After decades of striking cushy natural resources deals in Myanmar under terms that Western corporations governed by anti-bribery legislation would probably balk at, Chinese natural resources companies are about to find their investments in the former hermit kingdom are coming under the spotlight.
In his latest video, South Korean rapper PSY makes life in the country seem glamorous and carefree.
Government bonds tend to do well when investors think a nation’s situation is improving, but fall in value when sentiment is negative.
Reported cases of the H7N9 strain of avian flu are increasing in number and geographical spread throughout China. New cases reported this weekend took the toll to 60 and the total death toll to 13.
China’s slowdown is hardly deflating the nation’s real estate bubble.
China’s stockpile of foreign exchange reserves has now reached $3.44 trillion, which was a $128 billion increase in the three months to March and swells the nation’s overseas currency coffers to about the size of Germany’s economy (paywall).
Indonesia’s much-hyped economic boom is making people’s quality of life, in some aspects, significantly worse. The reason? Shoddy infrastructure, which causes gridlocked traffic and is caused by bureaucratic paralysis and corruption.
Japanese brands have had a difficult time in China since the two Asian nations began rowing furiously over a set of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea. But one business has been spared: Uniqlo, the skinny jeans giant that is about to open a new, 6600 square meter flagship store in Shanghai that will be its largest worldwide.
Myanmar’s economy is forecast to grow over 6% this year as new foreign investment surges into the former hermit kingdom, but Western companies have been slow to join the party. Most investment is set to come from other emerging markets in Asia or beyond, where companies are more comfortable dealing with corruption and ethically questionable partners.
Because of China’s mounting bad debt problem, its banks are being told by regulators to rein in their lending.
Abenomics, the money printing, yen weakening plan spearheaded by the Bank of Japan at the behest of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is meant to bring back inflation, which could well be the remedy for two decades of recession that Japan desperately needs. But it will not be equally great for all Japanese companies.
Fu Yanbin, a Chinese real estate tycoon, is being taken to court in Hong Kong by lenders including Goldman Sachs for allegedly transferring assets out of their reach after his company, Rightway Group, earlier failed to repay them a $557 million loan.
Western politicians often express outrage at the idea of state-owned Chinese companies receiving massive government subsidies that enable them to gobble up overseas assets.
China’s inflation rate dropped to 2.1% in March, a sharp drop from the previous month’s 3.2% and well below the government’s official target for the year. Despite the government’s efforts to stimulate the economy, Chinese consumers are refusing to spend as much money as the state wants them to.
Chinese mining companies are having trouble sealing the deal. A total of $45 billion in overseas acquisitions have failed to close over the last five years, according to a Bloomberg study. The failure rate was about 42 percent by value, compared with a global average of 32 percent.
In what appears to be a volte-face for the Chinese government, president Xi Jinping has promised that the nation will treat foreign companies better.
Apple’s Taiwanese supplier, Foxconn, is no stranger to suicide scandals. After several workers who live in dormitories at its mainland Chinese factory complex attempted to jump to their deaths in 2010 (with some succeeding), the company installed anti-suicide nets.
Officially, China is North Korea’s biggest ally and trading partner. But behind the scenes, Bejing may be getting uneasy with its neighbor’s bellicose baiting of the US.
In the past few years, a striking sight has become visible on the streets of Yangon in Myanmar: punks, sporting mohawks and studded leather jackets, with skull and crossbones tattoos on the backs of their hands.
This article has been corrected.
Chinese government figures showing a 19.8% rise in the country’s exports for the three months to February were definitely puzzling. Due to lackluster demand from the US and Europe, and banks being unwilling to lend to small businesses, the nation’s factories are not, on the face of it, doing very well.
In the next few months, the market will learn whether new Japanese leader Shinzo Abe’s promise to drag Japan out of nearly two decades of recession and deflation was just a nice story.
Residents of China don’t need a weatherman to tell them which way the particulate matter blows. But new research shows exactly how dangerous the country’s air pollution can be, and it’s getting scary enough to send foreigners running for the border.
China is no longer the world’s number one art market by sales volume—and it probably never really was.
