Asia Focus

Asia Weekly Focus

2008-10-10T18:37:15+02:00

This week has been all about the markets starting to factor in the prospect of a global recession, it's not just the banking crisis in the northern hemisphere, which has been driving a lot of volatility in the markets in the past year or so but now the prospect is very real of a global downturn. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he's more concerned about the stability of Australia's banks than its competitiveness. The Commonwealth Bank has launched a bid to buy Bankwest, while Westpac is trying to takeover St George Bank. Australia's opposition says the global economic crisis is an opportunity for the big banks, and will reduce competition in the market.

India's begins parliament debate on confidence vote

2008-07-21T17:13:16+02:00

In this days India's parliament has begun debate ahead of a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government. The vote is due on Tuesday and according to experts the outcome is too close to call. The Indian government will collapse and early elections will be called if Prime Minister Singh's government loses the vote. Prime Minister Singh stirred up anger among his left-wing and communist allies by pushing ahead a nuclear accord with the United States, which his government insists is essential to meet the energy needs of India's fast-growing economy.

China will transfer $9 billion in pensions to selected fund managers

2007-04-13T19:19:44+02:00

Last Thursday the Chinese Labor Ministry confirm will transfer more than $9.1 billion in company pension plans to selected fund managers by the end of this year. China's market for enterprise annuities, as the plans are known, is expected to grow by 30 billion to 50 billion yuan, or $3.9 billion to $6.5 billion, in 2007.

According with labor authorities China's company pensions market was valued at about 90 billion yuan at the end of last year, of which 20 billion yuan has already been transferred to fund managers. All company pension plans rolled out in the future will be handled by fund professionals.

China allows 37 firms to handle these funds. Of these, four are joint-venture fund houses, according to a KPMG-Reuters research report. These include Harvest Fund Management, 19.5 percent owned by Deutsche Bank, and China Merchants Fund Management, in which ING holds 30 percent. The government will also gradually expand the scope for insurers to invest directly in stocks, confirm the responsible of the insurance regulator, China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

China is allowing pension funds and insurers greater access to stocks to help boost returns as it dismantles the nation's cradle-to-grave welfare system. The benchmark CSI 300 Index gained 121 percent last year.

Preparations are under way to lift a ceiling that limits insurers' direct investment in the stock market to 5 percent of assets, and progress will be made according to the needs of insurance firms. China also bans investments by insurance firms in stocks that have…

1.24m Chinese grads can't find major-related jobs

2006-11-29T14:02:48+01:00

About 1.24 million Chinese college graduates have failed to land jobs that require their qualifications upon graduation this year, the county's top labour official said.

A total of 4.13 million students graduated from higher education institutions this year, 750,000 more than last year, as the country enters its ninth year of expanding college enrolment.

Tian Chengping, minister of labour and social security, said on Thursday (Nov 23) he estimates about 70 per cent of college graduates have been employed since graduation, according to the China Youth Daily.

He said the central government has set up an inter-ministerial joint team, including the Ministry of Education, to help address employment problems.

Meanwhile, the Labour and Social Security Ministry has established a mechanism to provide guidance and training for unemployed graduates, the minister said.

Only 22 per cent of China's new jobs last year were for college graduates, estimates a ministry study of 114 urban labour markets.

Tian said the country should create more jobs in the process of economic development and urged college graduates to work in grassroots units and undeveloped areas where they are most needed.

China's official registered unemployment rate stood at 4.1 per cent in the first nine months of 2006.

The demand for college graduates was down 22 per cent in 24 provinces and 15 major cities from last year, said a report issued by the Ministry of Personnel in March.

A survey showed 52.14 per cent of bachelor degree holders considered lack of experience as the biggest obstacle…

Japan flexes its military muscle

2006-10-31T20:22:28+01:00

Aboard the Kurama - Nearly 50 warships crowded the bay just south of Tokyo, all flying the Rising Sun flag. Sea-to-sea missiles roared off the decks of several destroyers, and submarines emerged like a pod of whales from the surf.

More than an exercise, this was a message: In Asia's accelerating arms race, Japan is determined not to fall behind.

“The security environment surrounding our nation has changed dramatically in recent years,'' Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the sailors aboard this destroyer after watching Japan's annual fleet review Sunday. “I believe this is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate our readiness”.

Though in the planning for months, the fleet review - Japan's biggest show of its military might each year - came just weeks after North Korea sent shock waves through the region with the Oct. 9 announcement that it had conducted its first nuclear test.

The test brought particularly strong condemnation from Japan, which is within striking distance of North Korea's ballistic missiles. Japan plays host to about 50,000 U.S. soldiers, who would probably also be high on the list of potential targets should North Korea decide to launch an air attack.

But well before North Korea's nuclear announcement, Japan, the United States and Asia's other big power, China, have been scrambling to enhance their military standing in a region rife with territorial disputes, economic tensions and the remnants of Cold War rivalries.

“For Japan, the radical shift has already happened in many ways,'' said Lance Gatling, a former U.S. Army…

Weekly Focus

2006-10-30T14:06:37+01:00

Inside Myanmar's secret capital

One year after Myanmar's secretive ruling military junta suddenly relocated the national capital 320 kilometers north from Yangon to Naypyidaw, the motivations behind the dramatic move are still unclear.

Foreign access to the new capital is strictly forbidden. But this correspondent's recent travels through the area showed that the junta has quietly continued to build around the new capital's greenfield site, which is rapidly swallowing the old town formerly known as Pyinmana. And recent construction of key infrastructure in other parts of the country's heartland Mandalay division offers new clues to the junta's grand designs for the region.

Although on a smaller scale than in the new capital, Myanmar's government is concurrently developing military, communications and transport infrastructure in a corridor that runs directly north from Naypyidaw to Pyin Oo Lwin, the town where the army's Defense Services Academy (DSA) training facility is situated.

The regime is building a new military airport just outside of Pyin Oo Lwin in nearby Anikasan town. The single runway, a 3,000-meter-long airstrip, took nearly two years to complete and immediately came into service last October when the junta received India's army chief of staff J J Singh in Pyin Oo Lwin. The Indian official was subsequently taken on a tour of the DSA as well as the Defense Services Technological Academy.

Residents of Pyin Oo Lwin and nearby Mandalay say the new airstrip is more commonly used to ferry high-ranking military officials between Naypyidaw and a newly built luxury housing complex…

Crisis boosts U.S.-China ties

2006-10-27T21:38:36+02:00

North Korea's nuclear test Oct. 9 may have created a crisis atmosphere in the world but, at the same time, it has greatly improved China's relations with the United States as the two countries work closely together to put pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear-arms program.

This new situation is recognized by both Washington and Beijing. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on a swing through Japan, South Korea, China and Russia - which along with the U.S. and North Korea make up the countries taking part in the "six-party talks" - that some developments suggest that Beijing was becoming more of a partner on issues important to Washington.

Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia responsible for the North Korea talks, said at a forum in Washington that the two countries have "really come closer together as a result of this terrible provocation by the North Koreans."

"So perhaps someday in the history books, Kim Jong Il will get a lot of credit for bringing the U.S. and China closer together," he added facetiously.

Both Rice and Hill have underlined the significance of China actually joining the other 14 members of the United Nations Security Council to denounce North Korea, its erstwhile ally.

"Not bad for a couple of years' work," Rice said, apparently referring to the time Washington and Beijing had spent working together on the North Korean nuclear issue.

China, too, recognizes its increased importance to the U.S. When President Hu Jintao…