The world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund is looking to more than double the number of industry specialists in its equities team as the $840bn Norwegian oil fund steps up efforts to outperform global stock markets

February 23, 2014 9:31 pm

Norway’s oil fund to double specialists

By Richard Milne in Oslo

The world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund is looking to more than double the number of industry specialists in its equities team as the $840bn Norwegian oil fund steps up efforts to outperform global stock markets.

Norway’s oil fund is one of the world’s biggest equity investors, owning on average 1.25 per cent of every listed company globally. Read more of this post

China’s State-Owned Sector Gets a New Boost

China’s State-Owned Sector Gets a New Boost

BOB DAVIS

Updated Feb. 23, 2014 6:20 p.m. ET

When China’s leaders wanted to give a boost to the domestic semiconductor industry last year, a big state-owned electronics company scooped up smaller privately owned chip-design and chip-making firms.

Beijing followed the same script to get control of the sprawling, polluting rare-earths industry: A big state-owned company purchased nine firms in December that mine the minerals used in such strategic industries as defense and telecommunications. Read more of this post

Myanmar Farmland Gets Closer to Vision as Economic Engine; Company Behind Japanese-Backed Investment Zone Prepares to Issue Shares

Myanmar Farmland Gets Closer to Vision as Economic Engine

Company Behind Japanese-Backed Investment Zone Prepares to Issue Shares

SHIBANI MAHTANI

Feb. 23, 2014 8:07 p.m. ET

THILAWA, Myanmar—A field littered with roaring tractors and herds of cows ambling in the distance doesn’t look like the future of Myanmar’s economic reforms.

But as the company behind the Japanese-backed Thilawa Special Economic Zone prepares to issue shares next month—hoping to raise $21.7 million to fund the project—the vision of this rural Yangon suburb as Southeast Asia’s next manufacturing hub is inching closer to realization. Read more of this post

Auditors blow whistle on inadequate procedures for reporting crises

February 23, 2014 12:35 pm

Auditors blow whistle on inadequate procedures for reporting crises

By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor

Up to a third of employers have inadequate whistleblowing procedures, threatening their ability to prevent future corporate crises, their own heads of internal audit have warned.

A survey by the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors, whose members advise boards on the effectiveness of controls to manage risks, found that only 69 per cent said their organisation’s whistleblowing arrangements were effective. Read more of this post

McDonald’s Sees Potential in Vietnam; CEO Don Thompson discusses possible expansion in Asian nation after opening of first restaurant there

McDonald’s Sees Potential in Vietnam

CEO Don Thompson discusses possible expansion in Asian nation after opening of first restaurant there.

VU TRONG KHANH

Feb. 23, 2014 2:09 p.m. ET

McDonald’s Corp. Chief Executive Don Thompson says Vietnam offers tremendous opportunity for the American fast-food giant, which recently opened its first restaurant in the country’s largest city. Read more of this post

Boosting productivity will need a change of mindset, businesses say

Boosting productivity will need a change of mindset, businesses say

SINGAPORE — After Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam called for a cultural shift among employers and Singaporeans to drive the push for increased productivity, leading business figures have agreed that a mindset change is necessary for Singapore’s economic restructuring, even if the process will be long and arduous. Read more of this post

Seen On An ATM In Western Australia

Seen On An ATM In Western Australia

Tyler Durden on 02/23/2014 13:33 -0500

With iron-ore stockpiles at record highs in China amid the escalating cash-for-steel financing debacles, one can only imagine the squeeze that is about to occur on the banks of a nation that is almost entirely economically dependent on said iron-ore mining production… which made us think when we saw this sign “justifying” holding low cash amounts in an Aussie bank ATM… Read more of this post

Details on TWG Tea co-founder v Osim

Details on TWG Tea co-founder v Osim

Monday, Feb 24, 2014

The Straits Times

THE way the much-heralded link between TWG Tea Company and lifestyle giant Osim International descended into a bitter stand-off between key shareholders has been detailed in legal papers obtained by The Straits Times. Read more of this post

Taiwan independence group topples Sun Yat-sen statue

Taiwan independence group topples Sun Yat-sen statue

Sunday, February 23, 2014 – 20:54

AFP

TAIPEI – A radical Taiwanese independence group said on Sunday they had pulled down a statue of the founding father of the nationalist republic who fled from the Chinese mainland to the island more than six decades ago. Read more of this post

