When it comes to building its prime brokerage business, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp.—better known as HSBC—isn’t looking too far afield. The bank said it plans to target China’s growing hedge fund market as it seeks to sign clients up to its year-old prime brokerage business. HSBC said it plans to use its strength [...]
Wow..America actually stands up for itself for once. For any of my friends on the right who believe in free trade and free markets. I am with you. I am an Ayn Rand disciple to the extreme but we must drop ideology and focus on the real situation. The real situation is most high tech [...]
This is huge news in a geopolitical sense. What’s going on? (1) North Korea is losing control of its shores? or… (2) North Korea is using this incident to fight against Chinese fisherman encroaching in their waters. Although I believe the North Korean regime will fall in no more than a decade, I doubt that [...]
The U.S. economy is a failed economy. Rotten to the core, and living on borrowed time. A nations Military industrial complex can outlast a rotting economy for several decades but eventually it catches up as the economy can no longer fund the demands or even produce the hardware required. The U.S. is a case in [...]
financialsurvivalnetwork.com
The May edition of the China Money report has shipped! This month we take a deep dive into the Macau gaming sector. Learn which stocks to invest in to take advantage of the growth in Macau. Gambing revenues are now $33 billion compared to only $5billion in Vegas. What happens in Vegas? Does it matter [...]
Sparx Suffers Second-Straight Annual Loss One of Asia’s largest hedge funds saw its fiscal year loss grow by almost 23% on lower revenues and fee income. Sparx Group, once the region’s largest hedge fund but now only its second-largest, said its annual loss was ¥4.54 billion (US$57 million) for the year-ended March 31. It is [...]
DUBAI, May 15 (Reuters) – Gulf Arab states are increasingly using the Chinese yuan for trading as China accounts for a growing share of the region’s exports, and given volatility in major currencies, a senior executive at Standard Chartered said on Tuesday.”We are seeing an increasing interest from the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) in renminbi,” [...]
Shanghai plans to build 45 office buildings in its bustling financial district of Lujiazui in five years, in a bid to accommodate clustering financial services companies. By the end of April this year, there were 207 office buildings in Lujiazui in city’s Pudong New Area, with a construction area totaling more than 10 million square [...]
From Caijing.. China has eased restrictions on foreign investors seeking to invest in the country’s securities markets, as part of its boarder reforms of the country’s financial sector, the official Shanghai Securities Journal reported, citing a regulator’s conference. New measures will allow more than one investor belonging to the same parent equity to acquire the [...]
It was once a proud nation that sent engineers and capitalists all over the world. Now they are sending drunk, unemployed youth around the world. This is Anglo-American money printing economics laid bare. You meet a lot of expats here, seems every German you meet is an engineering or technical director. The Brits and Americans [...]
CHINA will impose a routine fishing ban in northern parts of the South China Sea, including waters around Huangyan Island, from tomorrow, authorities announced yesterday. The ban will last until August 1, covering areas north of the 12th parallel, including Huangyan Island but excluding most of the Nansha Islands, according to a spokesman for the [...]
There are 370,000 people with 6 million yuan ($950,000) living in Shanghai today, or one-in-65 people in a city with a population of 23 million. A total of 140,000 people in Shanghai have personal assets of 10 million yuan, an increase of 6.1 percent year-on-year, accounting for 13.7 percent of China’s high net worth individuals. [...]
From the China Daily… BEIJING – China will lower banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by 0.5 percentage points starting May 18, the country’s central bank announced Saturday. The cut, the second of its kind this year, will drop the RRR for the country’s large financial institutions to 20 percent and the medium- and small-sized financial [...]
From Opalesque… Hedge funds investing in Emerging Asia posted industry-leading gains to start 2012, with the HFRI EM: Asia ex-Japan Index gaining +7.4 percent in 1Q12, the best start for the index since 2006 when it gained +12.3 percent, according to data released today by HFR, the leading provider of data, indices and analysis of [...]
