Siam News Network

Pretty damn cool.  I’m still waiting for my chance to ride in it! It’s good to have a pipe dream every time I get into a taxi where the air conditioning doesn’t work and the driver starts to carry out awkward conversation in broken English in the middle of an iconic Bangkok traffic jam. 

See the original post here:
VIDEO: One of the coolest taxis you’ll ever find in Bangkok

China’s growth rate is slowing but it is still a good investment for a long-term play. Jim McCaughan, CEO of Principal Global Investors, tells Deborah Kan investors should look to the U.S. for the near term.

After keeping its currency tightly linked to the US dollar for years, China in July 2005 revalued its currency by 2 % against the US dollar and moved to an exchange rate system that references a basket of currencies.

In 2006, China announced that by 2010 it would decrease energy intensity 20% from 2005 levels.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with an average growth rate of 10% for the past 30 years.

Nevertheless, key bottlenecks continue to constrain growth.

The disparities between the two sectors have combined to form an economic-cultural-social gap between the rural and urban areas, which is a major division in Chinese society.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

The market-oriented reforms China has implemented over the past two decades have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship, whilst retaining state domination of the economy.

The ministry made the announcements during a press conference held in Xiamen on the upcoming United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) World Investment Forum and the 14th China International Fair for Investment and Trade.

In this period the average annual growth rate stood at more than 50 percent.

It also aims to sell more than 15 million of the most fuel-efficient vehicles in the world each year by then.

China’s challenge in the early 21st century will be to balance its highly centralized political system with an increasingly decentralized economic system.

Despite initial gains in farmers’ incomes in the early 1980s, taxes and fees have increasingly made farming an unprofitable occupation, and because the state owns all land farmers have at times been easily evicted when croplands are sought by developers.

Except for the oasis farming in Xinjiang and Qinghai, some irrigated areas in Inner Mongolia and Gansu, and sheltered valleys in Tibet, agricultural production is restricted to the east.

Horses, donkeys, and mules are work animals in the north, while oxen and water buffalo are used for plowing chiefly in the south.

There are also extensive iron-ore deposits; the largest mines are at Anshan and Benxi, in Liaoning province.

There are also deposits of vanadium, magnetite, copper, fluorite, nickel, asbestos, phosphate rock, pyrite, and sulfur.

China’s exploitation of its high-sulfur coal resources has resulted in massive pollution.

Other leading ports are rail termini, such as Lüshun (formerly Port Arthur, the port of Dalian), on the South Manchuria RR; and Qingdao, on the line from Jinan.

View post:
Investor: Take U.S. for Near Term, China for Long Term

Author: Bradley O. Babson

At the moment of his accession to power, Kim Jong-il inherited the devastating impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the subsequent trade shock to North Korea’s economic output, the onset of the worst famine in modern history, and a humanitarian crisis that required a direct appeal to the outside world for help.

By the late 1990’s, he was forced to accept the realities of dependence on international aid, the rise of farmers markets as a grassroots response to the famine, and the introduction of capitalist notions such as ‘profits’ in the Constitution itself. Kim even briefly entertained the notion of establishing relationships with the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank, attracted by the prospects for international finance, but balking at requirements for transparency, conditionality, and rules-based relations. Throughout his leadership tenure he only half-heartedly and grudgingly accepted the growing role for markets in the North’s economy and maintained a deep ambivalence to the prospect of economic empowerment of the North Korean people. His desire to maintain highly-centralised control over all aspects of North Korean society was sharply at odds with the decentralisation of information and decision-making needed for a market economy to replace a failed socialist economic management system. As a result, economic policy in the Kim Jong-il era was more shaped by events and forces for change than used as a tool to guide a managed process for national development.

Experiments in economic reforms were not accompanied by policies or the institution-building that would have been needed for recreating the economic success stories of China and Vietnam. Rather, the guiding light of economic policy for Kim Jong-il was mobilising resources for his purse from both domestic and foreign sources.  He was quite creative in devising ways to achieve this, such as demands for ‘loyalty’ payments, structuring of foreign exchange earning activities to send the cash to the top, negotiating with foreigners to get goodies for concessions, and pursuing illegal and internationally-sanctioned revenue-raising ventures.  At the end of the day, the North Korean economy under Kim Jong-il remains highly vulnerable to shortages of food, energy, and foreign exchange, with pressures for transformation of the economic system coming from both internal and external dynamics of change at work in North Korea.