Daim’s exclusion from Malaysia’s richest list queried

Daim’s exclusion from Malaysia’s richest list queried

Sunday, February 23, 2014 – 16:12

The Star/Asia News Network

PETALING JAYA – PKR Youth chief Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin has questioned why former Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin was left out of the list of Malaysia’s 40 richest individuals compiled by Malaysian Business Magazine. Read more of this post

Indonesian copper smelters at risk as mining policy misfires

Indonesian copper smelters at risk as mining policy misfires

7:01pm EST

By Michael Taylor and Wilda Asmarini

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesian policies to force miners to process raw materials at home are misfiring, as disputes over the new rules disrupt plans to invest nearly $4 billion in copper smelters to cater for miners such as Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. Read more of this post

`Jeonse` for Seoul apartment equivalent to 6 yrs. of average income of urban workers

`Jeonse` for Seoul apartment equivalent to 6 yrs. of average income of urban workers

2014.02.24 13:46:53

The average ‘jeonse’ price for an apartment in Seoul last year was equivalent to 5.7 years (5 years and 8 months) of income of urban worker households, according to data by Real Estate 114, a Seoul-based real estate information provider, Monday.
Jeonse refers to a lease system in which a tenant pays a large lump-sum deposit for typically a two-year rental period.  Read more of this post

Asylum Fraud in Chinatown: Industry of Lies

Asylum Fraud in Chinatown: Industry of Lies

By KIRK SEMPLE, JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and JEFFREY E. SINGERFEB. 22, 2014

A Chinese woman walked into a law office in New York’s Chinatown and asked to see her lawyer. She had applied for asylum, claiming that she had been forced to get an abortion in China to comply with the country’s family-planning laws, and she was anxious about her coming interview with immigration officials. Read more of this post

After Farmers Commit Suicide, Debts Fall on Families in India

After Farmers Commit Suicide, Debts Fall on Families in India

By ELLEN BARRYFEB. 22, 2014

BOLLIKUNTA, India — Latha Reddy Musukula was making tea on a recent morning when she spotted the money lenders walking down the dirt path toward her house. They came in a phalanx of 15 men, by her estimate. She knew their faces, because they had walked down the path before. Read more of this post

Grey eminences: How companies try to influence governments

Grey eminences: How companies try to influence governments

Feb 22nd 2014 | From the print edition

LOBBYISTS SOMETIMES FEEL unloved. Jeremy Galbraith of Burson-Marsteller, a lobbying firm, tells the story of a taxi ride he took in Oslo. The conversation was flowing nicely until the driver asked him what he did for a living. The rest of the journey passed in silence. Heather Podesta, a lobbyist in Washington, DC, defiantly wears a badge displaying an L to demonstrate pride in her profession. Read more of this post

Competition policy: Crossing continents; Competition authorities are increasingly reaching beyond their countries’ borders

Competition policy: Crossing continents; Competition authorities are increasingly reaching beyond their countries’ borders

Feb 22nd 2014 | From the print edition

WHEN TWO AMERICAN presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, embarked on a trustbusting mission a century ago, they were taking government into a new policy area: competition. Industrialisation was still relatively new, and any monopolies that had emerged, such as the British and Dutch East India companies, had been created by governments. Read more of this post

Regulation Tangled; The rich world needs to cut red tape to encourage business

Regulation Tangled; The rich world needs to cut red tape to encourage business

Feb 22nd 2014 | From the print edition

THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, which held its annual gathering of the great and the good in Davos last month, takes advantage of its privileged mailing list to quiz its members on a whole range of issues, including the burden of government regulation. Singapore has come out on top as the least burdensome for the past eight years (see chart 3), whereas many EU countries are bumping along near the bottom. Of the 148 countries surveyed in 2013, Spain was ranked 125th, France 130th, Portugal 132nd, Greece 144th and Italy 146th. Read more of this post

Singapore Ups Sin Taxes Amid Higher Social Spending

February 22, 2014, 11:43 AM

Singapore Ups Sin Taxes Amid Higher Social Spending

CHUN HAN WONG

SINGAPORE—Indulging in drinks, smokes or even a wager are about to become pricier in this strait-laced island state.