Reports in Japan said five Chinese warships – including two guided missile destroyers, two frigates and a amphibious landing ship – had passed through waters close to Okinawa moving to Philippine reefs.
The People’s Liberation Army Daily, the official voice of Chinese military, has also published a commentary on Thursday titled, “Never Expect to Take Away Half an Inch of China’s Territory.” It said, “We never tolerate any unreasonable embarrassment with blind patience, not to mention that the issue matters for China’s territorial integrity, national dignity, and [...]
Hundreds of Filipinos demonstrated outside the Chinese embassy in Makati City today, over an escalating territorial row, with the protesters denouncing China’s rulers as arrogant bullies. Waving national flags, the protesters led called for Chinese ships to pull away from a disputed shoal in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) where both nations have [...]
China Investment Corp. has stopped buying European government debt because of an economic crisis on the continent, though it continues to look for new investments there, said CIC President Gao Xiqing. “What is happening in Europe right now is of course of concern,” Gao said today in an interview in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the [...]
When it comes to building its prime brokerage business, the Hongkong
and Shanghai Banking Corp.—better known as HSBC—isn’t looking too far
afield. The bank said it plans to target China’s growing hedge fund
market as it seeks to sign clients up to its year-old prime brokerage
business. HSBC said it plans to use its strength in custody and
administration services to become the leading prime broker in its home
region. China is “a massive target and it’s one where we’ve been very
successful in the early stages of our business,” Matt Kiraly, head of
prime services sales in the region, told AsianInvestor. “If you look
at the prime brokerages [in Asia], you have U.S. prime brokers,
European prime brokers; there are no Asia prime brokers. This is HSBC’s
backyard and our seat to fill.” “What we want is to have a client who
is both a prime client and a fund administration client, which further
solidifies their relationship with the firm.”
HSBC launched its prime services business in Europe early last year,
expanding to Asia in the middle of last year. Earlier this month, it
hired former Merrill Lynch Asian prime brokerage chief Melvyn Ford to
lead its own business in the region.
While it is currently focused on China, HSBC doesn’t plan to ignore
the world’s largest hedge fund market: A U.S. prime brokerage is planned,
although Ford did not reveal a timeframe for its launch.
Wow..America actually stands up for itself for once. For any of my friends on
the right who believe in free trade and free markets. I am with you. I am an
Ayn Rand disciple to the extreme but we must drop ideology and focus on the
real situation. The real situation is most high tech companies in China are
highly funded by their local government and banks. When free trade does not
exist you must protect your market from mercantilist predators.
(Reuters) – The United States hit Chinese solar companies with punitive import
tariffs of 30 percent or more on Thursday, ruling they had dumped cut-price solar
panels into the U.S. market.
In the latest salvo in a series of ongoing trade disputes between Beijing and
Washington, the U.S. Commerce Department said it sided with U.S.-based solar
companies that had complained a wave of Chinese imports had wrongly undercut their
pricing and forced several renewable players out of business. With Thursday’s move,
Washington set tariffs on shipments from most of the top Chinese exporters,
including Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd and Trina Solar Ltd, at about 31 percent.
Several of the Chinese companies and a solar trade group opposed to the tariffs
denounced the duties, and said they would drive up costs for the clean energy source,
stunting its fast growth.The new tariff was “a heavy blow to America’s solar industry,
” Jigar Shah, head of the anti-tariff Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, said.
Shah said he hoped the tariffs would be reduced before they are finalized later this
year, since they would likely cost thousands of jobs in the nascent industry.
The new U.S. ruling stems from a complaint filed last October by the U.S. subsidiary
of Germany’s SolarWorld AG, and six other U.S. companies that alleged unfair competition
and had sought duties well above 100 percent. China will criticize the move, according
to White & Case trade attorney Scott Lincicome, “but it’s unlikely to further enflame
bilateral trade tensions because high anti-dumping duties were widely expected.”