Looking ahead, the key question is not whether there will be changes in economic policy but whether changes will be in the direction of building a market economy or governed by a new dynamic of competition for resources among contending parties for power.  The more the new regime leans towards the Worker’s Party, the more likely it will follow Chinese supported policies of developing a market economy under the guidance of the Party and gradually shift to funding defence needs from a centralised budget rather than the military having its own economic organs such as trading companies and banks that service them. The more the regime tilts towards the military, the more likely that competition for resources will trump incentives for pursuing systemic change.

While there may be an inclination to perpetuate the patronage practices of the elites by the Kim family, it is not likely that loyalties will transfer simply to the new leadership through such patronage alone. New incentives for supporting the regime will need to be pursued.  Key metrics of such changes will be in: 1) the ownership and transferability rights of assets; 2) the restructuring of the financial system including banking supervision, monetary-management policies, and development of the tax system and public expenditure policies to accommodate a market economy; 3) the support for decentralisation of economic decision-making and empowerment of traders and entrepreneurs; 4) the willingness to follow rules-based international practices in commerce and finance; and 5) the legal reforms to protect rights of parties in a market economy. This is a tall order, but one that might lead to a new dawn for North Korea.

Bradley O. Babson is a consultant on Asian affairs with a focus on Korea and Northeast Asia economic cooperation. He is retired from a career at the World Bank, with a concentration in East Asia. In the early 1990s he worked on the opening up of Vietnam and was the first World Bank Resident Representative in Hanoi.

1. Kim Jong Il’s death: continuity plus opportunity to engage
2. North Korea: new opportunities in a post-Kim Jong-il landscape
3. Kim Jong-il’s visit to China: What should we expect?

See the original post here:
After Kim Jong-il: will there be change or continuity in North Korean economic policy?

A list of what The Wall Street Journal’s reporters in China are reading and watching online. (NOTE: WSJ has not verified items in the ‘News’ section and doesn’t vouch for their accuracy.)

News:

* The former CCTV official blamed for a deadly and costly fire almost three years ago gets more years added to his term. (Xinhua)

* China plans new taxes on vehicles (China Daily)

* China should reduce reliance on overseas credit-rating companies by pushing its own, PBOC Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said. (Bloomberg)

* Sudan’s unrest represents a minefield for oil-thirsty Beijing. (Washington Post)

Analysis and Commentary:

* Mao’s past mistakes show the need for an open government. (Global Times. Yes, that Global Times.)

* China is too big to support continued heady growth through exports, Gordon Chang argues. (Forbes)

* The Wukan revolt: A harbinger of things to come? (New York Times)

Just Because

Marilyn Monroe plans an appearance in Harbin. (Xinhua)

The restructuring of the economy and resulting efficiency gains have contributed to a more than tenfold increase in GDP since 1978.

The government vowed to continue reforming the economy and emphasized the need to increase domestic consumption in order to make China less dependent on foreign exports for GDP growth in the future.

China has emphasized raising personal income and consumption and introducing new management systems to help increase productivity.

Some economists believe that Chinese economic growth has been in fact understated during much of the 1990s and early 2000s, failing to fully factor in the growth driven by the private sector and that the extent at which China is dependent on exports is exaggerated.

Its mineral resources are probably among the richest in the world but are only partially developed.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

By the early 1990s these subsidies began to be eliminated, in large part due to China’s admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, which carried with it requirements for further economic liberalization and deregulation.

The ministry made the announcements during a press conference held in Xiamen on the upcoming United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) World Investment Forum and the 14th China International Fair for Investment and Trade.

“China is now the fifth largest investing nation worldwide, and the largest among the developing nations,” said Shen Danyang, vice-director of the ministry’s press department.

China is expected to have 200 million cars on the road by 2020, increasing pressure on energy security and the environment, government officials said yesterday.

In large part as a result of economic liberalization policies, the GDP quadrupled between 1978 and 1998, and foreign investment soared during the 1990s.

Despite initial gains in farmers’ incomes in the early 1980s, taxes and fees have increasingly made farming an unprofitable occupation, and because the state owns all land farmers have at times been easily evicted when croplands are sought by developers.

In terms of cash crops, China ranks first in cotton and tobacco and is an important producer of oilseeds, silk, tea, ramie, jute, hemp, sugarcane, and sugar beets.

Sheep, cattle, and goats are the most common types of livestock.

China is one of the world’s major mineral-producing countries.

China is among the world’s four top producers of antimony, magnesium, tin, tungsten, and zinc, and ranks second (after the United States) in the production of salt, sixth in gold, and eighth in lead ore.

