Narendra Modi is both pro-business and a staunch nationalist. How will he deal with China?

Narendra Modi is both pro-business and a staunch nationalist. How will he deal with China?

Jun 14th 2014 | From the print edition

GLOOMY foreign-policy analysts in Beijing look at Narendra Modi, India’s new prime minister, and see a subcontinental version of his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe. Two right-wing nationalists, elected on platforms of restoring economic growth and national pride, both need to act tough in their countries’ territorial disputes with China. Mr Abe’s tenure has marked a nadir in China’s relations with one big neighbour; so Mr Modi’s victory does not look good for China, either. That is one view. But other Chinese thinkers are cheerier, applauding an apparently chummy meeting this week in Delhi between Mr Modi and China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi. Writing in the Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper, Liu Zongyi, of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, even predicted that Mr Modi is less likely to be “India’s Abe” than its “Nixon”—a right-wing leader who overcomes distrust to transform relations with China. Read more of this post

The enigma of Westfield ownership; Next time you pop into a Westfield, think who owns it. The Lowys? Maybe not

The enigma of Westfield ownership

June 11, 2014

David Potts

Next time you pop into a Westfield, think who owns it.

The Lowys? That’s what I would have said, too. Not that there’s any doubt they pull the strings, but they have a surprisingly small shareholding.
The malls are owned by two Westfields – the company and a passive property trust – which spreads the shareholders around and is why a small shareholding can have such clout. Especially when held by a Lowy. Read more of this post

Ripples spread from China metals probe

June 12, 2014 4:56 pm

Ripples spread from China metals probe

By Xan Rice in London and Lucy Hornby in BeijingAuthor alerts

The port city in northeastern China is famous for its Tsingtao brewery that was founded more than a century ago with 400,000 Mexican silver dollars as capital. But in recent years, Qingdao – the beer’s name is an older spelling – has been attracting other types of metal. As Chinese traders’ appetite for cheap forex funding has increased, piles of copper and aluminium used as loan collateral have accumulated in dockside warehouses. Read more of this post

In a rare interview, the president of China Merchants Bank describes strategic plans and changing with the times

06.12.2014 13:41

Tian Huiyu: Navigator for Banking’s Next Era

In a rare interview, the president of China Merchants Bank describes strategic plans and changing with the times

By staff reporters Hu Shuli, Ling Huawei, Wuhong Yuran and Lin Jinbing

Since taking the helm at China Merchants Bank about a year ago, bank President Tian Huiyu has done a lot more than steer.

Tian has been navigating through a changing environment for China’s banking industry and plotting a course for CMB’s future. He’s also lived up to his professional reputation in the banking sector as a focused leader who’s not afraid to take the initiative. Read more of this post

Research Affiliates: I’d Choose Emerging Markets, Wouldn’t You?

| June 2014

I’d Choose Emerging Markets, Wouldn’t You?

Ryan Larson

As the father of two girls under the age of six, I spend a lot of time reading children’s books. One of my daughters’ favorite characters is Clifford. For those of you who haven’t read these stories, Clifford isn’t just a Big Red Dog, he’s a REAL BIG DOG, the size of a house. An early book in the series covers some of Clifford’s obvious faults, mostly due to his being unaware of the effects of his massive size: he chases and catches cars, carries back a policeman thinking his baton is a stick, eats the shoe sign outside a shoe store, and devours a lot of cupcakes. Despite all his flaws, Clifford is dearly loved by Emily Elizabeth, the little girl who takes care of him. She says, “I’d choose Clifford, wouldn’t you?” Read more of this post

Behold the Burrito Bond: London high street fast food outlet Chilango , is offering an 8% coupon on a four-year corporate bond that gives some buyers a free burrito* every week for the lifetime of the debt

Jun 12, 2014

Behold the Burrito Bond

JOSIE COX

An advertisment for Chilango’s Burrito Bonds sits outside a branch of Chilango on Fleet Street, Central London, on June 12, 2014.