China’s solar companies, which hold more than 60 percent of the global market, have
largely relied on subsidized markets in Europe and the United States in recent years
for purchases of their products, prompting criticism that huge loans from Chinese
state-run banks and low-ball pricing gave the Chinese companies an unfair advantage.
Under the decision, 59 Chinese solar companies that petitioned the U.S. government in
the case will also face an import duty of about 31 percent, including Yingli Green
Energy, LDK Solar, Canadian Solar, Hanwha Solar One, JA Solar Holding and Jinko Solar.
Other Chinese companies could now face a 250 percent tariff, although those levels could
be altered before the final ruling is issued from the Commerce Department in the coming
months.”Today, SolarWorld and the many industry players who embrace the sustainable
efficiency gains and price declines that come from fair competition can take heart that
the U.S. government is standing up against Big China Solar,” Gordon Brinser, president of
SolarWorld Industries America, said in a statement. The U.S. ruling, retroactive to cover
imports dating back 90 days, comes two months after Washington set more modest tariffs of
less than 5 percent on imports from China because of what it deemed Beijing’s unfair support
for its solar industry. Chinese solar companies and critics of the SolarWorld complaint
say global competition has been crucial to bringing down the cost of renewable power, which
still relies on government subsidies to compete with fossil fuels such as coal and natural
gas. Suntech, the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels and which also operates a panel
plant in Arizona, denied it had sold its products below its cost of production and said it
opposed any trade barriers.”All leading companies in the global solar industry want to see a
trade war averted. We need more competition and innovation, not litigation,” Andrew Beebe,
Suntech’s chief commercial officer, said in a statement. Shares of U.S.-based solar companies
rose on the news, with First Solar Inc gaining 6.7 percent and Sunpower Corp gaining 10 percent.
Sunpower Corp was already rallying after Apple Inc said it would use the company’s solar panels
for its solar farm. U.S.-listed shares of Chinese solar companies dipped, particularly Yingli
Green Energy, which was off 13 percent, while Suntech dropped 5.8 percent and Trina fell 7.9 percent.
This is huge news in a geopolitical sense.
What’s going on?
(1) North Korea is losing control of its shores? or…
(2) North Korea is using this incident to fight against Chinese fisherman
encroaching in their waters.
Although I believe the North Korean regime will fall in no more than a decade,
I doubt that they have lost control of their shores and let kidnappers take over.
More likely, North Korea has authorized a group in unmarked boats to kidnap these
fisherman as a way of telling China to stay out of our fishing grounds. In this
way the government of North Korea can deny responsibility. The ransom is also a
paltry sum of about $190,000 dollars. A small price for 29 captives. What is more
telling is this amount is an approximate revenue that the Chinese fishing boats
would have earned from that trip fishing in North Korean waters.
Unknown North Korean men have sized Chinese sailors
Media has reported that three Chinese fishing boats were seized while catching
fish in Chinese territorial waters, with a total of 29 Chinese sailors being
kidnapped. The other party demanded the Chinese boat owner to transfer a total
of 1.2 million yuan RMB before they would release the boats. May 16th, a Foreign
Affairs Ministry spokesperson said the Chinese government has already noted the
relevant reports and the Chinese government is currently verifying the situation
as well as maintaining close communications with the North Korean government.
The U.S. economy is a failed economy. Rotten to the core, and
living on borrowed time. A nations Military industrial complex can
outlast a rotting economy for several decades but eventually it catches
up as the economy can no longer fund the demands or even produce the
hardware required. The U.S. is a case in point, now dependent on electronics
from Asia, rare earth materials from China, and design engineers from
both India, China and Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union was able to
project a strong global military presence for about 4 decades after
their failed economy stop producing after the years of war reconstruction.
The U.S. is now on its 4th decade of real economic decline which has
been masked by debt and credit. Is America’s Berlin Wall moment coming?