The largest completed project, Gezhouba Dam, on the Chang (Yangtze) River, opened in 1981; the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest engineering project, on the lower Chang, is scheduled for completion in 2009.
Beginning in the late 1970s, changes in economic policy, including decentralization of control and the creation of special economic zones to attract foreign investment, led to considerable industrial growth, especially in light industries that produce consumer goods.

The iron and steel industry is organized around several major centers (including Anshan, one of the world’s largest), but thousands of small iron and steel plants have also been established throughout the country.

Read more here:
China Watch: CCTV Sentence, Car Taxes Planned, Marilyn Monroe at Harbin

Mumbai: The Sensex staged nice performance on the first day of last week of the year 2011, shooting up over 200 points amid low volumes.

Telecom, technology, banks, FMCG and capital goods were major sectors that led the rally. Positive macro data and congress move from the US too lifted the confidence of Indian equities on Monday.

The Sensex tried to hit the 16000 mark but all its attempts failed. It touched an intra-day high of 15,998.44, before closing up 232.05 points at 15,970.75.

The Nifty rose 65 points, to end at 4,779.

Sudarshan Sukhani of s2analytics.com advised holding long position. He does not think that this market is ready to mature and sell out.

Telecom, technology, banks, FMCG and capital goods were major sectors that led the rally.

The rally of about 1 per cent in the US markets on Friday was led by positive macro data and Congress move. US Congress approved a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut and in the economic data, home sales rose to a 7-month high in November.

Supply of houses on the market was lowest in 5.5 years, whichrekindled hope of a revival in the housing market.

The US and European markets are shut today for Christmas holiday.

Back to the Indian market, the TECk and IT outperformed other indices – gained 2.6 per cent and 2.4 per cent, respectively.

Read this article:
Sensex ends 232 pts up on Infosys, RIL support

Burma’s military-backed, but nominally civilian, government has surprised critics with its political and economic reforms this past year. The liberal moves resulted in a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December. During her trip, VOA’s Daniel Schearf spoke with residents of the main city, Rangoon, about what they think of the changes, so far.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s December visit to Burma was both a reward and encouragement for authorities after a year of unexpected reforms.

President Thein Sein, despite being a former general, is slowly moving away from decades of military rule and economic problems.

Although still made up of former officers, his government ordered the release of hundreds of political prisoners, relaxed media censorship and held separate talks with ethnic rebel groups and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Nobel Prize winner was released from 15 years of house arrest in 2010 and plans to run for parliament in next year’s by-election.

Meeting with Clinton at the home where she was detained, Aung San Suu Kyi sounded optimistic about the direction of the country.

“This will be the beginning of a new future for all of us, provided we can maintain it. And, we hope to be able to do so,” she said.

Burma was once the star of Southeast Asia but, much like Rangoon’s British colonial-era buildings, crumbled under military rule. Just months ago most people in Burma were too afraid to talk openly about politics, especially to journalists, who are rarely allowed into the country.

But, since March, the new government’s moves toward reform are encouraging some to speak up.

Riding past Rangoon’s colonial Customs House, trishaw driver Maung Than Zaw says, despite reform efforts, he can barely make ends meet. Things have not gotten better for ordinary people like him;  it is getting worse, he says, adding that is difficult to earn four or five dollars per day.

Rangoon fruit vendor Mi Mi Aye says she worries about being arrested, but still wants to criticize the so-called civilian government. She says nothing has changed, the new government is just the same people as before.

There are others who say the economy and the government are improving.

At the Golden Palace jewelry store, in Rangoon’s Chinatown, a crowd of shoppers press against a long glass display case, clamoring for attention from sales staff.

Owner Aung Kyaw Win has one of Burma’s most famous chains of gold and gem stores.  He says business is good and would be even better if European Union and U.S. sanctions were lifted.

“I think our government, economically, they are trying to change a lot. We are sincerely hoping, because we heard from the newspaper and we can able to see they are changing.”

The government is slowly reducing cumbersome regulations and monopolies that crippled the economy. One key step is unifying the exchange rate to curb corruption. The official rate is seven kyat to the dollar. The actual market rate is 100 times higher.

A money counting machine flips through a stack of Burma’s currency.  At this currency exchange center in Rangoon, U.S. dollars are traded for bricks of kyat.

Many in Burma, like Lwin Aung Zaw, are paid in American dollars, but they are not legally allowed to possess foreign currency without a permit and have to exchange their salaries every month or risk jail.

He says they can exchange foreign currency at these counters. But, according to the law, they are not legally allowed to have foreign money.  He believes it would be better if authorities changed this rule.

At a tea shop in Rangoon a young man rolls dough balls into thin pancakes, called roti, and fries them in oil.

