Bamboo Innovator

County in Shaanxi in a Deep Hole as Mining Bubble Pops

08.01.2013 19:19

County in Shaanxi in a Deep Hole as Mining Bubble Pops

Shenmu rolled in cash when prices for its coal soared in recent years. Now private bankers are fleeing and the local government is in a bind

By staff reporter Li Yan

(Shenmu) – A financial crisis triggered by falling coal prices is brewing in Shenmu County, in the northwestern province of Shaanxi. Construction projects have been halted, universal health care has run into payment problems and many private bankers have disappeared in the last few months, all indications that another story of legendary development is now just a bubble bursting. The richest county in the province, Shenmu is blessed with abundant coal reserves. Buoyed by rising prices in the last decade, Shenmu enjoyed the birth of a vibrant mining industry. Accompanying this were rampant private lending, skyrocketing real estate prices and government largesse in social spending. The county’s 400,000 residents were the happy recipients of China’s first universal health-care scheme and free education for 15 years, six more years than the national minimum. Read more of this post

The $7 Trillion Problem That Could Sink Asia

The $7 Trillion Problem That Could Sink Asia

“It’s our currency, but it’s your problem.” This musing from Nixon-era Treasury Secretary John Connally is about to find new relevance as the White House battles Republicans over raising the U.S. debt limit.

Connally couldn’t have foreseen how right he would be 42 years on as Asia sits on almost $7 trillion in currency reserves, much of it in dollars. Asia’s central banks engaged in a kind of financial arms race after a 1997 crisis, stockpiling dollars as a defense against turmoil. That altered the financial landscape in two ways: One, Asia now has more weapons against market unrest than it knows what to do with. Two, Asia is essentially America’s banker, with China and Japan having the most at stake. Read more of this post

SEC Says Largest U.S. Hedge Funds’ Debt Tops $1 Trillion

SEC Says Largest U.S. Hedge Funds’ Debt Tops $1 Trillion

The nation’s largest hedge funds had $1.47 trillion in net assets and more than $1 trillion in borrowings as of the fourth quarter, according to the first report compiled on confidential data they provided to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC’s Division of Investment Management issued the report to Congress last week using figures from money managers who run private funds with gross assets of at least $150 million, including borrowed capital, and the agency broke out figures for the biggest firms. Congress ordered the SEC to collect information from private-equity and hedge-fund managers under a provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act designed to help regulators monitor risk in the financial system. Read more of this post

China moves to eliminate financial scam advertisements

China moves to eliminate financial scam advertisements

Thursday, August 1, 2013 – 18:39

AFP

BEIJING – China kicked off a nationwide campaign on Thursday to do away with advertisements for financial scams promising big returns at no risk, highlighting concern over the potential for trouble as financial know-how lags behind rising personal wealth. The China Banking Regulatory Commission said the three-month “clean-up campaign” would take aim at the huge number of advertisements in China for wealth management products, no-interest loans, real estate and many other “no-risk, high-return” schemes from planting forests to breeding animals. Read more of this post

About 1.3 million Hongkongers are living in poverty, of whom 500,000 are in severe poverty, a study claims.

500,000 found suffering in severe poverty
Magdelene Cubbon
Friday, August 02, 2013

About 1.3 million Hongkongers are living in poverty, of whom 500,000 are in severe poverty, a study claims. Academics at the Hong Kong Institute of Education researched 2011 census data and found a staggering 363,275 or 41.1 percent of the elderly, aged 65 and above, are living in either poverty or severe poverty. This age group constitutes the largest proportion of the total number of those in poverty of more than 27percent. The 18.8percent of the population in poverty represents a 1.1percent increase on the Census and Statistics Department’s 2005 figure of 17.7percent. Read more of this post

Fresh grads in China face job crunch as economy slows

Fresh grads in China face job crunch as economy slows

By Kristine Lim
POSTED: 01 Aug 2013 8:50 PM
Fresh graduates in China are facing what has been described as the toughest employment season ever. The job crunch is worse in major cities.

BEIJING: Fresh graduates in China are facing what has been described as the toughest employment season ever. The job crunch is worse in major cities. Nearly seven million students graduate from college this year, the highest number since the PRC was founded in 1949. Although this is less than a three per cent increase from 2012, the situation is complicated by a lack of jobs as a result of slowing economic growth. In Beijng, government and state-owned enterprises have cut job vacancies for fresh graduates by 14 per cent compared to a year ago. Read more of this post

Asia’s richest man made a subtle but significant statement that he’s stepping back from his $120 billion empire and allowing his eldest son to emerge from his shadow

August 1, 2013, 6:48 a.m. ET

Li Ka-shing Signals Power Shift With Absence From News Conference

TE-PING CHEN

Asia’s richest man made a subtle but significant statement Thursday that he’s stepping back from his $120 billion empire and allowing his eldest son to emerge from his shadow.

