TrendLines

April 8, 2015

CHINA has stolen a march on other potential customers by locking in a Free Trade Agreement with Australia, with food security uppermost in
Chinese leaders’ minds, says leading Australian academic, Kerry Brown . . .




April 8, 2015

ENERGY efficiency savings in 11 member International Energy Agency countries in 2011 were greater than the combined crude oil consumption of the EU and Asia (excluding China). The IEA says investment worldwide in 2012 in energy efficiency is estimated at up to US$360 billion . . .




March 18, 2015

CHINA is undergoing a fundamental change to its economy while it attempts to grapple with longer-term fiscal challenges and potential political tensions.
It is in transition to a services-oriented and consumption-led economy, which will be reflected in a gradual change in China’s imports from the world.

And its growing and costly list of problems — including pollution, environmental degradation and ageing — will lead to creation of new service industries, such as environmental and healthcare services. For China’s trading partners, all these changes pose both challenges and opportunities.

ATI spoke to two professors of economics on the margin of a discussion panel organised by China Daily during the Asian Financial Forum in Hong Kong, seeking their perspective on China’s economy of today and tomorrow.

Both agreed that the days of double-digit, furious growth in China are unlikely to be repeated. What is now quaintly known as the “new normal” will be the norm.

In other words, the world needs to get used to China growing at a lower pace — as China itself also realises that it can grow at less than eight per cent without causing social instability . . .




March 18, 2015

EDUCATORS in Asia needs to shape what is taught in the classroom to suit the context of today’s environment, says Indian industrialist and co-founder of Infosys, Narayana Murthy . . .




February 4, 2015

TAIWAN’s Sunflower Student Movement has thrown into sharp relief the divisions in Taiwanese society over relations with China, reflecting fears that the ruling KMT has been moving too rapidly in its rapprochement with Beijing. A Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement already signed off by China remains stalled in the Legislative Yuan, with further Cross-Strait negotiations apparently in limbo as a Presidential election, likely on current trends to be won by the Opposition DPP, looms in 2016. Meanwhile, China is finalising a free trade deal with South Korea, Taiwan’s head-to-head competitor in the China market on 77 per cent of all Taiwanese export products, putting new pressure on the economy . . .




January 19, 2015

TWO HUNDRED Australian SMEs will showcase in Shanghai, starting from February, as Australia’s combined Business Chambers move to properly position Australian products and services in global markets. Success in Shanghai could see a similar move into India. “This is a very strategic project for us – we have done a lot of exciting things, but we have never gone offshore on this scale, says Stephen Cartwright, CEO of the NSW Business Chamber . . .




January 15, 2015

A GLOBAL Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is being blocked by demands from Taiwan and South Korea that additional products be added to an exemption list. But there has been a breakthrough in the bid for a worldwide Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) following talks between the US and India, who have agreed on WTO provisions for food security – an issue that has troubled India . . . 




January 15, 2015

RESULTS of November’s local government elections in Taiwan point to  resurgence of the Opposition Democratic Progressive Party, positioning it for a win in the 2016 Presidential polls. Joseph Wu, Secretary-General of the DPP, spells out his party’s China policy, which would see a lessening of Taiwan’s trade dependence on China, and, politically, a continuation of the status quo . . .




January 15, 2015

2015 will be an important landmark year for ASEAN, with two key regional integration agreements due to become reality. Ostensibly, they will make the environment for doing business in Asia much more stream lined — and less costly. But while ASEAN’s FTAs may be harmonised, ambitions for an ASEAN Economic Community are proving harder to realise . . .




December 24, 2014

CHINA’s anti-corruption campaign has slashed spending in sectors of its domestic economy, but it is impacting on global business, too, including travel, casino takings and the luxury goods sector.




December 24, 2014

Accidental President removes the stigma

Doris Dumlao, ATI Correspondent




November 11, 2014

SINCE 2009, when the Government finally defeated LTTE terrorists, Sri Lanka’s GDP has increased by more than 50 per cent to US$67 billion (2013), with per capita GDP up from US$2,057 to US$3,280 in the same period. Australia has become the ninth-largest source of FDI . . .




November 11, 2014

WHILE the Mainland remains a strong source of FDI for Hong Kong, an emerging source is the start-up entrepreneur with global ambitions, wanting to use Hong Kong as a base for regional and world markets . . .




November 11, 2014

CHINA wants the South China Sea to become a main source of oil and gas into the future as it targets a doubling of production to one million barrels per day oil equivalent by 2020, much of it from deep sea areas also claimed by a number of ASEAN countries who have their own energy security ambiti




November 10, 2014

CHINA’s relations with its neighbours have got worse under President Xi Jin-Ping, in part because he is beset by a host of internal problems, but China is shooting itself in the foot in the South China Sea, says former American career diplomat, Christopher Hill . . .




October 24, 2014

THE attention deficit of a multi-tasking United States, China’s growing assertiveness and the amoebic spread of militant Islamism are the over-arching risk issues facing governments and business today, says Simon Tay, Chair of the leading ASEAN think-tank, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs . . .




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