Tea shops are a center of Rangoon social life, where people meet for a snack, but also to talk business and about how Burma is changing. Taxi driver Tint Lwin says, like most people, he is focused more on earning a living than politics.

He says he sees a lot of developments.  Because he is a taxi driver he can only comment from a driver’s point of view. The roads are getting better, he says, but they still have heavy traffic jams.

Retired civil servant Thaung Htwe says he hopes Clinton’s visit will spur more reforms. He hopes that Burma will be developed more in the future.  And he  says by having good relations with the United States, they might see development in all sectors; economy, society, politics and so on.

Despite a more open environment, not everyone welcomes foreign journalists asking questions.

In a Rangoon market, an older man approaches VOA and demands we stop video taping, saying we need permission from local authorities.

“I don’t like it.  We don’t like it…Yeah, this [is] the poor area.  Not for news,” he says.  He recommends we go to a wealthier area to show how rich Burma is.

But locals in the market argue back that they are poor.

Although hopes are raised that Burma’s economy may revive and the country may finally turn the corner to democracy the road ahead is still uncertain. Rights groups point out military abuses continue in ethnic areas, including murder and rape.

And, despite reforms so far, there are still hundreds of political prisoners behind bars which authorities have yet to acknowledge.

See the rest here:
Burma’s Year of Change Raises Hopes

It’s too soon to know what caused July’s deadly high-speed rail accident in Wenzhou, but not too late to try making money from the conclusions. The government says its investigation of the collision of two bullet trains that killed 40 and injured 191 has concluded—though details about what happened aren’t yet ready for public consumption. Even so, train ridership is up, bullet trains are back on track after inspections and funding for the sector is flowing anew.

Now, two Citigroup Inc. analysts say it is time for investors to have a fresh look at one of the companies that equipped the trains – but wasn’t implicated – that collided in July. Shares of Hollysys Automation Technologies Ltd. are a “buy,” with more than 50% upside potential, says the new 52-page report focused on the company.

Analysts Paul Gong and Jenny N. Zhen said positives for Beijing-based Hollysys include its “secular growth potential in industrial automation amid rising labor costs,” “market-share gain opportunities from foreign players” and “a relatively good position in the railway market.”

Hollysys published its own conclusion two days after the accident, saying its signaling equipment on board both trains functioned well.

Its Nasdaq-listed stock nevertheless suffered, along with others in the rail sector that have been hit hard since the railway minister was fired in February.

Now, the Citigroup analysts say Hollysys shares could rise as far as $13.60 each, a 50%-plus gain from the $8.98 level the stock stood before the report’s publication early this week.

The Citigroup report may help explain a roller coaster for the stock in recent days. The investor advisory follows stock upgrades by Piper Jaffray and J.P. Morgan & Co. analysts, purchases of Hollysys shares by company executives and waning enthusiasm of investors who try to profit from a share-price fall.

After the train crash, Hollysys was subject of a Wall Street Journal investigation that explained how China’s use of foreign technology in its bullet-train signal systems highlighted deep international distrust over the country’s industrial model, including weak intellectual-property protections, which can complicate efforts to acquire state-of-the-art technology.

The story quoted people familiar with the situation as saying Hollysys obtained some signaling components from Japan’s Hitachi Ltd. Executives from Hitachi were quoted as saying they designed some systems sold to Hollysys with “black box” designs to prevent copying. A senior Hitachi executive said: “It’s still generally a mystery how a company like Hollysys could integrate our equipment into a broader safety-signaling system without intimate knowledge of our know-how.”

Hollysys declined to comment then. A spokeswoman couldn’t be reached on Wednesday. During a conference call with investors last month, Hollysys Chairman Wang Changli and another executive suggested that rail signaling business will take a back seat to the company’s other businesses. Their comments suggested the focus has shifted toward the company’s traditional but lower-profile, lower profit-margin factory automation business, where executives said projects happen more quickly than in rail and there are more potential clients.

In fact, factories – not trains – underscore Citigroup’s bullishness on Hollysys.

“From an investor point of view, the more fundamental value comes more from the factory automation business than its rail business,” said Citigroup’s Mr. Gong. He said railway news has driven the stock price this year but its underlying business has been overlooked by investors.

Mr. Wang said in the Hollysys conference call China’s high-speed rail signaling business had “substantially slowed down,” noting that he looked forward to the government’s final report on Wenzhou, “so we can gain some visibility” about the sector.

“We are cautiously optimistic on continuous revenue generation from China’s high-speed rail segment for the next few years,” Mr. Wang said. He also said the company intends to export its rail equipment and become “one of the leading international signal players.”

