http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/1264-burma-positions-four-warships-on-western-coast.html
by Mizzima News
Friday, 07 November 2008 21:02
New Delhi – Following a standoff between Burma and Bangladesh over disputed waters, the Burmese military junta to order four of its warships to be positioned near the western coast of Sittwe, an eyewitness said.
The four warships bearing the Nos. 772, 57, 555 and 554 were seen taking up position near the coast of No. (1) Seikkhan port of Sittwe following the standoff between Burma and Bangladesh over disputed waters in the Bay of Bengal on Sunday.
The eye witness, a local resident of Sittwe town, capital of Arakan state, said the first warship, No. 772, arrived on the coast on Monday, while two others followed on Tuesday. The last warship arrived on Friday morning, he said.
"I have never seen such warships on the coast. This is the first time I have seen them," the eyewitness said.
While the eyewitness said he was not aware of the reasons for the arrival of the warships, he said he saw officials of the Sittwe based Navy battalion No. (18) visiting the warships.
A military source, who wished not to be identified, told Mizzima that the Burmese military government has directed the warships to be positioned at the coast following the standoff between Bangladesh and Burma over the disputed maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal.
The face off between the two neighbouring countries surfaced on Sunday when the Bangladesh's chief advisor summoned the Burmese ambassador to the country and protested against Burma's gas exploration activities in the Bay of Bengal.
Bangladesh said the area where the exploration is being carried out falls under Bangladesh territorial waters. But Burma denied the accusation and said it is "Well within its economic zone."
On Thursday, a Bangladeshi delegation led by Foreign secretary Touhid Hossain held discussions with Burmese officials to resolve the dispute but later in the evening Burma's state television announced that Burma will continue drilling oil from the disputed area as it is in its waters.
The Burmese junta's announcement, whih was also published in the state-owned newspaper on Friday said Bangladesh's claim that the drillings were in its territorial waters was 'mistaken and unlawful' and that it will continue drilling despite the dispute.
Bangladesh's foreign adviser Dr. Iftekhar Chowdhury, earlier, on Tuesday said, "it will be our endeavor to settle the issue diplomatically, for Bangladesh is a peace-loving country. But let it also be understood that we will do all that it takes to protect our sovereignty."
Both countries have had a long standing dispute over its maritime boundary but the latest row came on Sunday when Bangladesh protested over the deployment of warships by Burma in support of the Daewoo International Corporation, that is carrying out test drilling in the Bay of Bengal, about 50 kilometers south of Bangladesh's Saint Martin Island.
On Thursday, reports citing Bangladesh's naval sources said Burma had withdrawn two of its warships, but the information cannot be independently verified with the Bangladesh Navy.
On Friday, a naval officer in Bangladesh's Chittagong Navy base told Mizzima that the Bangladesh Navy is continuing with its normal exercises. He added that so far the Navy has not received any orders to prepare for any kind of confrontation.
An editor of the Bangladesh Today newspaper in Dhaka said, the current standoff could not lead to confrontation that would severe ties between the two friendly countries.
"Bangladesh is avoiding any confrontational approach and will likely resolve it through diplomatic channels," he said, adding that the Bangladesh government has approached China to help defuse the tension.
China on Thursday said it noted the dispute between Bangladesh and Burma and urged the two to resolve the dispute through peaceful negotiations.
"We encourage the two to work together to properly settle their disputes through friendly negotiations. As a friend of both of them, China would like to play its role in an appropriate way," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing on Thursday.
But a Burmese journalist based in Dhaka, observed that the tension between the two countries could grow severe in the coming days as there are no signs that the two sides are willing to back-off.
He said, Bangladesh's Navy is also secretly preparing by reinforcing its naval troops, but he failed to elaborate on details of the preparation.
The office of the Bangladesh's Defence Joint-Secretary, when contacted by Mizzima on Friday, declined to comment.
Reporting by Than Htike Oo & Salai Pi Pi. Written by Mungpi
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Burma positions four warships on western coast-MIZZIMA
No Decision Yet on Gambari Visit: UN -IRRAWADDY
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14591
By LALIT K JHA / UNITED NATIONS Friday, November 7, 2008
NEW YORK — No decision has been taken yet on the Burmese military junta’s invitation to Ibrahim Gambari, the UN special envoy on Burma, to visit the country, a UN spokeswoman said on Thursday.
UN Secretary-General spokesperson Michèle Montas told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York that an invitation from the Burmese junta was received a few weeks ago.
"Gambari has not yet made a decision on whether he is going," Montas said in response to a question.
She said the decision would be taken by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in consultation with Gambari. "They decide together," she said.
It is understood that the delay in taking a decision is mainly because the UN envoy wants to ensure his next visit to Burma does not end in humiliation as happened in August.
Before accepting the invitation and announcing the exact date of his trip, the UN wants assurance from the Burmese regime on certain issues, which if taken, would be considered a step in the right direction.
Meanwhile, two prominent pro-democracy groups in Burma, the All Burma Monks’ Alliance and the 88 Generation Students, issued a joint statement calling on the UN Security Council to reinforce Ban’s mandate for realizing democratic change in Burma.
"We fully agree with the conclusion made by the Secretary-General [submitted to the General Assembly on October 20, 2008] that 'there is no alternative to dialogue to ensure that all stakeholders can contribute to the future of their country,'" the groups said.
However, the statement added: “Without strong enforcement from the Security Council, the military junta that rules our country of Burma will continue to undermine the Secretary-General’s good offices mandate and the United Nations, and more and more people of Burma will die unnecessarily."
The statement was backed by the United Nationalities Alliance (UNA), a coalition of 12 ethnic political parties that won 67 seats in the 1990 election. In a statement released on Friday, the UNA said it “strongly welcomes and supports the report of the UN Secretary-General on Burma … on Oct 20, 2008.”
The UNA called on the UN Security Council to “take effective action against the Burmese regime if it fails to release all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and start a meaningful and time-bound dialogue by the end of December 2008.”