In a sign of the power shift under way from father to son, Li Ka-shing, 85 years old, skipped his annual televised news conference timed to the earnings from his companies Cheung Kong Holdings0001.HK +2.39% and Hutchison Whampoa 0013.HK +0.17% . For the past 10 years, it has been one of the city’s most anticipated press events, in which the charismatic Mr. Li dazzles reporters with his star power, answering questions on subjects from education to Hong Kong’s politics. Read more of this post

HK developers turning blue as property market enters ‘ice age’

HK developers turning blue as property market enters ‘ice age’

HONG KONG – Government cooling measures to rein in Hong Kong’s property market are finally taking a toll on the city’s powerful developers and industry watchers forecast prices could drop by up to 15 per cent in the second half of this year.

42 MIN 11 SEC AGO

HONG KONG – Government cooling measures to rein in Hong Kong’s property market are finally taking a toll on the city’s powerful developers and industry watchers forecast prices could drop by up to 15 per cent in the second half of this year. Weak property sales at conglomerate Cheung Kong (Holdings), controlled by Asia’s richest man, Mr Li Ka-shing, confirmed that a series of tightening steps are weighing on companies’ bottom lines and taking the heat out of one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets. “It’s like an ice age now from an agent’s perspective,” said Mr Patrick Chau, director of residential investment at property consultant Savills. “The sales volume has dropped substantially since the implementation of a series of tightening policies.” Read more of this post

The Gaping Hole in China’s Corruption Fight

August 1, 2013, 3:03 PM

The Gaping Hole in China’s Corruption Fight

Top of Form

By Stanley Lubman

The ongoing campaign against corruption that forms the backbone of new Chinese president Xi Jinping’s reform platform is not nearly robust as Communist Party media would have us believe. It is directed more at symptoms than causes and is limited in scope due to fears of citizen agitation on broader issues such as press freedom and transparency. It also suffers from a glaring and an important omission: The judicial system, although it should be the appropriate institution for exposure and punishment of offenders, is itself infected by corruption that up to now has gone unmentioned. Read more of this post

Gated, gilded and gaudy, they have sprung up all over China: overwrought government buildings erected at vast public expense, and in stark contrast to the shoddy state of so many homes and schools

Architectural bombast

Jul 27th 2013 |From the print edition

GATED, gilded and gaudy, they have sprung up all over China: overwrought government buildings erected at vast public expense, and in stark contrast to the shoddy state of so many homes and schools. In style they range from modernist brutalism to Versailles kitsch. In function, they are less lofty. The four towers in the second picture are the government headquarters of Changxing, a county in Zhejiang with a population of just 620,000. In a sign the central government understands public frustration with the waste, and the whiff of corruption, associated with these projects, it has ordered a five-year “across-the-board halt” to official building projects. The ban also covers government hotels and training centres. Announcing the ban, the government acknowledged that “glitzy structures” have “tainted the image” of the Communist Party and “stirred vehement public disapproval”

Many Malaysians looking to bulletproof their vehicles following shooting incidents; can bulletproof the windows from $300

Many looking to bulletproof their vehicles

Thursday, August 1, 2013 – 09:35

The Star/Asia News Network

PETALING JAYA – Malaysians, who are known for pimping their ride, are now looking to bulletproof their vehicles. There have also been enquiries on making the windows of their houses bullet proof. A check showed that one can bulletproof the windows of a Perodua Kancil windows from around RM1,000 (S$389) but it can be more expensive for other models. A source from a German car company revealed that one of their flagship models, which is a fully bulletproof version, would cost around RM5mil. Meanwhile, STEC Laminates director James Thomas said enquiries for security protec-tion of cars have increased during the last week. “Our main market is not in Malaysia. We export our materials to 30 other countries. “Since the shooting incidents, enquiries have increased and we have received five calls in one week,” said Thomas. Read more of this post

Vietnam bans bloggers and social media users from sharing stories

Vietnam bans bloggers and social media users from sharing stories

Thursday, August 1, 2013 – 16:19

AFP

HANOI- Communist Vietnam is to ban bloggers and social media users from sharing news stories online, under a new decree seen as a further crackdown on online freedom. Blogs or social media sites like Facebook and Twitter — which have become hugely popular over the last few years in the heavily-censored country — should only be used “to provide and exchange personal information”, according to the decree. The document, signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and made public late Wednesday, stipulates that internet users should not use social networks to share or exchange information on current events. Read more of this post

Three quarters of China’s solar-grade polysilicon producers face closure as solar panel piles up and Beijing looks to overhaul a bloated and inefficient industry

As solar panels pile up, China takes axe to polysilicon producers

Wed, Jul 31 2013

By Charlie Zhu

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Three quarters of China’s solar-grade polysilicon producers face closure as Beijing looks to overhaul a bloated and inefficient industry, resulting in fewer but better companies to compete against Germany’s Wacker Chemie AG and South Korea’s OCI Co Ltd. The polysilicon sector, which has around 40 companies employing 30,000 people and has received investment of 100 billion yuan ($16 billion), suffers from low quality and chronic over-capacity as local governments poured in money to feed a fast-growing solar panel industry, for which polysilicon is a key feedstock. Read more of this post