From Wired Magazine
The second copy of China’s stealth fighter prototype has just flown at
a research facility in the city of Chengdu. The first flight of the J-20
Mighty Dragon with the nose number 2002 doubles Beijing’s stealth test
fleet at a time when America’s latest jet fighters are hobbled by cost
overruns, labor disputes and lethal design flaws. But it’s far from
certain how much, and how fast, the new Chinese jet will alter the
military balance.
The challenges for American stealth developers are clear. It has come to
light that Lockheed’s F-22 Raptor — the first of the current generation
of stealth fighters — is steadily poisoning its pilots owing to a faulty
oxygen system. Meanwhile, the F-35 has been delayed by several years and
the overall cost to design and build thousands of the new jets has risen
by hundreds of billions of dollars. To make matters worse, workers at
Lockheed’s F-35 factory have gone on strike, with no end in sight.
At first glance, China appears to be making huge progress where the
U.S. falters. The twin-engine Mighty Dragon 2002, painted black like its
predecessor, made its first appearance in April in photos snapped by
Chinese bloggers (who may or may not be on Beijing’s payroll). The second
J-20 spent a month or so performing ground tests before launching on its
inaugural test sortie sometime in the past few days. If the initial flight
of the first Mighty Dragon (nose number 2001) in December 2010 is any
indication, 2002′s debut mission amounted to little more than a lap around
the Chengdu airfield to test the aircraft’s basic functions and show off
for the aforementioned bloggers.
With two airframes to work with, the Chengdu engineers can now double
the roughly five-flights-a-month development program apparently aimed
at producing a front-line stealth warplane. Before the first Mighty
Dragon ever flew, General He Weirong of the Chinese People’s Liberation
Army Air Force said the J-20 would enter service between 2017 and 2019.
Then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates countered, saying it would
be 2020 or later before China possessed a combat-ready stealth fighter.
It’s unclear who’s right — or even what definition of front-line service
either man was using.
The May edition of the China Money report has shipped!
This month we take a deep dive into the Macau gaming sector.
Learn which stocks to invest in to take advantage of the growth in Macau.
Gambing revenues are now $33 billion compared to only $5billion in Vegas.
What happens in Vegas? Does it matter anymore?
With your subscription you get all of our past issues, each issue
highlighting different sectors and stocks in order to take advantage of
the growth in China. Join us now.
Sparx Suffers Second-Straight Annual Loss
One of Asia’s largest hedge funds saw its fiscal year loss grow by
almost 23% on lower revenues and fee income. Sparx Group, once the region’s
largest hedge fund but now only its second-largest, said its annual loss was
¥4.54 billion (US$57 million) for the year-ended March 31. It is Tokyo-based
Sparx’s second-straight annual loss; the firm took a ¥3.7 billion in the prior
fiscal year. Sparx’s revenue dropped 37% to ¥4.49 billion as assets under
management fell 20% to ¥535.4 billion and performance fees plummeted 78% to
¥454 million. Management fees dropped 21% to ¥3.8 billion.
The loss is especially disheartening amidst Sparx CEO Shuhei Abe’s
cost-cutting measures, which have included layoffs.
DUBAI, May 15 (Reuters) – Gulf Arab states are increasingly using the Chinese yuan
for trading as China accounts for a growing share of the region’s exports, and given
volatility in major currencies, a senior executive at Standard Chartered said
on Tuesday.”We are seeing an increasing interest from the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council)
in renminbi,” said Farooq Siddiqi, managing director for transaction banking at
Standard Chartered.”That’s mainly due to increasing trade between both sides and
the need to hedge against dollar exposure,” he told reporters at a roundtable event
in Dubai. Gulf states are increasingly selling hydrocarbons to Asian countries like
Korea, China and India, compensating for a decline in such trade with Iran following
the introduction of new sanctions. “The Gulf states are shifting their focus towards
Asia and Africa, away from the historic trade partners of U.S. and Asia,” said Siddiqi.