ေက်ာင္းသားႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရး-ေနအဂၢ-FROM "Tom Brown"
ေက်ာင္းသားႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရး
ေနအဂၢ
ယေန႔ ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ မ်ိဳးဆက္သစ္ ေက်ာင္းသားလူငယ္မ်ားၾကားတြင္
ႏိုင္ငံေရးႏွင့္ ပတ္သက္၍ အသိအျမင္နည္း မႈ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရး၏ သေဘာသဘာ၀ကို
နားလည္မႈ နည္းပါးေနၾကသည္ကို အားမလုိအားမရ ျဖစ္မိသည္။ ဤသည္ မွာ
ဆန္းေတာ့မဆန္းပါ။ ယေန႔အခါကာလတြင္ အုပ္စိုးသူ အာဏာရွင္တို႔အေနျဖင့္
၄င္းတို႔၏ မတရားသျဖင့္ ႏိုင္ လိုမင္းထက္ ျပဳမူမႈမ်ားကို ဖံုးဖိႏိုင္ရန္၊
၄င္းတို႔၏ မတရားအုပ္စိုးမႈ သက္ဆိုးရွည္ရန္အတြက္ ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔အား စဥ္း
စားဆင္ျခင္ ေတြးေခၚတတ္လာေစႏိုင္ေသာ ပညာေရးမ်ိဳးကို ဖန္တီးေပးမထားေပ။
မ်ားျပားလွေသာ ေက်ာင္းစရိတ္ ကုန္က်ေငြမ်ားအတြက္ ေက်ာင္းျမန္ျမန္ၿပီးေရး၊
ဘြဲ႔ျမန္ျမန္ရေရးကိုသာ ဦးတည္သြားေစေသာ အလြတ္က်က္ ပညာေရးမ်ိဳးသာ
ေပးထားျခင္းသည္ အမ်ိဳးသားေရး၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးအေတြးအေခၚ နည္းပါးရျခင္း၏
အေၾကာင္းတရပ္ ျဖစ္သည္။
အုပ္ထိန္းသူ မိဘမ်ားအေနျဖင့္လည္း မိမိတို႔၏ သားသမီးမ်ား ႏိုင္ငံေရး၌
စိတ္၀င္စားသြားမည္ကို လြန္စြာ စိုးရိမ္ပူပန္ၾကသည္။ ဤအတြက္ အုပ္ထိန္းသူ
မိဘမ်ားအားလည္း အျပစ္မတင္လို။ မိမိတို႔၏ သားသမီးက ႏိုင္ငံေရး
စိတ္ပါ၀င္စားေနလွ်င္ သြားၿပီ။ ထို႔ထက္ကဲ၍ ႏိုင္ငံေရးလႈပ္ရွားမႈမ်ားတြင္
တက္ႂကြစြာပါ၀င္ေနလွ်င္ ဘ၀ပါပ်က္ၿပီ။ အဘယ့္ေၾကာင့္ ကြၽႏု္ပ္ ဤသို႔
ဆိုရပါသနည္း။ ရွင္းပါမည္။
ယေန႔အုပ္စိုးသူ အာဏာရွင္တို႔သည္ ၄င္းတို႔အား ေတာ္လွန္ေသာ ႏိုင္ငံေရး
လႈပ္ရွားမႈမ်ားတြင္ ပါ၀င္သူမ်ား (အထူးသျဖင့္ ေက်ာင္းသားလူငယ္မ်ား) အား
မတရားသျဖင့္ ဖိႏွိပ္မည္၊ ဖမ္းဆီးမည္၊ အစစ္အေဆး၊ အေမးအ ျမန္းမရွိ
ေထာင္ခ်မည္။ ေက်ာင္းသားျဖစ္ေနလွ်င္ ေက်ာင္းမွ ရာသက္ပန္ ထုတ္ပယ္မည္။
ေထာင္ခ်မည္။ ဘယ္ ဆီ ဘယ္၀ယ္မွန္းမသိေသာ တေနရာရာသို႔ ပို႔လိုက္ၾကမည္။
အခ်ိန္တန္၍မွ အိမ္ျပန္မလာလွ်င္ က်န္ရစ္သူ မိ သားစုအေနျဖင့္ မွန္းဆ၍သာ
သပိတ္သြပ္ အမွ်ေ၀လိုက္ၾကေပေတာ့။ ဤမွ်ဆိုး၀ါးလွေသာ ျဖစ္ရပ္အတြက္ အ
ဘယ္ကဲ့သို႔ေသာ မိဘမ်ားက မိမိတို႔ သားသမီးအေပၚ အျဖစ္ခံၾကမည္နည္း။
ခက္ခဲလွေသာ စား၀တ္ေနေရးၾကားမွ ထားေပးရေသာ ေက်ာင္းအတြက္ မိမိတို႔၏
သားသမီးပညာေရးကို ဘယ္ မိဘက ဆံုးရႈံးေစခ်င္ၾကမည္နည္း။
အႏွစ္သာရကင္းမဲ့ေသာ္လည္း ရရွိလာမည့္ ဘြဲ႕တံဆိပ္အတြက္ ဂုဏ္ယူ
ခ်င္ၾကေပလိမ့္မည္။ ဤသို႔ ဤသို႔ေသာ အေၾကာင္းတရားမ်ားကို ေထာက္၍
ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔၏ မိဘမ်ား အမွန္တ ကယ္ ျဖစ္ပ်က္ေနေသာ အရွိ၊ အသိမ်ားကို
မ်က္ကြယ္ျပဳလိုက္ၾကသည္။ အုပ္စိုးသူ အာဏာရွင္တို႔ အလိုက်ဖို႔ မိမိတို႔
သားသမီးမ်ားကို ႏိုင္ငံေရး မလုပ္ၾကနဲ႔ တားမည္။ အထပ္ထပ္ သတိေပးမည္။
"ေက်ာင္းသားႏွင့္ ႏိုင္ငံ ေရး ဘာဆိုင္သနည္း။ ေက်ာင္းသားပဲ ကိုယ့္စာ
ကိုယ္ဖတ္၊ ကိုယ့္အလုပ္ ကိုယ္လုပ္၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဆိုတာ မင္းတို႔နဲ႔ မဆိုင္၊
အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္သူ (ယခုမူ စစ္ဗိုလ္) တို႔ႏွင့္သာ ဆိုင္သည္" ဟု ေလသံေတြ
ပစ္ၾကမည္။ ဒီလိုႏွင့္ မိဘမ်ားမွာ မိ မိတို႔ သားသမီးမ်ား ေဆးသမားျဖစ္မွာ
မပူ၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးသမား ျဖစ္မွာ ပူပန္ေနၾကရသည္။ ေတာ္ပါေပတယ္ ... ကို
ေ႐ႊနအဖတို႔ရယ္။
ကြၽႏ္ုပ္အဘယ့္ေၾကာင့္ ဤမွ် ေလရွည္ေနရသနည္း ဟုဆိုေသာ္ "ေက်ာင္းသားႏွင့္
ႏိုင္ငံေရး ဘာဆိုင္သနည္း" ဟု အေျပာခံရတိုင္း အခံရခက္လွ၍ျဖစ္သည္။
ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔အား ဦးေႏွာက္မရွိ၊ အေတြးအေခၚမရွိ၊ ဥမမည္ စာမ ေျမာက္၊
ႏွပ္ေခ်းတြဲေလာင္း အဆင့္ေလာက္ ေအာက္ေမ့ေနျခင္းကို ရင္ဘတ္ထဲ အပ္နဲ႔ဆြသလို
နာလွသည္။ ထိုစကားေျပာေသာ ပညာရွိ သုခမိန္ႀကီးမ်ားကို "က်ေနာ္တို႔မ်ား အ
တယ္မွတ္ေနသလား" ဟုပင္ ျပန္ေနာ့ လိုက္ခ်င္သည္။
ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ မ အ ၾကပါ။ ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ မေၾကာက္တတ္ၾကပါ။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္
ရွင္းရွင္းပဲ ေျဖပါမည္။ ကြၽႏ္ုပ္တို႔သည္ ေက်ာင္းသားဟု ေခၚေ၀ၚေနရေသာ္လည္း
ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔အားလံုး လူသားမ်ား စင္စစ္ျဖစ္ၾကပါသည္။ သို႔အတြက္ လူ
အဖြဲ႕အစည္းႏွင့္ဆိုင္ေသာ အေရးအားလံုး (ႏိုင္ငံေရး အပါအ၀င္)
ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ႏွင့္ ဆိုင္ပါသည္။ အဘယ္အ ေၾကာင္းေၾကာင့္ ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔၏
လူ႕အခြင့္အေရးကို အဆံုးရႈံး ခံၾကရမည္နည္း။
ႏိုင္ငံေရးႏွင့္ ဆိုင္ပံုအေၾကာင္း ထပ္မံ ရွင္းျပပါဦးမည္။ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဟု
ဆိုလိုက္သည္ႏွင့္ အမ်ားစုမွာ ပါတီမ်ား၊ အာ ဏာမ်ား၊ အစိုးရအဖြဲ႕မ်ားကိုသာ
ေျပး၍ ျမင္လိုက္ၾကသည္။ ဤသို႔ေသာ ပါတီႏိုင္ငံေရးမ်ိဳးကို ကြၽႏု္ပ္မဆိုလို။
မိမိႏိုင္ငံ၊ မိမိလူမ်ိဳး တိုးတက္ေကာင္းစားေရးအတြက္ လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈမ်ားကို
ေဖာ္ေဆာင္ေသာ အမ်ိဳးသားႏိုင္ငံ ေရးမွသည္ လူႏွင့္ လူ႕အဖြဲ႕အစည္းတရပ္လံုး
တိုးတက္ေကာင္းစားေရးအတြက္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ေသာ ကမၻာ့ႏိုင္ငံ ေရးမ်ားကို
ဆိုလိုေပသည္။ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဟူသည္ မိမိကိုယ္တိုင္ႏွင့္ သူတပါး
တိုးတက္ေကာင္းစားေရးအတြက္ ကူ ညီေသာ လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈပင္ျဖစ္သည္။ တစံုတခုအတြက္
ခက္ခဲေနသူအား ကူညီလိုက္ျခင္း(၀ါ) ထမင္းစားစရာ မ ရွိသူအား ထမင္းစားရေအာင္
ၾကံေဆာင္ေပးျခင္းသည္ပင္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးျဖစ္သည္။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးဟူသည္
႐ိုး စင္းပါသည္။ ျဖဴစင္ပါသည္။ ျမင့္ျမတ္ပါသည္။ သို႔ေသာ္ မတရားသျဖင့္
အုပ္စိုးလိုသူ အာဏာ႐ူး (ဥပမာ- လက္ ရွိ ျမန္မာျပည္ စစ္အစိုးရ) တို႔ေၾကာင့္
ႏိုင္ငံေရးသည္ ညစ္ေထးလာရသည္။ မာယာပရိယာယ္ ႂကြယ္လာရျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။
လူႏွင့္ လူ႕အဖြဲ႕အစည္း တိုးတက္ ေကာင္းစားေရးအတြက္ လုပ္ေဆာင္မႈကို
ႏိုင္ငံေရးဟု ကြၽႏု္ပ္ဆိုခဲ့ၿပီ။ ယေန႔ ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ အပါအ၀င္ အမ်ားျပည္သူ
ေကာင္းစားေရးအတြက္ ႀကီးစြာေသာ အေႏွာက္အယွက္ အဟန္႔အတား ျဖစ္ေနေသာ
ကိုယ္က်ိဳးရွာ လက္နက္ကိုင္ အာဏာရွင္တို႔ကို ေတာ္လွန္ရမည္။ အာဏာရွင္
အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္မႈကို ဖ်က္ သိမ္း၍ လူ႕အဖြဲ႕အစည္းကို အမွန္တကယ္ကိုယ္စားျပဳေသာ
အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္ေရးအဖြဲ႕အစည္းမ်ိဳး၊ တရားဥပေဒ ႀကီးစိုးေသာ (မတရားဥပေဒ မဟုတ္)
လူ႕အဖြဲ႕အစည္းမ်ိဳးကို ထူေထာင္ႏိုင္မွသာလွ်င္ ကြၽႏု္ပ္ဆိုခဲ့ေသာ လူႏွင့္
လူ႔အဖြဲ႔အစည္း တိုးတက္ေကာင္းစားေရးဟူေသာ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပန္းတိုင္ကို
ခ်ီတက္ႏိုင္ေပလိမ့္မည္။
ထိုအခါ ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ ေက်ာင္းသားလူငယ္မ်ား မည္သည့္ အခန္းက႑မွ
ပါ၀င္ၾကမည္နည္း။ က်ရာမွ တက္ႂကြစြာ ပါ၀င္ၾကရပါလိမ့္မည္။ ကြၽႏု္ပ္၏
ေရာင္းရင္းမ်ား၊ ညီအစ္ကို ေမာင္ႏွမမ်ား ... ေသြးေၾကာင္ေနၾကပါသလား။ အ
ႏွစ္သာရကင္းမဲ့ေသာ ဘြဲ႕တံဆိပ္အတြက္ လက္ရွိပညာေရးကို ဖက္တြယ္ေနၾကလွ်င္
ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔၏ ေနာက္မ်ိဳး ဆက္ (New Generation) မ်ားလည္း ဆက္လက္၍
အႏွစ္သာရ ကင္းမဲ့ေသာ ဘြဲ႕တံဆိပ္မ်ားကို ဆက္လက္ တပ္ဆင္ေနၾကရေပလိမ့္မည္။
ေခတ္ဆိုး၊ စနစ္ဆိုး၊ အာဏာရွင္ဆိုးတို႔ အုပ္စိုးမႈေအာက္၌ ဆက္လက္၍ ဘ၀ ေတြ
ပ်က္ေနၾကရေပလိမ့္မည္။ ထို႔ေၾကာင့္ လက္ရွိ ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ တိုက္ပြဲ၀င္ရမည္။
ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ စြန္႔လႊတ္ခဲ့ရေသာ္ လည္း ေနာက္မ်ိဳးဆက္တို႔
ေကာင္းစားပါလိမ့္မည္။ ဤအတြက္ ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ ေက်နပ္ႏိုင္ပါလိမ့္မည္။
ေရာင္းရင္းတို႔ ...
