A weekly sampling of news, analysis and
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Economy | Finance | Trade |
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US,
Chinese trade officials to begin talks on
thorny issues of trade, currency,
copyright (IHT, December 10)
China and the United States downplayed
their differences Monday, saying both
sides needed to fend off protectionism as
they prepared for difficult negotiations
on economic disputes ranging from exchange
rates to product safety. The talks
come amid rising anger in the U.S. Congress
over China's massive trade surplus
and demands that Washington act forcefully
to compel Beijing to halt what some
members see as currency manipulation and
other unfair trade practices.
China
attracts $3.18 bln venture capital in first
11 months (The People's Daily,
December 10)
China attracted 3.18 billion U.S. dollars
venture capital by the end of this
November, up 78.9 percent from the whole
year level of 2006, according to a
report released Friday by Zero2IPO
corporation, a leading domestic industry
research institution. Altogether 428
contracts were signed by the end of November,
104 more than the 12 months' total in 2006,
said the report.
Indian
companies net $20 Bn
on U.S. market in '07 (Silicon India,
December 10)
The total market value of Indian companies
listed in the U.S. market has grown
close to $20 billion since the beginning of
2007, in spite of a sluggish trend
continuing in the American market. The
largest Indian private sector lender
ICICI Bank is guiding from the front,
accounting for nearly half the collective
gains among the 16 Indian companies listed
in the market. The total market capitalization
of these companies has grown beyond $140
billion, where it was about $121 billion
at the beginning of this year.
India
Inc second only to China in emerging
MNCs (The Economic Times, December
4)
India has contributed the second-largest
number of companies in a new study
of emerging market giants by multinational
consultancy firm Boston Consulting
Group (BCG). As many as 20 Indian
companies, including the likes of M&M,
Bajaj Auto, Bharat Forge, Cipla, Ranbaxy,
Reliance group, TCS, Tata Motors,
Tata Steel, Wipro, Infosys and VSNL are
part of BCG's 2008 top global challengers
list. Other Indian companies on the roster
include Dr Reddy's, Crompton Greaves,
Hindalco, L&T, Satyam, Tata Tea and
Videocon. Wind energy company Suzlon
is the new entrant to that list this year.
China
to triple quotas for foreign investment in
mainland stocks (IHT, December
10)
China plans to triple its quota for
purchases of local shares by foreign
institutional
investors, the government said Monday, just
ahead of key trade talks with the
United States. The State Administration of
Foreign Exchange said in a notice
on its Web site that the quota for such
share purchases by so-called qualified
foreign institutional investors —
dubbed QFII — would rise to US$30
billion (€20 billion) from the current
US$10 billion (€7 billion).
More
than
70% Hong Kong households connected to
internet (The People's Daily, December
7)
More than 70 percent of Hong Kong
households have a personal computer connected
to the Internet, strengthening the city's
status as one of the world's leading
digital hubs, an official survey released
Thursday indicated. Hong Kong's Census
and Statistics Department said that the
figure represents a slight rise on last
year when 71.7 percent of households had a
computer and 67.1 percent had it
connected to the Internet.
Around
the Markets: India bull turns bearish
(IHT, December 6)
India's biggest bull is on the verge of
becoming its biggest bear. Sanjiv Duggal,
who manages the largest holding of Indian
equities in the world, may even urge
his clients to cash out. "Investors
aren't factoring in earnings and news
flows, but valuing people's dreams,"
said Duggal, who oversees about $11
billion in Indian equities as investment
director at Halbis Capital Management
in Singapore. "The risk-reward ratio
is not favorable."
China
hopes to establish free trade zone with ROK
at an early date (The People's
Daily, December 11)
China hopes to accelerate studies on the
possibility of a free trade zone with
the Republic of Korea(ROK) in order to
quickly implement the zone, said Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday. During talks
with ROK counterpart Han Duck Soo,
Wen also urged both countries to expand
mutual investment.
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Politics | Diplomacy | Security |
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US Proposes Nuclear Dialogue with
China(Voice of America, Dec 5)
The United States has proposed starting a
dialogue with China on nuclear weapons and
strategy. VOA's Al Pessin reports the
proposal came during an annual meeting
between senior U.S. and Chinese defense
officials at the Pentagon, which included
military officers responsible for each
country's nuclear weapons. Pentagon
Spokesman Bryan Whitman says the United
States wants the dialogue to cover defense
nuclear programs, policies and strategy.
Revived U.S.-Indian Deal Heads to
IAEA(Arms Control Today, Dec 10)
After appearing close to expiration, the
U.S.-Indian civil nuclear cooperation deal
was recently resuscitated when some Indian
lawmakers relaxed their opposition to
government talks with the world's nuclear
monitoring agency. The deal's recovery,
however, could be short lived if the
consultations falter or fail to satisfy the
lawmakers.