The Gulf region has a long history of trade with Iran, and its banks had been expected
to step up such financing after the sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme
banned European Union lenders from doing so. But the central banks of UAE and Qatar
have told lenders to stop financing trade with Iran.More than 9 percent of global
trade with China, worth around $330 billion, is denominated in yuan, said Juten Arora,
managing director and global head of sales for transaction banking at Standard Chartered.
“This is expected to hit $1 trillion in 2020 at a growth rate of 15 percent,” he added,
saying double-digit growth in yuan-denominated trade with China was plausible this year.
China’s cross-border yuan trade settlements fell to 196 billion yuan ($31 billion) in
April from 261 billion yuan in March, its central bank data showed. China is the largest
consumer of energy resources produced by the Gulf Arab oil exporting region, and the
largest source of imports for the Gulf Cooperation Council, United Arab Emirates Foreign
Trade Minister Sheikha Lubna al-Qassimi has said. The annual volume of Chinese exports
to the Gulf region has risen more than ten-fold over the last decade to reach approximately
$60 billion last year, she said last month.
In January, China, a relatively modest importer of UAE crude, signed a three-year currency
swap agreement with the country worth 35 billion yuan ($5.5 billion), its first in the
Middle East, in a move to boost two-way trade and investment. In the first 11 months of
2011, trade between China and the UAE grew to $32 billion in value, up 38 percent, according
to Chinese customs data. Chinese exports to the UAE, worth $24.3 billion, dominated that trade.
Dubai’s Emirates NBD bank sold the region’s first offshore Chinese renminbi-denominated bond
in March.
Shanghai plans to build 45 office buildings in its bustling financial district
of Lujiazui in five years, in a bid to accommodate clustering financial services
companies. By the end of April this year, there were 207 office buildings in
Lujiazui in city’s Pudong New Area, with a construction area totaling more than
10 million square meters, according to figures from the Administrative Committee
of the Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone.The new plan, part of Shanghai’s ambition
to be a global financial hub by 2020, comes after office buildings in Lujiazui
were nearly full as financial institutions flocked to the area.
Ninety-four percent of Lujiazui’s office floor was rented out in 2011.
By the end of 2016, Lujiazui is expected to be home to more than 900 financial
service companies, up from 630 in 2011.
From Caijing..
China has eased restrictions on foreign investors seeking to invest in
the country’s securities markets, as part of its boarder reforms of the
country’s financial sector, the official Shanghai Securities Journal reported,
citing a regulator’s conference. New measures will allow more than one investor
belonging to the same parent equity to acquire the Qualified Foreign
Institutional Investor licenses and grant higher quota for structured products.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission has also decided to lift the bar on
the proportion of assets into the stock market, given weakening expectations on
the yuan’s appreciation after a wider trading band for the yuan against the
U.S. dollar, the report said. China required foreign investors to part at least
50 percent of their assets into the stock market to prevent QFIIs from
over-investing in the country’s bond market to profit from yuan appreciation.
The CSRC isn’t considering offering hedge funds, widely criticized for stoking
volatility in markets, direct access to China’s markets, the report added, as it
has long encouraged long-term investors such as foreign insurers and pension
funds to invest directly in the country’s stocks and bonds.
Ending May 8, China had approved 26 billion U.S. dollars in QFII quotas, up
820 million from April’s 25.2 billion, the latest data published by the CSRC
showed.The CSRC has granted a total of 167 QFII licenses, boosting total assets
under the QFII accounts to 274.4 billion. The CSRC raised the combined investment
quota for QFII to 80 billion U.S. dollars from the current ceiling of 30 billion
U.S. dollars last month; it also pledged to expand fertilize the operations of the
QFII program to attract more long-term investors into China’s capital markets
It was once a proud nation that sent engineers and capitalists all over the world.
Now they are sending drunk, unemployed youth around the world.
This is Anglo-American money printing economics laid bare. You meet a lot of expats
here, seems every German you meet is an engineering or technical director. The Brits
and Americans are all 30 somethings looking for an internship. Their home countries
having long ago sold out their productive enterprises in favor of the banking centers
they have no where left to turn. Back home, the printing press keep the baby boomers
entrenched with their pension programs and job security while the youth are left with
unemployment, wars, and student debts. Sad.