ကြၽႏု္ပ္တို႔ တိုက္ပြဲအတြက္ ဓားေတြ၊ က်ည္ဆံေတြ၊ ေသနတ္ေတြ မလိုပါ။
တခုတည္းေသာ လိုအပ္ခ်က္မွာ ခိုင္ မာဇြဲသန္သည့္ စိတ္ဓာတ္တည္းဟူေသာ လက္နက္သာ
လိုအပ္ပါသည္။ ကြၽႏ္ုပ္အထက္တြင္ ေမးခဲ့ေသာ ေမး ခြန္းမ်ားကို ဆင္ျခင္ၿပီး
စိတ္အားေတြေမြး၍ စိတ္ဓားေတြ ေသြးၾကပါေလာ့ ...။
ေနအဂၢ
(ညိဳႀကီး ဘေလာ့ဂ္မွ ကူးယူေဖာ္ျပပါသည္)
"ႏိုင္ငံေရးဆိုသည္မွာ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို ့ေန ့စဥ္ႏွင့္အမွ် လူ ့ေလာကတြင္ ေတြ
့ႀကံဳေနၾကရေသာ ကိစၥပင္ျဖစ္ေပသည္။ တနည္းအားျဖင့္ဆိုေသာ္
ႏိုင္ငံေရးဆိုသည္မွာ လူ ့ကိစၥဟု ဆိုရေပမည္။ ကၽြႏ္ုပ္တို ့စားမႈ၊ ေသာက္မႈ၊
ေနမႈ၊ ထိုင္မႈ၊ သြားမႈ၊ လာမႈ အစုစုသည္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးပင္ျဖစ္၏။ ကၽြႏု္ပ္တို
့သည္ ႏိုင္ငံေရးကို မဆင္ျခင္ မေတြးေတာမိေစကာမူ ႏိုင္ငံေရးသည္ ကၽြႏ္ုပ္တို
့ႏွင့္အၿမဲတေစ ဆက္သြယ္ေန၏" (ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေအာင္ဆန္း)
"မတရားမႈတခုမွာ သင္ဟာ ၾကားေနတယ္ဆုိရင္...
သင္ဟာ ဖိႏွိပ္သူဘက္က လုိက္ဖုိ႔ ေရြးခ်ယ္လုိက္တာနဲ႔ အတူတူဘဲ"
"If you are neutral in a situation of injustice,
you have chosen to side with the oppressor."
China's Economic Growth May Slump as Spending Comes Too Late
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aUzk1Qc1r2aU
November 7, 2008, 6:32 am Link to This
By Paul Panckhurst and Li Yanping
Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- China's economy may expand at the slowest pace in nearly two decades next year as demand for exports slumps in the U.S. and Europe and government spending fails to bridge the gap.
Gross domestic product may advance 7.5 percent or less, the weakest since 1990, according to estimates by Credit Suisse AG, UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG. Royal Bank of Scotland Plc predicts the economy will grow 8 percent next year, while 5 percent ``can't be ruled out.''
China hasn't yet ramped up spending on railways, roads, and low-cost housing by enough to stop a slowing economy from cooling more, economists said. At stake is the contribution to global growth -- 27 percent last year -- that Premier Wen Jiabao says is the nation's way of helping the world through the financial crisis.
``The government's fiscal stimulus plan may not come in time to avert a deeper economic slowdown,'' said Ha Jiming, chief economist at China International Capital Corp in Beijing. Growth may be 7.3 percent next year, he said.
Indicators from auto sales to power consumption and export orders are pointing down and a slump in the property market is also threatening growth.
``I'm getting pretty worried,'' said Paul Cavey, an economist at Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong. ``It really looks like things are slowing down quite sharply and there's nothing in the works that can turn it around in the next six months or so.''
Influence Beyond Shores
China has averaged 9.9 percent growth for the past 30 years and its expansion underpins demand for the exports of its Asian neighbors and commodities from iron ore to soybeans.
China contributed the most to global growth in 2007, the International Monetary Fund said in a report in April this year. It used purchasing power parity calculations, which account for differences in the exchange rates of national currencies.
Exports may cool to 18.1 percent in October from a year earlier, compared with 21.5 percent in September, according to a survey of 17 economists by Bloomberg News. The report is due next week.
``Exports could suddenly decelerate sharply as the global credit crunch restrains normal business and trade financing,'' said Wang Tao, an economist at UBS. ``Anemic export growth could seriously affect manufacturing investment.''
Unsold Cars
Manufacturing contracted by the most since at least 2004 last month and export orders dropped to their lowest, according to CLSA Asia Pacific Markets. Unsold new vehicles were at a four- year high in September.
``The golden years have shuddered to a dramatic halt,'' said Stephen Green, head of China research at Standard Chartered Bank Plc in Shanghai. Green is reviewing his 7.9 percent forecast for next year because a ``big fiscal policy package'' hasn't arrived.
The government ordered Finance Minister Xie Xuren to return home early this week from an economic conference in Peru to deal with economic problems, an organizer of the event said.
The government is poised to this year announce a switch to a ``proactive'' fiscal policy in 2009 to sustain growth, China Business News reported, citing unidentified government officials. The change may come after an economic planning meeting to be held this month or next.
Though the government has pledged to boost infrastructure spending and Chinese media reported this week that road building may get a boost of 2.9 trillion yuan ($425 billion) over three to five years, nothing concrete has been announced.
China has taken some steps to spur its expansion. It cut interest rates three times since September, eliminated quotas that restrict bank lending and cut export taxes. It's also stalled the yuan's gains against the dollar to keep exports competitive.
That's not enough, said Ma Jun, chief China economist at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong.
``Without fiscal stimulus, China's GDP growth will likely decelerate to 6 percent next year,'' said Ma. ``The downside risks to economic growth are significantly greater now than just a few months ago.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Panckhurst in Beijing at ppanckhurst@bloomberg.netLi Yanping in Beijing at yli16@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: November 7, 2008 10:23 EST
Small Investors in Japan Jump In
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/small-investors-in-japan-jump-in/
November 7, 2008, 6:32 am Link to This
Topics I.P.O./OfferingsIndustries Financial Services
A global stock rout and fears of worldwide recession have sent millions of professional investors into panicked flight. But in Japan a growing breed of contrarian investors sees opportunity after the Tokyo stock market reached a 26-year low recently, The New York Times’s Martin Fackler reports.
The Asia Trader and Investors Convention drew large crowds on Saturday in Tokyo. Some stopped to listen to Nobuyuki Fujimoto, center, a marketing executive at Kabu.com Securities.