India-China war games from December
20(Sify News, Dec 4)
The Indian and Chinese armies will conduct
their first war games December 20-28, a
defence spokesman said Tuesday. "The
exercise will begin on December 20 and
conclude on 28th. It will be conducted in
China's Chengdu military region,"
Wing Commander RK Das of the Indian
Army's Kolkata-based Eastern Command, told
IANS on the telephone. The exercise
will see each side fielding some 100 officers
and men.
India, China seek greater say in intl
financial institutions(The Hindu, Dec 5)
India and China have said their robust
economic growth would help enhance risk
resilience of the world economy, as they
pledged to draw on each other's
development experience and add more muscle to
their combined efforts in financial and
fiscal fields. The two Asian giants have also
identified a sub-prime crisis spread,
increasing oil and commodity prices, global
economic imbalance and trade protectionism
exacerbation as factors that enlarge
potential risks to them to continue economic
growth.
Chinese 'border gesture' to
India(BBC, Dec 7)
China appears to have reversed its long-held
policy of refusing to give visas to Indians
from the disputed Indian state of Arunachal
Pradesh. It has now allowed a professor from
the state - in the north-east of the country
- to visit China. Beijing has over much of
the last four decades been claiming Arunachal
Pradesh as its own territory.
Six nations discuss energy aid to North
Korea(Earth Times, Dec 11)
Officials from six nations held talks Tuesday
on energy and economic aid to North Korea in
exchange for abandoning its nuclear weapons
programme, host nation China said. South
Korea chaired an energy cooperation working
group under the framework of six-party talks
that also involve North Korea, the United
States, China, Japan and Russia, foreign
ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.
Chinese, U.S. presidents hold telephone
talks on ties, Iranian, Korean nuclear
issues(Xinhua, Dec 6)
Chinese President Hu Jintao and his U.S.
counterpart George W. Bush discussed
bilateral relations and the Iranian and
Korean Peninsula nuclear issues during a
telephone conversation Thursday.Hu said
China-U.S. relations have moved forward in
2007, adding that the two sides have
continued deep dialogue and exchanges at a
strategic level.
Rise of India, China doesn't mean
beginning of US decline: Rice(The Hindu,
Dec 11)
The rise of India and China does not mean
that the US, which is currently experiencing
a "tectonic" shift in its economy,
is entering an era of decline, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice has said. "Our
society and economy are in the midst of a
tectonic shift from an industrial -- to an
information-based order. Globalisation is
creating unprecedented opportunities, but we
Americans still do not feel that they are
sharing in them," Rice said at a
Women's Foreign Policy Group Annual
Luncheon.
India, China team up to tackle West
bullying(The Times of India, Dec 8)
India and China along with other G-77
countries have in the past two days begun a
strong campaign against the pressure mounted
at Bali by the industrialised countries to
trash the existing global climate change
treaty called the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change.
Analysis
Strange bedfellows for sure, but China and
India would be awesome together(Globe and
Mail, Dec 5)
India and China are the twin titans of the
developing world. With a combined population
of 2.4 billion, they account for more than a
third of the world's population and 15
per cent of world trade. That share of trade
is expected to rise to 40 per cent within a
generation. By then, China is forecast to be
the world's biggest economy by purchasing
power parity and India the third biggest.
|
Technology | Communications |
|
Reliance
secures wireless license (IHT, December
9)
Reliance Communications received an amended
license to expand services in the
third-biggest wireless market in the world
by number of users. The carrier's
existing global system for mobile
communications, or GSM, network will be extended
throughout India "in due course,"
Reliance, based in Mumbai, said
Friday. The company, the second-largest
mobile-phone operator in India, has
a nationwide wireless network on the
competing code division multiple access,
or CDMA, standard.
Samsung
targets 15 percent
of India mobile market in 2008 (Silicon
India, December 10)
Aiming big, Samsung Electronics is focusing
on doubling its share of the Indian
mobile phone market to 15 percent in 2008.
The company hopes to sell at least
10 million handsets in the year, a senior
official said. "Globally, we
are number two. In India, we are not number
two. We want to go step by step
and this is the first step," Asim
Warsi, General Manager of GSM marketing
at the South Korean firm's local unit, said
after the launch of a new model.
"Our current market share is about
seven percent. We don't consider this
market share yet," he added.