A British man is being cited as the major driver for a recent government campaign to
clamp down on foreigners illegally entering, residing or working in China.The campaign
is set to start today and run to the end of August, said a spokesman with the Beijing
Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Police will comb communities thought to have large numbers of such aliens and mobilize
the public to report them, as well as tighten reviews of visa applications.
Official data shows that nearly 200,000 foreigners are in Beijing every day, including
120,000 inhabitants. Police records also show that foreigners without income, a home
and a job are more likely to commit illegal acts in the city.
Beijing police reported earlier that a British man was detained on suspicion of
assaulting a Chinese woman along a road in Xuanwumen in downtown Beijing’s Xicheng
District last Tuesday.
The man, intoxicated on the night of the incident, is a British national in China
with a tourist visa. A video recording of the incident uploaded to the video-sharing
site youku.com by an Internet user incurred outraged comments from many of those who
saw it.
british-man-beat-up-for-sexually-assaulting-chinese-girl.html
CHINA will impose a routine fishing ban in northern parts of the South
China Sea, including waters around Huangyan Island, from tomorrow,
authorities announced yesterday. The ban will last until August 1, covering
areas north of the 12th parallel, including Huangyan Island but excluding
most of the Nansha Islands, according to a spokesman for the South China
Fishery Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture. All fishing
vessels should be moored and shelve their nets during the ban,
the spokesman said. Violators may have their catches and boats confiscated,
their fishing licences revoked and be fined up to 50,000 yuan (US$7,910).
He said the ban would also apply to foreign ships. “Fishing activity of
foreign ships in the banned areas will be seen as a blatant encroachment
on China’s fishery resources.” Foreign fishing boats have been caught
breaking fishing bans in the area in the past. Despite continuous crackdowns,
the practice is far from being stamped out, he added. Imposed annually since
1999, the ban is aimed at protecting fishery resources. It has been imposed
from May 16 to August 1 every year since 2009, he said.This year, however, it
comes at a time of escalating tensions over Huangyan Island, which began on
April 10 when a Philippine warship harassed Chinese fishing vessels seeking
shelter in bad weather. China has repeatedly said Huangyan Island is an
inherent part of its territory and that the surrounding waters are historic
fishing areas for Chinese fishermen. The fishery bureau spokesman said a patrol
boat would be dispatched to the waters around the island today to enforce the ban.
Also yesterday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that the
fishing ban was “not related to the ongoing Huangyan Island incident.”Tong Xiaoling,
Chinese ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said: “We are
aware of the presence of Philippine boats in the area. These fishing boats should
leave regardless of the fishing ban.” Tong added: “China has every right to defend
its sovereignty and protect its fishery resources.”Meanwhile, China urged the
Philippines to respect China’s territorial sovereignty and stop complicating
tensions over Huangyan Island. “The Chinese side demands the Philippine side
seriously respect China’s territorial sovereignty and stop all moves that will
expand and complicate the situation,” Hong said.On Saturday, Philippine Foreign
Secretary Albert del Rosario said the Philippines would never agree to China’s
demand to withdraw vessels from the waters off Huangyan Island and would instead
seek only a temporary agreement on the matter until a long-lasting solution could
be reached.”[The Philippines] should work to address the situation through
diplomatic consultations rather than continue stirring public opinion and delivering
self-contradictory information,” Hong said.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/National/2012/05/15/Fishing%2Bban%2Bto%2Binclude%2BHuangyan/
There are 370,000 people with 6 million yuan ($950,000) living in Shanghai today,
or one-in-65 people in a city with a population of 23 million. A total of 140,000
people in Shanghai have personal assets of 10 million yuan, an increase of
6.1 percent year-on-year, accounting for 13.7 percent of China’s high net worth
individuals.
Furthermore, there are 8,200 “super-rich” individuals with assets
worth 100 millionyuan, up 5.1 percent from last year.