Participants at the event bought finance books and other material as they browsed exhibits and attended seminars held by more than 300 local and international companies.
Since last month, Japan’s legions of household savers have poured into the market by the tens of thousands — many of them first-time investors — seizing the world financial crisis as the greatest buying opportunity in a generation.
Sitting atop $15 trillion in personal savings, they are snapping up equities, currencies and even riskier investments like index futures, to some extent replacing foreign investors and even helping drive a limited rally in Tokyo’s beleaguered exchanges, say stock analysts.
“The stock market rout has popularized stock trading like nothing before,” Yuji Kusunoki, president of Rakuten Securities, told The Times. “It’s a paradox, but all the grim news has actually ended up making the market seem more attractive.”
Individuals have emerged as the most active buyers on the exchange. Japanese individual investors were net buyers of $10 billion worth of stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange last month, according to Tokyo-based Daiwa Securities, compared with $2.1 billion in September. Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of some $7 billion in stocks the same month, the brokerage firm said.
And domestic stocks are also replacing foreign bonds and currencies as the investment of choice for Japanese individuals.
Reiko Fujiwara, a 37-year-old suburban homemaker, spent $20,000 of her family’s savings last month to buy shares of a half-dozen big Japanese companies like Nissan. Though long reluctant to play the market, her uncertainty was overwhelmed by her belief that stocks had been drastically oversold.
“I’m usually quite conservative,” Ms. Fujiwara told The Times. “But prices were just so cheap, it looked better than leaving my money in the bank.” She says she has broken even since she started investing in early October.
Since the failure of Lehman Brothers, brokerage firms have reported an unprecedented surge in the numbers of new accounts being opened. At Rakuten Securities, one of Japan’s biggest online brokerage firms, requests for applications to open accounts have nearly quadrupled in two months, to some 33,000 in October.
About half of those applicants are first-time investors, ranging from university students to retirees, but most new investors are white-collar workers in their 30s and 40s. The firm said it has also seen rising applications for currency and index future accounts.
This is not the first time Japan’s amateur investors have emerged as a financial force. A couple of years ago, Japanese homemakers trading currencies online became a powerful investing bloc, named Mrs. Watanabes, who drove down the Japanese yen. Now, small-time Japanese are piling into their home market, going against the global trend. In doing so, they are overcoming traditional inhibitions here against stock trading. A nation of craftsmen and manufacturers, Japan long looked down on finance because its wealth was not fueled by the sweat of the brow.
The change has helped end a large outflow of yen overseas known as the yen-carry trade.
For years, Japanese households poured money into overseas assets, where they could earn better returns than in Japan with its near-zero interest rates. But in October, net investment in domestic stock mutual funds surpassed investment in foreign bond funds for the first time in 27 months, according to Nomura Research Institute, a Tokyo-based consulting company.
Many stock strategists say this influx has at least helped Tokyo’s markets rebound some 26 percent from last month’s lows, though they remain down 41 percent for the year. Interest has been particularly keen in blue chips like Sony, Nissan and Toyota, whose prices have fallen so far that they are often trading at below book value. That means that these companies’ buildings, equipment and other physical assets are worth more than the total of all their shares on the stock market.
Stock analysts said the risks of buying in the teeth of a global recession were huge, and trying to call the bottom as stocks appear likely to face further declines is potentially costly. But they said the long time frame of most small investors, who tend to buy and hold shares for years, meant they may come out ahead eventually.
“They are wading into a treacherous market,” Katsuyasu Murata, deputy general manager of sales planning at Daiwa Securities, told The Times, “but prices have fallen to the point that they make no sense.”
The stock rush points to an unusual quirk of Japan’s stock markets: a growing tendency by individuals to pile in during stock market routs, no matter how dark the outlook may be. Japan had similar, though smaller, buying sprees after the 2000 bursting of the tech bubble and during the global sell-off after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
Stock analysts say this habit comes from Japan’s long-stagnant stock markets, where major indexes have been stuck in a horizontal zigzag since the collapse of the nation’s stock market bubble in the late 1980s.
Indeed, individual investors help keep the market stuck in its doldrums by selling when markets rise.
“Japanese individuals are natural contrarians,” Tsuyoshi Ogata, a spokesman for SBI Securities, a Tokyo-based online brokerage firm, told The Times. “They only come in on the big dips” that come every half decade or so, he said.
Mr. Ogata said applications for new accounts more than tripled in October from the previous by 2,741 a day. About 70 percent of those were beginners, he said.
Interest is so intense that Daiwa even opened a new mutual fund last month, the Reevaluating Japanese Companies Fund, to cater to these investors, Mr. Murata of Daiwa told The Times.
He said the increase began early last month, when the benchmark Nikkei 225 index crossed the psychologically significant 10,000 yen line.
Mrs. Fujiwara, the homemaker, said she had bought a small number of stocks once before — when the Japanese market took a dive seven years ago. She said she sold those shares three years later and quadrupled her investment.
This time, she said, she decided to make a bigger investment after seeing bleak reports of the stock market sell-off on television.
“I’ll hold these share for five or 10 years, if necessary,” she told The Times. Her husband supports her, and is also trading online.
Other individuals are seeing the current downturn as a chance to become day traders, seeking shorter-term profits.
Hiroaki Mukai, a 35-year-old unemployed designer, followed a friend’s advice and last week began trading in Nikkei 225 index futures, a potentially lucrative but risky way to make bets on stock market moves.
Mr. Mukai told The Times he had never traded derivatives before. He said the index’s volatile moves, swinging as much as 10 percent in a day recently, gave him the opportunity to earn as much as $500 a day on his initial investment of $3,000. (He could lose too, of course.)
“Regular office workers have no chance to get rich, and it’s hard to imagine Japan become much wealthier, either,” Mr. Mukai told The Times. “I’m doing this to take care of myself, by myself.”
Go to Article from The New York Times »
India to tell Myanmar to bring about political reform
http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=630424
NEW DELHI, NOV 7 (PTI)
India is expected to impress upon Myanmar to bring about all-inclusive political reform and accord the "centre stage" to the UN efforts aimed at democratisation when the leader of the military-ruled country visits here next week.
"Our message to Myanmar would be -- we would like the UN to be given the centre-stage (in the process of democratisation).. We want the process of reconciliation to be all inclusive and proceed forward," Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs N Ravi told reporters here today.
He was responding when asked what message India would convey when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets Myanmar's military ruler Gen Than Shwe or Prime Minister Thein Sein, either of whom are expected to visit New Delhi for the BIMSTEC Summit next week.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon last week discussed the Myanmar situation with Singh here and said he was considering a visit to the Yangon.
Ban said New Delhi has been "actively and very constructively" contributing to the democratisation process in Myanmar.