Bond bubble? What bond bubble? These bonds give out free burritos! Read more of this post

Missing Collateral a Sign of Weakness in China’s Financing Chains

Missing Collateral a Sign of Weakness in China’s Financing Chains

By JOHN FOLEY

JUNE 12, 2014 12:21 PM 1 Comments

Faith in metal-backed lending in China is corroding – and so is confidence in the country’s giant credit system. Authorities and banks, including Standard Chartered and Citic, are investigating whether traders at Qingdao port used the same lot of copper and aluminum to back multiple loans. Vanishing collateral isn’t a new problem, but could prove to be China’s weakest link. Read more of this post

Casino Owner Caesars Redefines Itself, but Still Has Mountain of Debt

Casino Owner Caesars Redefines Itself, but Still Has Mountain of Debt

By STEPHEN J. LUBBEN

JUNE 12, 2014 3:26 PM Comment

Caesars Entertainment, the owner of several casinos, is taking a page from the Dynegy playbook. That is not meant as a compliment.

Dynegy, you may recall, entered Chapter 11 after two failed mergers and some radical redesigning of its corporate structure. The redone structure was rather clearly intended to salvage something for shareholders. But the court-appointed bankruptcy examiner found that Dynegy had gone too far. Read more of this post

Bio pharm equities lose past glory on KOSDAQ

Bio pharm equities lose past glory on KOSDAQ

Kim Jan-di

2014.06.13 11:24:25

South Korea’s bio-pharmaceutical stocks are not faring well unlike they did in the past. Most of the KOSDAQ’s bio-pharm equities that were among top-ranked stocks by market cap three years ago are no longer placed where they used to be.  Read more of this post

What would King Sejong do? ‘When the country was hit by famine, [King Sejong] went to meet the peasants and hear their voices.’

What would King Sejong do?

‘When the country was hit by famine, [King Sejong] went to meet the peasants and hear their voices.’

June 13,2014

Dr. Park Hyun-mo, who served as the Director of the Sejong Leadership Institute at the Academy of Korean Studies until last month, has been studying King Sejong for 13 years. He said that his lifetime academic achievement is to bring King Sejong out of the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The book he published eight years ago is titled “King Sejong’s Royal Walk Out of the Annals.”  Read more of this post

Remember the Problems With Mortgage Defaults? They’re Coming Back With Student Loans

Remember the Problems With Mortgage Defaults? They’re Coming Back With Student Loans

JUNE 12, 2014

Susan Dynarski

Student loans, along with mortgages and car loans, have become one of the three largest sources of credit, exceeding credit-card debt. This growth in student debt appears to have caught regulators unprepared. Compared with mortgages, auto loans and credit cards, student loans are loosely regulated. And, in the case of student loans, regulatory weakness is particularly threatening to consumers, since they can’t discharge their debts through bankruptcy and escape lenders who are causing them harm. Read more of this post

Can Lululemon Regain Its Harmony? Shares of the yoga-apparel retailer took a hard fall on troubling sales news. Time to buy?

Can Lululemon Regain Its Harmony?

Shares of the yoga-apparel retailer took a hard fall on troubling sales news. Time to buy?

JOHANNA BENNETT

June 12, 2014 2:55 p.m. ET

Investors hoping that yoga-apparel icon Lululemon Athletica can overcome last year’s public relations disasters and regain its former glory have once again been left flat on the mat.

Early Thursday, the retailer unveiled better-than-expected profit per share for the fiscal first-quarter ended May 4 of 34 cents as revenue rose 11% to $384.6 million. Lululemon (ticker: LULU ) had expected profit of 31 cents to 33 cents a share. It also announced plans to repurchase $450 million in stock. Read more of this post

Leverenz, who runs America’s largest emerging markets mutual fund at Oppenheimer Fund, believes that nations like China, Brazil, Russia and India are experiencing economic and social change that won’t be reversed

In Emerging Markets, What Scares Most Investors Entices Oppenheimer

By LANDON THOMAS JR.