Of the super-rich individuals in Shanghai, 75 percent are business owners.
Real-estate investors account for 15 percent. And finally, professional investors
account for 10 percent of super-rich individuals in Shanghai.”This year’s report
shows that property is the biggest source of wealth in Shanghai, while globally,
most wealth comes from professional investment,” said Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman
and chief researcher of the Hurun Report. “It is quite normal. As at the beginning
of creating wealth, you tend to do everything by yourself. But as fortune
accumulates, people have stronger awareness for investment,” he said.
Considering that China’s real estate industry is relatively sluggish at the moment,
and the stock market is flat, Hoogewerf said these factors will affect the fortunes
of China’s rich.
According to the report, Shanghai has 250 individuals with 2 billion yuan, of which
82 are on the Hurun Rich List 2011. Shanghai has 90 dollar billionaires,
of which 28 are ranked on the Hurun Rich List 2011.
From the China Daily…
BEIJING – China will lower banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR) by
0.5 percentage points starting May 18, the country’s central bank announced Saturday.
The cut, the second of its kind this year, will drop the RRR for the country’s large
financial institutions to 20 percent and the medium- and small-sized financial
institutions to 16.5 percent, according to the People’s Bank of China.
Analysts say the central bank’s move is to further release liquidity against the
backdrop of current slowdown in economic growth. The cut will release an estimated
400 billion yuan (63.49 billion US dollars) in capital into the market.
China had previously lowered the RRR by 0.5 percentage points on February 24.
“From the April economic data released recently, we can see that China’s foreign trade,
investment, tax revenue and credit have all showing signs of slowdown in growth,”
Lian Ping, chief economist of Bank of Communications, told Xinhua.
“The central bank lowers the RRR now with a view of releasing additional liquidity and
strengthen the market vitality,” he said.The central bank in December cut the RRR by
0.5 percentage points for the first time since December 2008, after hiking the RRR six
times last year in an effort to check inflation.
From Opalesque…
Hedge funds investing in Emerging Asia posted industry-leading gains to start 2012,
with the HFRI EM: Asia ex-Japan Index gaining +7.4 percent in 1Q12, the best start
for the index since 2006 when it gained +12.3 percent, according to data released
today by HFR, the leading provider of data, indices and analysis of the global hedge
fund industry.
The HFR index of Emerging Asia hedge funds easily outperformed Chinese equity markets
by over 450 basis points for 1Q; recent gains follow a volatile 2011 which saw the
HFRI Asia Index decline by -18.08 percent. In contrast, while the HFRX Japan Index
gained +5.2 percent for 1Q12, it trailed the strong quarterly gain of +19.2 percent
for the Nikkei 225.
The number of active Asia-focused hedge funds increased to 1,101, approaching the
record number of 1,107 Asia-focused hedge funds set in 4Q07. Total capital invested in
the Asian hedge fund industry increased by over $4.5 billion since YE 2011 to
$86.6 billion (544 billion reminbi; 6.9 trillion Japanese Yen) to end 1Q12. Asia-focused
funds experienced a modest net capital of investor outflow for the quarter of $256 million
(0.29 percent of capital); the sum of all funds which experienced net inflows totaled
$1.39 billion, while funds experiencing net redemptions totaled $1.64 billion.