© Copyright PTI. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of any PTI content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
Myanmar pro-democracy lawyers jailed for four months
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081108/wl_asia_afp/myanmarpoliticssuukyi_081108040502
Fri Nov 7, 11:05 pm ET AFP/File – Myanmar's High Court sentenced two lawyers from Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party to four …
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar's High Court sentenced two lawyers from Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy party to four months each in prison for contempt of court, a party spokesman told AFP Saturday.
Nyan Win said the jailing of Aung Thein and Khin Maung Shein, who have represented student activists in the courts, was a sign of increased pressure on the party from the ruling junta.
"U Aung Thein and U Khin Maung Shein were sentenced to four months imprisonment each by the High Court yesterday morning. They were taken from their homes last night," Nyan Win told AFP.
"Although they can appeal, U Aung Thein said he will not as he doesn't recognise the sentence," he said.
"We are in a difficult situation now as they (the laywers) often represented political activists. This is strong pressure from the authorities," Nyan Win added.
Aung Thein and Khin Maung Shein made their defence to the High Court in Myanmar's main city Yangon on Thursday after receiving a letter last week that charged they had disrespected the court during an earlier trial of student activists.
The US State Department on Friday condemned Myanmar for charging lawyers defending student activists.
"These actions represent a blatant attempt by the regime to intimidate these lawyers and demonstrate its contempt for the rule of law," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said in statement.
Wood demanded that Myanmar release another lawyer, Nyi Nyi Htwe, sentenced to six months in prison last week for disturbing court procedure, and stop the prosecution of another lawyer, Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min, who also faces possible prison time for contempt of court.
Aung Thein and Khin Maung Shein had represented nine detained student activists whose sentences were extended by six months last week for disturbing court procedure.
The NLD party, led by detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but Myanmar's junta never allowed them to take office.
She has spent most of the intervening years under house arrest in the country, which has been ruled by the military since 1962.
Suu Kyi's doctor Tin Myo Win and his assistant visited her in her lakeside prison home on Thursday for a medical checkup, two months after she refused food supplies, sparking concerns for her health.
Myanmar's military leader congratulates Obama
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081108/ap_on_re_as/as_myanmar_us_obama_1
Sat Nov 8, 2:21 am ET AP – President-elect Obama answers a question as his Chief of Staff-designate Rahm Emanuel listens during … YANGON, Myanmar – Myanmar's state-controlled press says the country's military leader has sent congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama.
The Myanma Ahlin daily reported Saturday that Than Shwe, chairman of the Southeast Asian nation's military government, sent a message to Obama following his win in the U.S. election.
The U.S. is one of the strongest critics of a Myanmar regime that routinely jails dissidents and keeps Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest. Washington has imposed economic and political sanctions against the junta because it refuses to hand over power to a democratically elected government.
Obama has received congratulations from U.S. friends and enemies around the world, including Iran's president.
The New Silk Road
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_46/b4108046852388.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories
Al-Muhairy's Dubai funds have some $400 million in funds earmarked for India Siddharth Siva/WpN
The New Silk Road
Historic bonds between the Middle East and Asia are being revitalized in a torrent of trade and investment in energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing
By Stanley Reed, Dexter Roberts and Nandini Lakshman
The dusty, 1960s-era building in Delhi's business district is worlds away from the sleek, glass-and-steel towers of Dubai. The elevators, which stop only at even-numbered floors, are packed with sweaty bodies. Shoeshine men ply their trade on the open-air landings. A sign warns: "Spitting in the building premises is strictly prohibited."
Yet you can find a small taste of Dubai tucked away in a modest office on the eighth floor. The cramped quarters are the local arm of Evolvence Capital, a Dubai-based private equity empire that has tentacles reaching deep into the Indian hinterland. From the simple office in Delhi, Evolvence funds businesses such as the top construction company in tropical Chennai, a high-tech pharmaceutical plant in the rocky countryside near Hyderabad, and a private cancer-treatment center run by U.S.-trained doctors in Bangalore.
Evolvence is the brainchild of Khaled Al-Muhairy, a 36-year-old native of Abu Dhabi. Eight years ago, Al-Muhairy left his post as a fund manager at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and set up his own asset management firm, Evolvence. In 2003, Al-Muhairy started scouting for stakes in India, figuring that the country's economy was at last ready to take off. Although he was sufficiently wary of the Indian environment to avoid raw vegetables and tap water, he liked what he found. Today he has private equity funds worth some $400 million focused on India. "You can see in the eyes of the people that they want to succeed," Al-Muhairy says over a lunch of grilled meats and salads in the garden of a Lebanese restaurant in Dubai.
TRADE FLOWS BOTH WAYS
The Arab world and Asia have a legacy of trade ties dating back to caravans that transported textiles and spices across the desert on the so-called Silk Road and to Gulf traders that sailed the blue waters of the Indian Ocean in chunky ships known as dhows. Today a new Silk Road leads from the busy ports of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore to the Persian Gulf—and from sparkling airport lounges in Dubai and Riyadh back to Asia's bustling cities. The merchants on this new route are Arab investors looking for smart places to park their petrodollars and Asians seeking to lock up energy supplies and find markets for the goods churned out by their factories.
Trade between the two regions has been expanding at a 30% annual clip. Since 2006, Asia has been the largest trading partner of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a group of six wealthy Arab countries, according to data compiled by Standard Chartered Bank. As of last year, Asia accounted for 55% of the GCC's total trade of $758 billion, the bank says. The mainstay of Gulf exports to Asia is oil, but some energy-intensive manufactured goods such as aluminum are also joining the mix. In return, China and Japan send to the Gulf products ranging from cars to computers while India and other Asian countries supply much of the food consumed in the Middle East. And while the scale of investment lags the trading ties, investors from the Gulf are buying stakes in everything from Asian banks and department stores to hotels and office buildings. Standard Chartered estimates that the Gulf countries invested $60 billion in Asia from 2002 to 2006.
It's easy to find evidence of the growing links. Delhi newspapers advertise homes built by Emaar Properties, a Dubai developer. Smaller companies from Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and elsewhere have factories in China to make shoes, toys, and the like. And so many Middle Eastern traders visit the wholesale markets in the southern Chinese town of Yiwu that road signs are posted in Arabic as well as Chinese and English. "Power is moving from West to East," Al-Muhairy says. "It is a huge opportunity."
The Asians are getting a foothold in the Middle East, too. China has plowed billions of dollars into North Africa's oil sector, especially in Sudan and Algeria. Along with the energy investment comes work for Chinese companies building roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure. Goods from Chinese appliance manufacturer Haier and electronics maker TCL are available across the Middle East. Indian engineering outfits Larsen & Toubro, Voltas, and others help out on real estate and industrial projects in the Arab world. And Malaysian developer MMC is working on a vast new city in Saudi Arabia. "We are seeing serious investment flows from Asia to the Middle East," says Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Egypt's trade & industry minister.