Singapore increased duties levied on tobacco and liquor products on Friday, and will raise taxes on lottery betting from July, Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam told Parliament his annual budget speech. Read more of this post

Still waiting for that China copper unwind

Still waiting for that China copper unwind…

David Keohane | Feb 21 09:23 | 2 comments | Share

Right, so if we’re not blaming the squid we may as well spend a bit more time on China. Whack-a-mole finance can have a long reach after all and may very well be skewing LME copper price levels which, instead of reflecting the LME stock position, are maybe reflecting all of that copper sitting somewhere in China, often tied up in tricky financing deals in the shadowy sectors of the economy. Read more of this post

SEC Plans ‘Tick’ Size Pilot Program; Advocates Say Aim Is to Make it Easier to Trade Shares of Smaller Companies

SEC Plans ‘Tick’ Size Pilot Program

Advocates Say Aim Is to Make it Easier to Trade Shares of Smaller Companies

TELIS DEMOS And SCOTT PATTERSON

Updated Feb. 21, 2014 6:54 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White said the agency plans to implement a test program to trade stocks in wider increments, like nickels, to determine whether such a change would make it easier for investors to trade some shares. Read more of this post

India’s New Telecom M&A Rules Could Deter Deals

India’s New Telecom M&A Rules Could Deter Deals

R. JAI KRISHNA

Feb. 21, 2014 6:48 a.m. ET

NEW DELHI–India’s new rules that require that the buyer of an Indian mobile phone company pay a fee to the government, in addition to what it pays for the target company, could deter deals in the world’s second largest telecommunications market, after China. Read more of this post

How China plans to go global

How China plans to go global

Sanjena Sathian, OZY.com4:09 p.m. EST February 20, 2014

A top Baidu executive talks about why his country may win in tech.

If anyone knows why China seems to be on the verge of eating America’s lunch, Hesong Tang does.

Born into a family of bamboo cutters in rural Xiang Yang, China, Hesong Tang had never taken a shower or used a toilet before he was accepted into Tsinghua University, considered the Chinese MIT. And while that must have been a lot for a freshman-year roommate to deal with, Tang, who now oversees all corporate development at Baidu, China’s version of Google, says “everything” has changed in China in the last two decades. Read more of this post

Chinese brand equity makes for stock hits

Chinese brand equity makes for stock hits

Feb 21, 2014 1:35pm by James Kynge

Chinese brands may not yet be world beaters, but it looks as though they are making waves among stock pickers.

Research from WPP, the advertising and public relations company, shows that a group of “Top 10″ Chinese brands – ranked by what they call “brand contribution” – sharply outperformed market indices (see chart). Read more of this post

Concerns brew over S. Korea’s consumption slowdown

Concerns brew over S. Korea’s consumption slowdown

Chun Beom-joo

2014.02.21 17:07:56

South Korea’s households drastically cut back on spending on a yearly basis last year in comparison to inflation. This is a serious problem, as household consumption is the backbone of the national economic growth, translating into corporate profits and the government tax revenue. More worrisome is that some experts claim the decline in household expenditure might spell the start of structural changes in the long run.  Read more of this post

China’s giant pile of copper is inflating its credit bubble

China’s giant pile of copper is inflating its credit bubble

By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros February 21, 2014

China’s import data surprised many today when it revealed that its traders bought 397,459 tonnes (438,124 tons) of refined copper in January, just shy of the record 406,937 tonnes imported in December 2011, and up 63.5% on January 2012. Read more of this post

China is spending a fortune on science—and is getting robbed blind by corrupt scientists

China is spending a fortune on science—and is getting robbed blind by corrupt scientists

By Gwynn Guilford @sinoceros February 21, 2014

China is piling huge sums of money into research and development (R&D), and it’s freaking some people out. “We face being buried under an avalanche of Chinese science,” lamented The Guardian, referring to the Chinese state’s role in the funding. “It’s Official: China Is Becoming a New Innovation Powerhouse,” chimed in Foreign Policy. Read more of this post

Bhutan, world’s last TV holdout, now at tech vanguard: PM

Bhutan, world’s last TV holdout, now at tech vanguard: PM

Saturday, February 22, 2014 – 14:35

AFP

THIMPHU, Bhutan – It was the world’s last hold-out against television and is regarded by travellers as a Himalayan Shangri-La.

But Bhutan’s decision to make itself the poster boy for electric transport is further proof of its willingness to embrace technology as part of its unique Gross National Happiness development model, says its prime minister. Read more of this post

D-Day for foreigners eyeing Johor property; Foreign buyers of residential property in Malaysia’s Johor state have until April 30 if they want to dodge new property measures there such as higher levies

D-Day for foreigners eyeing Johor property

Saturday, Feb 22, 2014

Anita Gabriel

The Straits Times

Foreign buyers of residential property in Malaysia’s Johor state have until April 30 if they want to dodge new property measures there such as higher levies.

The cut-off date – April 30 – is contained in a Feb 10 circular from Johor’s Land and Mineral Office obtained by The Straits Times. Read more of this post