China has continued to emerge as the preferred location for hedge fund firms investing
in Asia, with 30 percent headquartered in China, a significant increase since 1Q09 when
20% were China-based. Globally, China trails only the US, UK and Switzerland as the
preferred location for hedge funds worldwide, ahead of both Canada and France by number
of hedge funds. In the Asian region, Singapore is the second-most preferred location
for Asian-focused funds, with nearly 10 percent of funds located there, followed by
Australia and Japan, respectively. “It is difficult to overstate how important the
ability for investors to access Asian markets and investors as an integral component
of the growth of the global hedge fund industry in coming years,” stated
Kenneth J. Heinz, President of HFR. “China will continue to emerge as the capital
of the Asian hedge fund industry, representing integral access to specialized
local expertise and insight of Asian markets as sophisticated hedge fund strategies evolve
to operate in these markets. As this occurs, funds operating in Hong Kong, Shanghai and
Singapore will be as relevant and significant to investors as those operating in New York,
London and Zurich.” HFR Asian office completed successful first year of operations In
consideration of the increasing significance of the Asian hedge fund industry to both
global investors and the overall hedge fund industry, HFR established the HFR Asian office
in 1Q11. The office focuses on both increased awareness of developments in the Asian hedge
fund industry, as well as client service to the large and growing audience of investors
utilizing HFR research. The HFR Asia office is located in China and managed by
Mr. Josh Gu, Director of Quantitative Research and Asian Distribution.
http://www.opalesque.com/
Reports in Japan said five Chinese warships – including two guided missile
destroyers, two frigates and a amphibious landing ship – had passed through
waters close to Okinawa moving to Philippine reefs.
The People’s Liberation Army Daily, the official voice of Chinese military,
has also published a commentary on Thursday titled, “Never Expect to Take
Away Half an Inch of China’s Territory.” It said, “We never tolerate any
unreasonable embarrassment with blind patience, not to mention that the
issue matters for China’s territorial integrity, national dignity, and
even social stability.
“For anyone who tries to snatch the sovereignty over Huangyan Islands,
not only will the Chinese government not agree; the Chinese people will
not agree; and the Chinese army will not agree.”
Hundreds of Filipinos demonstrated outside the Chinese embassy in Makati City today,
over an escalating territorial row, with the protesters denouncing China’s rulers as
arrogant bullies.
Waving national flags, the protesters led called for Chinese ships to pull away from
a disputed shoal in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) where both nations have
had ships stationed for more than a month in an effort to assert their sovereignty.
“Our protest is directed at the overbearing actions and stance of the government in
Beijing, which behaves like an arrogant overlord, even in the homes of its neighbors,”
said rally organizer Filipino-American Loida Nicholas Lewis.
The territorial row centrers on Scarborough Shoal, a tiny rocky outcrop in the West
Philippine Sea about 230 kilometers (140 miles) from the Philippines’ main island of
Luzon. The Philippines says the shoal is part of its territory because it falls within
its exclusive economic zone. But China claims virtually all of the West Philippines Sea,
which is believed to sit atop huge oil and gas reserves, as its historical territory,
even waters close to the coasts of other Asian countries.
The nearest major Chinese landmass to Scarborough Shoal is 1,200 kilometers
northwest of the shoal, according to Filipino navy maps.
Chinese authorities this week ordered tour operators to suspend trips to the Philippines,
in what Filipinos have widely interpreted as a form of economic blackmail. Ahead of the
demonstration China’s embassy in Manila advised Chinese citizens in the Philippines to
stay indoors, warning their safety was at risk particularly during Friday’s protest.
protester-arrested-over-attempt-to-burn-chinese-flag
China Investment Corp. has stopped buying European government debt because
of an economic crisis on the continent, though it continues to look for new
investments there, said CIC President Gao Xiqing. “What is happening in Europe
right now is of course of concern,” Gao said today in an interview in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia, during the World Economic Forum on Africa. “We still have our people
looking at opportunities in Europe, even though we don’t want to buy any
government bonds.”
china-investment-stops-buying-europe-debt-on-crisis-concern-1-.html
In the modern day capitalist and crony capitalist paradise that is China,
there is break-neck competition across all industries. Now even car washes
have evolved to their final capitalist end-point which of course is..
” Hot Chic” car washes. Long Live Adam Smith!
As reported in the Chinese press, May 7th, a certain underground carpark
on Shanghai’s Xietu Road began offering “hot chick” car wash services, with
high heels, sunglasses, and bikinis burning up the scene, and various luxury
cars all vying for a spot in line to experience the “erotic” car wash service.