IT
firms gear up to avoid facing
talent crunch (Silicon India, December
10)
With NASSCOM, the apex body of the domestic
software industry, forecasting a
huge talent crunch resulting in a shortage
of skilled manpower in the next few
years, the country's top IT firms are
enhancing their interaction with colleges
and universities to ensure that the
graduates who pass out from these institutions
match the industry's requirements.
Country's leading IT organizations such as
Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys
Technologies, Satyam Computer and HCL are
already working with engineering colleges
and many others are planning to collaborate
with the academia to churn out
professionals with the right skills.
|
Energy | Resources |
|
Iran signals sanctions alert by $2bn oil
deal with China group(Financial Times,
Dec 10)
Iran signed a $2bn oil contract with Sinopec
of China yesterday, sending a signal to
western companies that they might miss out on
potentially lucrative contracts with one of
the world's biggest energy exporters if
they continued to heed US-inspired sanctions
against Tehran. "If other countries who
like to invest in oil and gas hesitate, they
will lose opportunities," said
Gholam-Hossein Nozari, Iran's oil
minister.
US, China sign MoU on joint biofuel
development - USDA(Forbes, Dec 11)
China's National Development and Reform
Commission and the US departments of
agriculture and energy have signed a
memorandum of understanding on the joint
development of biofuels. 'As two of the
world's largest consumers of oil, this
MoU may help reduce each country's
dependence on imported oil, benefiting US and
Chinese consumers,' the US Department of
Agriculture said in a statement released at
the US-China Joint Commission on Commerce
& Trade (JCCT) meetings.
Govt to offer 57 oil and gas blocks for
auction(The Economic Times, Dec 10)
The govt will launch the latest round of its
auctions for nearly 60 oil and gas
exploration acreages as it seeks to decrease
dependence on foreign fuel sources, a
minister said on Monday.
The number of blocks on offer would be the
largest so far. "We will announce
NELP-VII on December 13," Petroleum
Minister Murli Deora said in the capital.
Nuclear energy key to India's role in
climate change: US
(The Economic Times, Dec 6)
As the world discusses a new agreement to
fight global warming, the US says nuclear
energy will be a "key piece of the
equation" for the future of India's
contribution to adjusting climate change.
"There is no question that nuclear power
has to be part of the solution," a key
advisor of President George Bush told
reporters Wednesday at a White House briefing
on the UN conference on climate change
underway at Bali, Indonesia.
Energy sector needs $150 b
investment(Sify News, Dec 8)
India needs investments to the tune of
$120-150 billion (Rs 4.8-6 lakh crore) in the
energy sector over the next five years.
Strong private sector participation is
required to complement public sector and to
bring in the required capabilities and
technologies according to a report released
by KPMG and Confederation of Indian
Industries (CII) at the India Energy Conclave
2007 here on Friday.
India-China diplomatic row(Times Now,
Dec 8)
India-China diplomatic row seems to be in the
making. China has raised strong objections to
Indian firm ONGC's exploration activities
in two Vietnamese oil blocks in the South
China Sea. In fact it has told the Indian
Government to stop its operations - but India
is in no mood to listen. India's oil
exploration giant, ONGC is a Fortune 500
company caught in the middle of what appears
to be a diplomatic row.
Winds of change as China invests in
renewables(Smart Planet, Dec 11)
China's economic rocket ship may be
fuelled by coal but paradoxically, the
world's second largest generator of
carbon emissions is also on target to meet
its goal of obtaining 15 per cent of its
energy from renewable sources by 2020. To do
so it is recruiting outside help from
renewables companies in Europe, who are
relishing the multi-billion dollar opportunity.
Why did solar energy lose its
flare?(MSNBC, Dec 10)
Solar energy is the light alternative to a
carbon-rich energy diet, and it may be the
only renewable energy that can significantly
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, engineers
say. "Wind can play some role, as can
biofuels and geothermal, but they are all too
small," said Erin Baker of the
University of Massachusetts Amherst.
"The three really big players are solar
energy, nuclear power and carbon capture and
storage."
Vice premier urges experts to seek energy
development path suitable for
China(Xinhua, Dec 6)
Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan Thursday
encouraged specialists to actively submit
suggestions and proposals for top leaders to
make decisions on the nation's energy
development.Zeng attended and delivered a
speech at the plenum of the energy expert
advisory committee under the National Energy
Leading Group, which was held Thursday.He
asked the specialists to make earnest
research on major problems China is facing in
its energy exploration and to try hard to
seek an energy development path that conforms
to China's characteristics.