Even so, it may become more difficult for investors to gauge how Hollysys does in high-speed rail because the company also said that effective with its fiscal first quarter of July, August and September, it had re-categorized how it books revenue in high-speed rail.

High-speed rail will be lumped together its subway-related business. Mr. Gong estimated its main high-speed signaling product represents about 10% of Hollysys revenue.

–James T. Areddy. Follow him on Twitter @jamestareddy

China’s economy during the past 30 years has changed from a centrally planned system that was largely closed to international trade to a more market-oriented economy that has a rapidly growing private sector and is a major player in the global economy.

In 2009, China announced that by 2020 it would reduce carbon intensity 40% from 2005 levels.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with an average growth rate of 10% for the past 30 years.

Some economists believe that Chinese economic growth has been in fact understated during much of the 1990s and early 2000s, failing to fully factor in the growth driven by the private sector and that the extent at which China is dependent on exports is exaggerated.

The country is one of the world’s largest producers of a number of industrial and mineral products, including cotton cloth, tungsten, and antimony, and is an important producer of cotton yarn, coal, crude oil, and a number of other products.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

China’s ongoing economic transformation has had a profound impact not only on China but on the world.

China now ranks as the fifth largest global investor in outbound direct investment (ODI) with a total volume of $56.5 billion, compared to a ranking of 12th in 2008, the Ministry of Commerce said on Sunday.

From January to June, the ODI in financial sectors was up by 44 percent to $17.9 billion, and in July alone, the ODI recorded $8.91 billion, the highest this year.

It also aims to sell more than 15 million of the most fuel-efficient vehicles in the world each year by then.

In large part as a result of economic liberalization policies, the GDP quadrupled between 1978 and 1998, and foreign investment soared during the 1990s.

Even with these improvements, agriculture accounts for only 20% of the nation’s gross national product.

China is the world’s largest producer of rice and wheat and a major producer of sweet potatoes, sorghum, millet, barley, peanuts, corn, soybeans, and potatoes.

Horses, donkeys, and mules are work animals in the north, while oxen and water buffalo are used for plowing chiefly in the south.

Growing domestic demand beginning in the mid-1990s, however, has forced the nation to import increasing quantities of petroleum.

There are large deposits of uranium in the northwest, especially in Xinjiang; there are also mines in Jiangxi and Guangdong provs.

Hydroelectric projects exist in provinces served by major rivers where near-surface coal is not abundant.

Before 1945, heavy industry was concentrated in the northeast (Manchuria), but important centers were subsequently established in other parts of the country, notably in Shanghai and Wuhan.

See original here:
Time to Step Aboard China’s Rail Investments

Thailand Business News –

This year’s floods have had a vast impact on the property market, with sectors affected across the board. But the impact varies from sector to sector,from residential to industrial.

Read the original here:
Floods Won’t Affect Thai Property Market in the Long Term
Thailand’s property sector is showing signs of an early recovery, as selective investors return to purchasing real estate stocks and actual property.

Some of the credit goes to a one-year government stimulus package that reduces the Special Business Tax from 3.3% to 0.11%, extends the reduction on transfer taxes from 2% to 0.01% and mortgage registration fees and provides a tax deduction on mortgage principal and interest.
Thailand’s property indicators show:

1.The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) index began rebounding in April 2009, and property stocks – while the first to fall in H2/08 – were amongst the first to recover
2. The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has lowered its policy interest rate four times since December 2008, prompting banks to reduce the minimum lending rate (MLR) from 7.25% to 6.25%
3. A continued drop in sales of durable goods due to uncertainty surrounding the economy is highlighted consumer confidence index (CCI) to a historic low of 72.8 in Q1/09 and New housing registrations in Bangkok and surrounding areas fell 43.8% in Q1/09

Recognising that sales would slow, forward-thinking companies took the opportunity to focus on their fundamentals and improve their balance sheets. This was the strategy of Hubert Viriot, CEO of the luxury developer Raimon Land, who was appointed in the midst of the crisis.

Second, Thailand’s banking system is much healthier than its Western counterparts. There are no toxic assets on local banks’ balance sheets. This benefits both the supply and demand side.

But a stable political environment in Thailand would likely see interest rates rise by half a percentage point. And oil prices will float at about US$85 to $95 a barrel. Construction costs will rise when oil prices and interest rates are in an upward trend. Overall housing supply has dropped over the past two years with a decrease in the number of construction permits. Many small-sized developers went bust after failing to access loans from local financial institutions.