Why the change? For several years booming Asia has looked more promising than the U.S. or Europe. And the backlash against Middle Easterners in the U.S. following the September 11 attacks has encouraged the region's businessmen to look for other places to put their money. Many Arabs who might once have gone to the U.S. or Europe for education, medical care, or vacation are instead choosing Asia—and taking their business interests with them. "All the traditional and fundamental links [with the West] are being replicated and taken over by Asia," says Rachid.
FORTUNES BUILT ON GOLD AND PEARLS
The global credit crunch will doubtless affect the trend. Stock markets across both regions have plummeted, slashing the value of investments. With oil prices down, Arab countries will have less money to invest; governments may use their cash to prop up domestic economies and possibly bail out banks and developers. But the West is suffering, too, so there's little reason to believe the economic integration of the Middle East and Asia won't continue.
While talk of the original Silk Road suggests distant history, ties between the two regions remained vibrant until the mid-20th century. Many Gulf Arabs sent their children to learn English in the subcontinent's schools, which they considered superior to those available in at home. Kuwaiti captains traded pearls from their domestic waters to Indian merchants for rice, teak, and steel. And many of them also stashed contraband gold—subject to high duties in India—in the cargo. "Gold smuggling formed the basis of the fortunes of many Kuwaiti families," says Nadira Sultan, a member of a Kuwaiti merchant clan with a long history on the subcontinent.
Those links led to thriving communities of Gulf Arabs in India. Sultan family lore tells of an ancestor who was ruined after his ship foundered on a reef off Mumbai. Sultan's father later built his career in India, where Sultan spent her childhood in the 1950s. She recalls sleepless nights in the Indian resort of Khandala, "not daring to breathe because of the tiger growling outside our bedroom window," and being enchanted by snake charmers and dancing monkeys on Mumbai's streets.
A few years later, though, the subcontinent began to lose its charm for many Arabs. India started throwing gold smugglers in jail just as the Gulf's oil industry took off, creating good jobs closer to home. Nadira's brother, Nader, for instance, eventually became CEO of state-owned Kuwait Petroleum. The oil boom led to closer ties with the U.S. and Europe, and most Arabs forgot about India, China, and the rest of Asia, preferring to invest in the West.
Nadira Sultan's cousin Tarek is among the latter-day trade sheikhs working the new Silk Road. He is CEO of Agility, a Kuwaiti logistics and warehousing outfit with $6.2 billion in annual revenues. Agility has made a bundle supplying the U.S. military in Iraq. Now it's plowing nearly $2 billion into millions of feet of warehouse space and other trade infrastructure in Asia, building up a network of 70 offices and 20,000 employees in China and India. Agility even deployed a dozen trucks and 100 workers to handle dirty laundry for athletes at this summer's Beijing Olympics. "Everybody knows about China and the U.S.," says the 44-year-old Sultan. "We are making investments in the trade that takes place within Asia."
FINANCIAL FIREPOWER
On the ground in the Gulf, connections with Asia are visible everywhere. Asian laborers are the muscle that builds skyscrapers, airports, and petrochemical plants. Asians also provide much of the brains and managerial talent at businesses ranging from investment banks to retailers, and people whose parents or grandparents originally came from the Indian subcontinent form the backbone of the middle class in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The souks along the Creek, the salt inlet that was Dubai's original harbor, are dotted with hole-in-the-wall Hindu temples, and it's rare to spot anyone in Arab dress among the crowds piling into abras, the rough wooden water taxis that shuttle across the luminous green water.
So far, investment flows haven't kept up with trade ties, but that's likely to change. To date, only about 11% of foreign direct investment from the Gulf has gone to Asia. But by 2020 that could nearly double, to 20%, while the share of Middle Eastern money flowing West will fall to about half the total, from three-quarters today, consultancy McKinsey estimates. Even with lower prices for crude, the Gulf countries will have lots of financial firepower. If oil averages $50 per barrel, McKinsey figures, the Gulf will earn $4.7 trillion through 2020.
Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds are already pouring money into Asia. The largest—the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority—aims to have 8% to 12% of its estimated $500 billion-plus fund invested in emerging market stocks, with Asia a key destination. Other big investors include Dubai Financial Group and Dubai International Capital, controlled by the emirate's ruler. But a lot of recent investments in Asia have taken a whack. Dubai International Capital, for instance, bought 3% of India's ICICI bank for more than $700 million in July 2007. Since then, ICICI's shares have fallen 53%.
For Asian and Middle Eastern investors, negotiating the written and unwritten rules of each others' business environments isn't easy. While India may be "the backyard" of the Gulf region, says Georges Makhoul, Middle East president for Morgan Stanley (MS), China and other countries farther east are more challenging for Arabs to understand and penetrate. A recent Chinese delegation to Kuwait tried to pitch investors on projects in the mainland that might cost anywhere from $10 million to $100 million, but the Kuwaitis considered those too small. Instead, they expressed interest in a $400 million industrial development zone and a $300 million tower with offices and a hotel. "Arabs don't like to invest in small projects—only huge ones," says Lin Shunjie, a Chinese trade official. "If they invest in real estate in Shanghai, they want to invest in the tallest building."
MEGAPROJECTS ACROSS ASIA
A handful of sophisticated investors is helping to break down those cultural barriers. A key Gulf emissary has been Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of developer Emaar Properties and a top advisor to Dubai's ruler Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. Alabbar has an undergraduate degree from Seattle University in the U.S, but he got his first taste of razzle-dazzle entrepreneurship working as a banker and investor in Singapore in the late 1980s and early '90s. "Interacting with the Chinese was such a gift for me," he says over lunch at his sunny Dubai home, looking out over a swimming pool to his private six-hole golf course. Now he's working on some $5 billion worth of hotels, golf course communities, and shopping malls in India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and China—though some of those projects will likely be delayed due to the credit crisis.
In both regions giant, state-controlled companies are leading the way. With more than half of Saudi crude flowing to Asia, Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, is trying to lock up markets in the region. In China, Aramco is a partner in a $5 billion refinery and petrochemical complex in Fujian Province, while China's Sinopec is displaying the green, blue, and white Aramco logo on 31 of its gas stations. Sinopec, meanwhile, is one of a handful of foreign oil companies looking for gas in the restrictive Kingdom.