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Health | Science | Environment | Education |
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China
says human-to-human transmission not
confirmed in latest bird flu cases
(IHT, December 10)
Outbreaks of bird flu in poultry in China
are very likely in the coming months,
a top agriculture official said Monday, as
health investigators worked to determine
how a father and son in the country's east
were infected by the disease. So
far, China has made major achievements in
narrowing the scope of epidemics in
poultry, reducing the number of birds
sickened and decreasing the instances
of culling, Vice Agriculture Minister Yin
Chengjie was quoted as saying on the
ministry's Web site.
China-led
takeover group pulls out of US$2.6 billion
takeover bid for Australia's Nufarm
(IHT, December 10)
A consortium led by China National Chemical
Corp., or ChemChina, is pulling
out of a takeover bid for agricultural
chemicals company Nufarm Ltd., the Australian
company said Monday. The bid was worth a
possible 3 billion Australian dollars
(US$2.6 billion; €1.8 billion). In
addition to ChemChina, the bid involved
U.S. private equity firms Blackstone Group
and Fox Paine Management.
US
resists mention of deep emissions cuts in
UN climate conference document
(IHT, December 10)
In a largely symbolic duel over numbers,
the United States on Monday resisted
efforts at the U.N. climate conference to
suggest that upcoming negotiations
consider a specific range of targets for
sharp cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.
A proposed text for the Bali conference's
final document notes — in a
nonbinding way — a widely accepted
view that reductions of 25 to 40 percent
in richer nations' emissions would be
required by 2020, and even deeper cuts
later, to head off the worst of global
warming.
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Agriculture |
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US, China Sign Deals to Safeguard
Food(Associated Press, Dec 11)
The United States and China sparred over
intellectual property protections and signed
agreements on safeguarding the quality of
food and drugs exports to the U.S. Tuesday at
the start of a series of contentious economic
meetings. Other agreements included one to
boost the number of Chinese tourists going to
the United States and several geared toward
expanding
U.S. access to Chinese markets, from
agriculture to telecommunications.
Demand Drives Record Fertilizer
Prices(Farm Futures, Dec 11)
Prices for fertilizer are surging to record
highs due to surging global demand for all
forms of crop nutrients says Michael R. Rahm,
Vice President of Market & Economic
Analysis at Mosaic Co., a major U.S. producer
of potash and phosphate.
Climate change may hit agri production:
Study(Commodity Online, Dec 10)
Climate change may severely affect
India'sagriculture. A
government-sponsored study hasthat there
would be grave deficient in wheat and rice in
between 5 to 40 percent due to the climate
change by the end of 2100 AD. Studies
conducted by the Indian Council of
Agriculture Research (ICAR) on the possible
impact of climate change say there is
considerable uncertainty about the magnitude
of loss.
China attaches importance to agricultural
work next year(Xinhua, Dec7)
The Chinese government will focus on
infrastructure construction in rural areas
and protecting arable land next year,
according to an executive meeting of the
State Council or cabinet presided over by
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Friday."The
agriculture sector is of crucial importance
to economic development and social
stability," noted the meeting.
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Manufacturing | Transportation |
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Sinosteel
makes offer for Midwest (IHT, December
9)
Sinosteel, the second-biggest iron ore
trader in China, offered 1.2 billion
Australian dollars, or $1.1 billion, to buy
Midwest to secure supplies ahead
of a proposed merger of two of the largest
producers in the world of iron ore.
Sinosteel bid 5.60 dollars a share, Midwest
said Friday, 16 percent more than
the stock's last traded price and 54
percent more than an offer from an Australian
rival, Murchison Metals.
GM
plans
$5 billion in China investment (IHT,
December 6)
General Motors, the largest automaker
worldwide, plans to invest as much as
$5 billion in China over the next five
years to expand its share of the fastest-growing
major car market in the world. The company
will spend about $1 billion a year
on car and engine development, production
facilities, technical and after-sales
support and infrastructure, said Kevin
Wale, the president of GM's China unit,
in Shanghai on Wednesday.
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Tourism |
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Medical
Tourism: The lucrative prescription for
India (TravelBiz Monitor, December
10)
The Medical Tourism phenomenon is not new
to India, as people have been visiting
the country for medical treatment for over
a decade. Patients from US, UK, Middle
East, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan
come to India to avail of health care
services. In the past five to seven years,
a large number of hospitals have
sprung up with the required infrastructure
to provide services on par with the
global standards in order to tap this
segment. Earlier, patients from the neighbouring
SAARC countries flocked to India for
treatment due to lack of advanced facilities
and skill sets, and the NRI segment also
came down to India due to the cost
factor, which is one third in India
compared to the country of residence.
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Newsletter staff |
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Publisher: Roxanne Russell
Editor of Academic Resources: Dr. S.V.
Char
Co-Editor: Abhijit Agrawal
Co-Editor: RJ Paulsick
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