JUNE 12, 2014 8:33 PM 1 Comments

The day has been long for Justin M. Leverenz, who runs America’s largest emerging markets mutual fund at Oppenheimer Funds.

He has been up since 4 a.m., poring over annual reports, racing through traffic to make company meetings and finally, in the soft air of an Istanbul evening, a bit of book browsing and pickle tasting in this city’s old European quarter. Read more of this post

The hungry and forgotten: Growth has helped millions to avoid malnutrition but increased obesity. Stories look at the extremes of China’s diet

The hungry and forgotten: Growth has helped millions to avoid malnutrition but increased obesity. Two stories look at the extremes of China’s diet, starting with the undernourished

Jun 14th 2014 | SONGJIA VILLAGE, HUNAN PROVINCE | From the print edition

THE propaganda message, scrawled in white paint on the side of a wood-frame house, could hardly be more blunt: “Cure stupidity, cure poverty”. The cure for both, in one of China’s poorest counties, seems to be a daily nutritional supplement for children. At a pre-school centre in Songjia, as in more than 600 other poor villages across China, children aged three to six gather to get the stuff with their lunch. If China is to narrow its urban-rural divide, thousands more villages will need to do this much, or more. Widespread malnutrition still threatens to hold back a generation of rural Chinese.

China used to have more undernourished people than anywhere in the world except India: about 300m, or 30% of the population in 1980. Economic growth has pulled half of them out of poverty and hunger. But that still leaves about 150m, mainly in the countryside. Out of 88m children aged six to 15 in the poorest rural areas, around a third suffer from anaemia because of a lack of iron, according to survey data. Iron deficiency can stunt brain development, meaning many of these children will grow up ill-equipped to better their lot. “They are far behind compared with urban kids,” says Lu Mai, secretary-general of China Development Research Foundation (CDRF), a government-run charity. Mr Lu and other experts have been prodding the government to do more. The state subsidises school lunches for 23m children in the 680 poorest counties, as well as nutritional supplements for hundreds of thousands of babies. It is not enough. Read more of this post

Obesity: Chubby little emperors; Why China is under- and over-nourished at the same time

Obesity: Chubby little emperors; Why China is under- and over-nourished at the same time

Jun 14th 2014 | BEIJING | From the print edition

MORE than 2,000 years ago “Huangdi Neijing”, a classic Chinese medical text, identified obesity as a disease caused by eating too much “fatty meats and polished grains”. Until a generation ago such a diet was an extravagance beyond imagination for all but the elite. But the Chinese waistline has since expanded, and at an alarming rate. Read more of this post

China’s No-Money-Down Housing Echoes U.S. Subprime Lending Risks

China’s No-Money-Down Housing Echoes U.S. Subprime Lending Risks

Read more of this post

Australia’s chance to be a big fish in global aquaculture

Australia’s chance to be a big fish in global aquaculture

Published 13 June 2014 13:57, Updated 13 June 2014 14:40

Luke Malpass

Global aquaculture is needed as historically high fish prices are tipped to rise further and wild fisheries production is placed under strain.  Photo: Bloomberg

Australia’s aquaculture sector needs “real capital” if it is to help meet rapidly growing global demand for fish, says an industry veteran. Read more of this post

Football economics: why it is better to win than host the World Cup

Football economics: why it is better to win than host the World Cup

Published 12 June 2014 13:07, Updated 12 June 2014 15:12

Tim Harcourt

We are just a day away from kickoff at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, the most-watched sporting event in the world. Like the Olympics, it happens every four years and this time the event has been controversial because of protests by local Brazilians and allegations of corruption in FIFA’s decision to hand the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

Most economists are fans and have been analysing the economic impact of the World Cup, especially as they have to justify watching the games on television over the next four weeks or so. Read more of this post

Economic Nationalism Drumbeat Grows Louder Before Presidential Election

Economic Nationalism Drumbeat Grows Louder Before Presidential Election

By Agence France-Presse on 11:45 am Jun 12, 2014

1.  Indonesia’s two presidential candidates are outdoing each other with hardline policies to rein in foreign firms and control the resources sector, risking a lurch towards nationalism in Southeast Asia’s top economy, analysts say.