Mortgage bond sell-offs hit U.S. banks with big losses

Mortgage bond sell-offs hit U.S. banks with big losses

12:06am EDT

By Peter Rudegeair, Carrick Mollenkamp and Cezary Podkul

(Reuters) – U.S. banks, who had little choice in recent years but to use deposits to buy super safe mortgage bonds, are now getting an unpleasant taste of the risks. On Wednesday, Tulsa, Oklahoma-based BOK Financial (BOKF.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), which had nearly a third of its $27.5 billion in assets invested in mortgage bonds earlier this year, saw paper profits from the portfolio drop. It said net unrealized gains on agency mortgage bonds fell 66 percent to $70 million in the second quarter compared to the previous three month period. A BOK spokeswoman wasn’t immediately available to comment further. Read more of this post

China’s equity market has become “dysfunctional” after the regulator halted share sales and investors shifted to wealth-management products, said Anthony Neoh, a former government adviser who helped the nation open up to foreign money managers a decade ago.

China Stock Market Dysfunctional Amid IPO Freeze, Neoh Says

China’s equity market has become “dysfunctional” after the regulator halted share sales and investors shifted to wealth-management products, said Anthony Neoh, a former government adviser who helped the nation open up to foreign money managers a decade ago.

Smaller companies are losing access to capital as the China Securities Regulatory Commission extends a more than nine-month halt on initial public offerings and government-controlled banks focus on lending to state-owned enterprises, said Neoh, who helped start the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor program as the CSRC’s chief adviser from 1999 to 2004. Many investors assume wealth-management products are guaranteed by the government, creating “tremendous moral hazard,” Neoh said. Read more of this post

Australia to increase tobacco tax by 60 pct over four years

Australia to increase tobacco tax by 60 pct over four years

Thursday, August 1, 2013 – 12:54

Reuters

SYDNEY – The Australian government said on Thursday it will increase tobacco taxes by 60 per cent over the next four years as it seeks to return the budget to a surplus in 2016/17, dealing another blow to cigarette manufacturers. The move, which the government said is also aimed at battling high rates of smoking-related cancer, follows the introduction in Australia last year of the world’s toughest cigarette plain packaging laws. Read more of this post

Europe’s plan to cut card fees will hurt banks but may not help consumers; Retailers battling banks over debit-card transaction costs may benefit from lower fees after winning a court ruling on claims they were overcharged billions of dollars under an unlawful rate set by the Fed

Europe’s plan to cut card fees will hurt banks but may not help consumers

Jul 27th 2013 |From the print edition

TO POLITICIANS, banks are both incompetent behemoths waiting for public bail-outs and conniving profiteers pulling a fast one on their customers. Just as one arm of the European Commission has been finalising new rules that will force banks to have much more capital on their balance-sheets in order to make them safer, another arm has been writing rules to stop the “unjustifiably high” fees charged whenever a credit or debit card is used. Read more of this post

Prosperous Guangzhou Nears Debt Red Line, on the verge of falling short of meeting scheduled debt repayment

07.31.2013 17:56

Guangzhou Nears Debt Red Line, Its Figures Show

Prosperous southern city’s payment obligations for year approach 20 percent of revenue, raising more worries about local government finances

By staff reporter Wang Jing

(Beijing) – One of the most affluent cities in the country has published figures that indicate it is on the verge of falling short of meeting scheduled debt repayment. This comes amid mounting concern that local governments may have trouble paying off the debts they racked up in recent years amid spending intended to stimulate the economy. Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province with a GDP that ranked third last year among all Chinese cities, said on July 30 that it needs to pay loans worth almost 26.1 billion yuan this year. That is 19.37 percent of the city government’s projected income for this year. The internationally accepted red line for this ratio is 20 percent. Read more of this post

Which Chinese City Will Become the Next Detroit?

Which Chinese City Will Become the Next Detroit?

Where is China’s Detroit? A few weeks ago, the answer to that question would have been an optimistic shortlist of towns with thriving automobile industries. But since Detroit filed for bankruptcy on July 18, the question has become this: Which Chinese city will be the poster child for the country’s growing multitrillion-dollar local-government-debt problem?

In 2010, China’s National Audit Office announced that local governments had amassed a debt of $1.73 trillion, driven largely by borrowing for construction, infrastructure and debt service. Easy credit meant to avert the worst of the global financial crisis only served to worsen the problem: Local debt will grow to $2.63 trillion by the end of the year, equal to 29 percent of gross domestic product, according to Huatai Securities Co. Ltd. A 2012 audit of 36 local governments found $624.6 billion in debt — suggesting there are at least a few Chinese cities with debt equal to, or in excess of, the $18 billion that sunk Detroit. Read more of this post