, 2013, 12:43 p.m. ET

Fonterra Aims to Rebuild Consumer Confidence

CEO Theo Spierings discusses how he managed the latest food-safety scare and the dairy exporter’s plans to rebuild consumer confidence.

REBECCA HOWARD

When Theo Spierings’s phone rang on Aug. 1, he knew it must be bad news. The chief executive of Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd., the world’s biggest dairy exporter, was in Europe to attend a family funeral, and he didn’t expect to be disturbed. But the message passed to him from the company’s headquarters in New Zealand couldn’t wait: Bacteria had been discovered in some of the company’s milk products. So began a chain of events that sparked a global recall of some Fonterra products, hurt trade ties with China, and caused New Zealand’s currency to fall sharply against the U.S. dollar. It also created tensions between Fonterra and New Zealand’s government, which wants to know how much the cooperative knew about the food-safety issue, and when. Dairy sales overseas account for a quarter of exports from New Zealand, nicknamed the Saudi Arabia of milk. Fonterra—a cooperative of 10,500 individual farmers—is among the nation’s most profitable organizations. Netherlands-born Mr. Spierings has led the cooperative’s efforts to repair its reputation over the past two months, including making a public apology in China, a major buyer of its milk products. Read more of this post

Telenor Predicts Fivefold Myanmar Wireless Surge

Telenor Predicts Fivefold Myanmar Wireless Surge

Telenor ASA (TEL) Chief Executive Officer Jon Fredrik Baksaas said mobile-phone subscriptions in Myanmar, a new market for the wireless carrier, will surge more than fivefold to about half of the population by the end of 2017. Telenor, the Nordic region’s largest phone company and one of two operators selected to build Myanmar’s telecommunications network, expects the license to be issued formally by the end of the year, Baksaas said. Services will start eight to nine months after that, he said in an interview in Singapore Sept. 28. Read more of this post

Myanmar’s Old Guard Is Clinging To An $8 Billion Jade Empire

Myanmar’s Old Guard Is Clinging To An $8 Billion Jade Empire

ANDREW R.C. MARSHALL AND MIN ZAYAR OO, REUTERS SEP. 29, 2013, 9:49 AM 2,163

HPAKANT, Myanmar (Reuters) – Tin Tun picked all night through teetering heaps of rubble to find the palm-sized lump of jade he now holds in his hand. He hopes it will make him a fortune. It’s happened before. “Last year I found a stone worth 50 million kyat,” he said, trekking past the craters and slag heaps of this notorious jade-mining region in northwest Myanmar. That’s about $50,000 – and it was more than enough money for Tin Tun, 38, to buy land and build a house in his home village. Read more of this post

New rules on IPOs allow smaller companies to file their listing documents privately with regulators and then reveal them as little as three weeks before the company proposes a price for its shares

September 29, 2013, 6:02 p.m. ET

Companies Find a Faster IPO Turnaround Doesn’t Hurt

Shares of Firms That Used New Rules Performed Similarly

TELIS DEMOS

A week, in the words of the late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, is a long time in politics. But how long are three weeks in the stock market? Investors are starting to find out. New rules on initial public offerings allow smaller companies to file their listing documents privately with regulators and then reveal them as little as three weeks before the company proposes a price for its shares. Traditionally, investors have had months to pore over such documents. Read more of this post

IPOs in Europe Leapfrog U.S. as Cheap Valuations Draw Investors

IPOs in Europe Leapfrog U.S. as Cheap Valuations Draw Investors

The volume of initial public offerings in Europe jumped more than sixfold in the third quarter as investors lured by cheaper valuations and strengthening economies put their money to work in the region. IPOs in Europe surged at more than double the pace of those in the U.S., according to data compiled by Bloomberg, as Deutsche Annington Immobilien SE, Germany’s largest residential landlord, and U.K. property broker Foxtons Group Plc sold shares. Volume rose more than 10 percent globally compared with a year earlier, weighed down by a 40 percent drop in Asia. Read more of this post

Eisenhower Rally Repeating as S&P 500 Moves in Lockstep With ’54

Eisenhower Rally Repeating as S&P 500 Moves in Lockstep With ’54

U.S. stocks are trading virtually in lockstep with 1954, the best year for American equity and the time when shares finally recovered all their losses from the Great Depression. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index’s returns in 2013 are tracking day-to-day price moves in 1954 almost identically, according to data compiled by Bespoke Investment Group and Bloomberg. In no other year are the trading patterns more similar to 2013 since data on the index began 86 years ago. The correlation coefficient between this year and 1954, when the benchmark gauge rose 45 percent, is 0.95 out of a maximum of 1. Read more of this post

British housing market facing new bubble fears

British housing market facing new bubble fears

Sunday, September 29, 2013 – 12:02

AFP

LONDON – Britain’s house market is showing strong signs of recovery largely on the back of surging prices in and around London, fuelling fears of a new property bubble, according to analysts. The average cost of a home in the capital surged by 10 per cent between July and September compared with the third quarter of 2012, British bank and major mortgage provider Nationwide said on Friday. Read more of this post