Thursday, April 25 2024 | ASIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL - Reporting the Business that Matters in Asia
HONG KONG - The RMB's strong performance has caught the market's attention - since early June, the RMB has been a top performer against both major currencies struggling with low inflation and low yields and against most EM currencies, HSBC says in a research report.
HONG KONG – While the announcement by China of a batch of important activity indicators over the weekend showed industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment all below market expectations - as well as having slowed from their outturns in the previous month – BBVA Bank believes the situation might not be as bad as the headline figures showed.
~~HONG KONG – China’s August growth data has surprised the market on the downside, with industrial production expansion slowing to the lowest level since December 2008. Both fixed asset investment and retail sales growth edged lower. HSBC says that, combined with lower-than-expected inflation numbers, this calls for further policy easing in the coming months to stabilise growth.
SINGAPORE - Major companies in ASEAN remain firmly on their growth Path, but they are increasingly financing a growing gap between cash inflows and investments, acquisitions and dividends, with debt -- and that could pose a risk, ratings agency Standard & Poor's says in a series of seven reports on the largest companies in the region released today.
~BEIJING - China is on the right track to transform its economy and is capable of maintaining a growth rate at over 7% in coming years, according to Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. Schwab has been voicing his confidence in China’s economy since 2007, when he launched Summer Davos, an annual high-level meeting of the world’s political, business, and social leaders.
BEIJING - China’s outbound investments may show on-year growth of 10% in 2014 as the administrative processes for Chinese companies’ overseas investments will be simplified. To encourage Chinese companies to invest globally, the Government has released a revised edition of overseas investment management regulations, to take effect from October 6.
TAIPEI - The majority of Taiwan people consider themselves ethnically Chinese, according to a survey by the non-governmental organisation, Taiwan Competitiveness Forum. Conducted by TCF quarterly, the poll found 87% of respondents see themselves as part of the ethnic Chinese community on the basis of their shared cultural heritage, ethnicity, history and language.
MELBOURNE – Following a one-year trial, the Chinese city of Nanjing has extended its supply contract for waste management products from Melbourne-based Cardia Bioplastics Limited. The additional orders, worth AUD350,000 for kitchen waste bag supply to individual households, validates a forecast annual requirement worth AUD1 million.
HONG KONG - Standard & Poor's has assigned its 'A' long-term and 'A-1' short-term foreign currency rating to a commercial paper programme by Agricultural Bank of China Ltd under which the bank's New York branch may issue commercial paper up to a maximum aggregate amount of US$8 billion.
BEIJING - China will allow foreign investors to establish and own shipping enterprises, according to new guidelines intended to boost the deficit-plagued sector. The procedures outline how shipping companies fully owned and controlled by foreign investors can be founded within the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone.
ADELAIDE – Australia’s Lincoln Minerals Limited (ASX: LML) has signed a co-operation agreement with a group of Chinese local governments and private enterprises to launch a platform for spot trading of graphite in China.
BEIJING - China is negotiating with the governments of Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan to build three connective railroads to improve regional trade on the Silk Road economic belt. Since 2010, major Chinese cities such as Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi’an, Zhengzhou, Wuhan and Yiwu have begUan weekly or monthly train services to European and Central Asia destinations as a part of China’s efforts to turn its inland resources and labor-rich cities into international trade hubs.
BEIJING - China’s non-manufacturing activity slightly rebounded in August, with the sector’s PMI landing at 54.4. The figure is compiled by the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, which tracks activity in sectors such as construction, software, aviation, railway transport and real estate.
TAIPEI - China's slowing economic growth and excess capacity in some industry sectors remain the key credit risks for Taiwan corporates over the next year, according to Taiwan Ratings Corp., a subsidiary of Standard & Poor's. The report, covering Taiwan's top 50 corporates by revenue in 2013, says Taiwan’s retail, semiconductor, and telecom sectors have the strongest credit profiles among the top 50, while transportation, cyclical, and metal companies have the weakest.
SYDNEY - The United States will be unable to secure Asia this century and the region will need to craft a balance of power to counter China, according to a new report released today by Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies. “New institutional initiatives are urgently needed to reduce strategic distrust and the likelihood of dangerous misunderstandings and misjudgements,” says the report’s author, Dr Benjamin Herscovitch.
NEW DELHI - Recent events have sown seeds of doubt in some quarters on how strongly India’s new Modi-led government will be able to deliver on reforms – and these doubts could morph into scepticism about prospects for India’s growth recovery, according to a research paper by ANZ Bank.