Frontrunner Joko Widodo and ex-general Prabowo Subianto have said they will favor domestic companies in the lucrative oil and gas industry and have pledged to stick with a controversial mineral ore export ban ahead of the July 9 polls. Read more of this post

Behind Simple Majority, a Complex Spread

Behind Simple Majority, a Complex Spread

By Jakarta Globe on 09:33 am Jun 12, 2014

Candidates must have strong support in more than half of all provinces for a legitimate poll win. (JG Photo/Safir Makki)

Jakarta. By most accounts, Joko Widodo is the favorite to win Indonesia’s presidential election July 9, with various polls giving him anything from 32 percent to 51 percent. Read more of this post

US Most Polarized in Decades: Pew Research Center

US Most Polarized in Decades: Pew Research Center

By Agence France-Presse on 10:05 pm Jun 12, 2014

Washington. The political middle ground is shrinking and the partisan gulf in Washington — and the rest of America — is getting wider, according to extensive findings unveiled Thursday by Pew Research Center.

Growing ideological uniformity on both sides is leading an increasing number of Americans to see followers of the other party as a “threat to the nation’s well-being,” the report said. Read more of this post

Indonesia Plans to Reduce Number of SOEs From 139 to 120 to Boost Efficiency

Indonesia Plans to Reduce Number of SOEs From 139 to 120 to Boost Efficiency

By Tito Summa Siahaan on 09:10 pm Jun 12, 2014

1.  The government has called on the country’s state enterprises to consolidate for the sake of greater efficiency and governance.

Indonesia had a total of 139 state-owned enterprises as of Jan. 1 this year, with combined assets of Rp 4,082 trillion ($345 billion).

State Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan said on Thursday that the government planned to reduce the number of state-owned enterprises to 120. Read more of this post

Speculation Abounds on Question of Indonesia’s Next Cabinet

Speculation Abounds on Question of Indonesia’s Next Cabinet

By Erwida Maulia on 10:12 pm Jun 12, 2014

1.  The campaign season for Indonesia’s presidential election enters a new phase this week with the media and observers alike speculating on who may occupy key cabinet posts, whichever candidate wins the race.

The strikingly different campaign teams behind the two tickets vying for the presidency offer a glimpse of which supporting members are most likely to become cabinet officials for the 2014-2019 period, in line with previous elections that saw the winners recruit most of their ministers from the very teams responsible for their victory. Read more of this post

Keep in Mind Next President’s Powers; surveys suggest that we may see many familiar faces in the new govt, whoever wins. There’s a general acceptance of ministerial posts being awarded to people in exchange for political support

Editorial: Keep in Mind Next President’s Powers

By Jakarta Globe on 10:08 pm Jun 12, 2014

Indonesia’s president, as head of state and head of government, has significant powers, including the right to name and remove ministers. This is an important aspect to keep in mind ahead of the election, because not only will we select our top leader for the next five years, the winner will also have to form a functional government. Read more of this post

Singapore Confronts Peril of Please-All Economics

Singapore Confronts Peril of Please-All Economics

By Andy Mukherjee on 10:33 am Jun 12, 2014

Singapore. Singapore is confronting the perils of please-all economics. Aging citizens are pushing the government for bigger nest eggs and more subsidized health care and housing. There is also popular resentment against letting more foreigners in, and not much appetite for increasing the 7 percent consumption tax. Squaring this fiscal circle will be a long-term challenge. Read more of this post