IV. International (09-15-06)
.Foreign
direct investment in countries of ASEAN, a group
of 10 developing SE Asian nations, surged 48% to $38
billion last year, topping the records set in 1997
before the regional currency crisis.
.
Earnings at industrial firms rose nearly 29% in the
first half of 2006, defying concerns that efforts to
cool the economy would pinch profits. Transport
equipment makers’ earnings rose 56%, followed by crude
and natural gas producers at 45%, and the power industry
at 36%.
.
ASEAN has maintained its economic growth forecast of 6%
for 2006, riding on rising affluence, increasing foreign
direct investments (FDIs) and better economic
performance of each member country.
.
The Thai Commerce
Ministry announced the progress of a new
1,170-miles-long road project that runs from Kumning in
SW China through Laos and on to the port of southern
Thailand.
.
With the US preoccupied with war and nuclear threat in
the Middle East, China is emerging as the great new
power of the 21st century East Asia and
pulling long-time American allies to its camp, e.g.,
Thailand,
Philippines and
Australia.
.
Economically, China is
the fastest-growing trade partner for most countries in
the region as well as the one they believe will play the
biggest role in their future. Politically, it is weaving
a retinue of regional groups and organizations that will
add to its clout in the area. It is doing so with a
newly cooperative approach that is generating a spirit
of goodwill.
. China
signed agreements with Venezuela to boost its
investments in the oil-rich country with joint projects
in petroleum, telecom, farming and railways.
.
China will get US backing for a modest increase in its
voting power at the IMF, a disappointment to people who
argue that Beijing ought to be punished for maintaining
an unfair currency system.
.
China will spend $125 billion to improve water treatment
and recycling facilities over the next 5 years. The
government hopes to lure more foreign technology and
investments because come 278 cities have no sewage
treatment plants. In some areas, the worsening water
sources, pollution and frequent water pollution
accidents have seriously threatened the water quality.
.
China recently overtook
Japan in economic output, but it’s more about branding
than economic heft. Certainly, the world is cutting
Chinese companies a lot of slack. It seems to be in the
cover of US magazines more than Scarlet Johannsen.
.
You could be driving a Japanese car (Toyota),
watching Korean television (Samsung), surfing the
Net on an American computer (Dell or HP), and
chatting on a Finnish cell phone (Nokia). Every
one of these items may have been manufactured in
China, yet
none are Chinese.
.
But China can’t change its image as yet, and its
second-class status as the low-cost sweatshop of the
world is going against China’s first-class aspiration to
be a major global player.
.
July industrial output
in Japan
fell 0.9% in part due to slowing exports, defying views
for a 0.7% gain. The industry data follow
weaker-than-expected consumer spending and inflation
data.
.
Fresh seaweed may provide Japan a new power
source. Researchers have developed a biomass
fermentation system that utilizes seaweed dredged off
Japan, Web Japan reported.
.
Japan’s consumer prices rose less than anticipated in
July, dumping speculation that the central bank will
raise interest rates for a second time this year.
.
Microchip maker NEC Electronic Corp began
shipping image detection chips for cars lat month, with
the first going into a Toyota Motor Corp Lexus
model to be launched this fall.
. North Korea
accused the US of provoking war by carrying out an
anti-missile test over the Pacific and holding military
drills with South Korean forces on the divided
peninsula.
. The welfare
budget will grow to rise as fast, as the economic growth
next year with the Roh Moo-hyun administration spending
62 trillion won($65 billion) on various welfare
programs.
.
South Korea, the world’s
most wired nation, continued to push the envelope on the
speed of the broadband Internet and looks set to make
1 gigabyte per second (Gbps) a commercial
possibility.
.
The
Philippines,
widely called the text-messaging center of the world,
has led the way in forcing former president Joseph
Estrada out of office, calling it “coup de text.”
.
This country of 85 million has only 2 million Internet
users and 3 million people with land-line telephone. But
there are over 30 million cell phone subscribers, more
than double the 2002 figures, according to government
statistics. It costs 2 cents per text message, at 8
texts a day, is more popular with and affordable to
users.
. Cabilao
National High School in Bohol
Province is the
first recipient of a pilot test by 2 German institutions
to create the country’s first wireless
independent-powered high school computer lab in RP.
.
Though RP is the first republic in the western
hemisphere, its version of representative democracy is
not that different from many democracies-in-name-only
today: government-off-the-people, fool-the- people,
and buy-the-people.
.
Western media apply
double standards when reporting in Muslim countries
which are often ignorant about sensitive issues on their
religion, said Indonesian president Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono.
.
An American gold-mining
executive denied that his company (Newmont Mining
Corp) dumped dangerous levels of mercury and
arsenic-laced waste into an Indonesian bay, sickening
villagers and causing fish stocks to plummet.
. A mountain
of trash collapsed at Bantargebang dump in Bekasi,
killing at least 3 scavengers. There were 5 other people
who were critically injured and recovered from the more
than 20-meter high heap.
.
In most countries,
executing a foreign-exchange trade won’t get you
executed except in
Vietnam.
A deputy head of trade financing (Nguyen Vin)
traded foreign currencies through a series of
intermediaries, including ABN Amro, illegally losing
$5.4 million in a series of speculative trades from 4/03
to 2/06. She is accused of illegally “mishandling state
assets,” a state offense.
. Pacific Rim
finance ministers ended a 2-day meeting in
Hanoi
with a vow to work with their trade authorities to help
restart global trade talks which collapsed in July.
. P.M.
Nguyen Tan Dung said active support of international
organizations, including the Asian Development
Bank and the World Bank, was responsible for
the country achieving a gross domestic product rate of
over 7.5% in recent years.
.
US Defense contractors
are eyeing
India’s
growing military budget and aging arsenal as a
multi-billion dollar opportunity that could help offset
a projected showdown in Pentagon weapons spending.
.
Several of the Pentagon’s largest contractors, e.g.,
Lockheed-Martin, Boeing Co, Sikorsky Aircraft, etc.
have either opened new offices or beefed up existing
ones in India and have begun an industry-wide wooing of
military officials and business leaders.
. The
government could combine income tax, fringe benefit tax
and wealth tax into one code – Direct Taxes Code ’06,
when a new income tax law will roll out in ’08, as part
of the initiative to make taxation laws simpler and
people friendly.
.
A bomb damaged a gas
pipeline in SW Pakistan, cutting supplies to
thousands of homes in a region tense after a rebel tribe
leader died in a battle with government forces.
.
Pakistan will send a contingent of army personnel to
Lebanon for the exclusive purpose of de-mining of areas
bombed by Israel during the 34-day conflict.
.
P.M. Shauket Aziz said the government would tap
all possible resources to increase power generation and
maintain the momentum of growth.