Riyadh has set up a vast initiative called Jazan Economic City to attract Asian capital. Today, Jazan is a remote, 40-square-mile strip of desert scrub and mangrove flats on the Red Sea, not far from the Yemeni border. One of the project's anchors is supposed to be a $4.5 billion aluminum smelter and power plant owned by local partners and China Aluminum (ACH), or Chalco. And the Saudis are looking for a partner on a refinery in Jazan. Asian businesses are being told that Jazan has at least three attractions: subsidized energy, a foothold in the Gulf, and proximity to booming markets in East Africa. The Saudis hope Jazan will soak up high unemployment in one of the Kingdom's poorest areas. But in the early stages, at least, thousands of workers are likely to be imported from China, India, and elsewhere in Asia because locals lack the necessary skills.
EGYPTIAN ARM-TWISTING
While oil-exporting nations want to lock up markets for their crude, Egypt and other Arab states are pushing Asian countries for investment that creates jobs. China's exports to Egypt have more than quadrupled since 2003, to $4.7 billion in 2007—roughly 18 times the value of Egyptian exports to China. The Egyptians want China to compensate by manufacturing in Egypt. "We are trying to make Egypt a hub for China to export from," says Ahmed El Sewedy, chief executive of Cairo-based El Sewedy Cables and head of the Egyptian-China Chamber of Commerce.
Drive about an hour northeast of Cairo, and you'll see evidence that the Egyptian arm-twisting may be working. In a secluded stretch of desert near the mouth of the Suez Canal, TEDA—one of China's biggest development agencies, based in the northern port city of Tianjin—is carving out a manufacturing zone. The aim is to attract some 50 Chinese-owned factories that would employ 10,000 Egyptians and 1,000 Chinese. Seven companies are already operating in the area, including a Chinese/Egyptian venture that assembles oil drilling rigs and another that makes disposable garments for hospitals and restaurants. Liu Aimin, general manager of Egypt-TEDA Investment, the company that's developing the zone, ticks off Egypt's attractions for Chinese companies: cheap labor, trade agreements that ease entry of goods into the U.S., Europe, and Arab countries, and a location "at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, facing 1 billion customers."
Like most Chinese in the region, the TEDA people seem hunkered down in the middle of nowhere, worrying about security. Indian businessmen in the Middle East, by contrast, seem much more willing to mix with the locals. In nearby Ismailiya, a pony-tailed Indian textile designer named Siddharth Sinha and his father, Man Mohan Sinha, have set up a factory to make women's jeans. The Velocity Apparelz plant boasts spacious meeting rooms full of edgy art where buyers from companies such as Levi Strauss, Zara, and Gap (GPS) come to see new designs. The 2,700 workers, many of them young women in headscarves, use lasers to burn wear marks onto the fabric and phalanxes of embroidery machines to stitch flowers along the seams. The plant—one of three the Sinhas operate in Egypt—is likely to turn out more than $40 million in jeans this year, and the Sinhas have acquired land for a fourth factory near Cairo. "India is a very difficult place to operate," says the younger Sinha. "So we said: 'Why not do something completely different?'"
Business Exchange: Read, save, and add content on BW's new Web 2.0 topic network
Turkey Looks to Central Asia
Russia's war with Georgia last summer may have created an opening for Turkey to boost its ties with Central Asia. A Turkish delegation to the region in October sought to dramatically increase trade over the next two years, the online publication Eurasia Daily Monitor reported on Oct. 22. While energy will be a keystone of that effort, Turkish companies also do construction work in the region and have significant investments in Central Asian companies. Turkey shares linguistic, religious, and cultural traditions with the region, and it may use that common heritage to counter Russian and Chinese influences in Central Asia.
To read the Eurasia Monitor article, go to http://bx.businessweek.com/investing-in-turkey
Reed is London bureau chief for BusinessWeek. Roberts is BusinessWeek's Asia News Editor and China bureau chief. Lakshman covers India business for BusinessWeek.
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India's Technology Industry Fears Cuts in Outsourcing from US
http://voanews.com/english/2008-11-07-voa14.cfm
Anjana Pasricha
New Delhi
07 November 2008
Many in India cheered Barack Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential election. But India's technology and outsourcing sector is watching cautiously to see if a new U.S. administration will implement policies that will cut down outsourcing from American companies. Anjana Pasricha has a report from New Delhi.
Over the last decade, Indian companies have flourished as overseas companies outsource work such as sales calls, technical help desks, accounting and software development to India. The country's huge pool of English-speaking graduates and software engineers work at a fraction of the wages paid in the West, helping to cut down the cost of doing business.
But there is some uncertainty if work will continue to flow from American companies at the same pace under a new U.S. administration. During his campaign, Senator Barack Obama said he will give incentives to companies that create jobs at home, and stop giving tax breaks to those that ship jobs overseas.
Indian finance minister, P. Chidambaram, remains optimistic that India's outsourcing sector will not be impacted.
"A comment here or a comment there about outsourcing etc. should not bother us," he said. "Once he is in office, he will realize that in an interconnected world, countries have to work together."
However, some industry analysts fear that U.S. businesses, already battling an economic crisis, will reduce work sent to countries like India. Much of the work is farmed out by clients in the banking, financial services and insurance sector - many of which are hit hard by the financial meltdown.
By Others are optimistic that any slowdown in outsourcing will be short lived. The president of Business Process Industries Association of India, Samir Chopra, says eventually economic pragmatism will prevail, ensuring that outsourcing continues to flourish.
"There is a little bit of uneasy wariness in this entire process, but it going to be very short term. Eventually what would take over is the economics of the business ... they would have to necessarily outsource to reduce the absolute cost of doing business. So outsourcing definitely would bounce back," said Chopra.
Nearly 400 of the world's 500 largest companies outsource some work to India - and a large chunk of this comes from U.S. clients. Rapid expansion in recent years has helped the technology and outsourcing sector's earnings to grow to $50 billion annually. But in recent months, growth has begun to slow, and many IT and outsourcing companies expect lower profits this year.
US ‘job refugees’ turn to China
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14792508
Venkatesan Vembu/ DNA MONEY | Friday, 07 November , 2008, 08:44
Hong Kong: The worsening recession in the US is driving “economic refugees,” including Wall Street bankers and financial managers, to look for career opportunities in China. However, recruiters and trainers who know the China market say their chances of making it in the dragon country are lean.
Andrew Hupert, who teaches International Negotiation at New York University’s Shanghai campus and is a consultant for leading multinationals, says, “Lately, I’ve been hearing from lots of people, including experienced bankers and financial managers, who see the Wall Street economy falling off the cliff, are convinced that China is the answer to their prayers and are curious about the chances of finding gainful employment here.”
Will China come out to rescue the world?
“Right now, the enquiries are coming largely from professionals in the finance and real estate industries, but pretty soon we’ll see others from a broader cross-section of professions and industries,” he says.
“Some of these ‘job refugees’ say they have always considered relocating to China as a secondary plan, but are now seeing the rising opportunity cost of not acting on that,” says Hupert, who advises multinationals on their China marketing strategy.
Recession looms large, warns IMF's Lipsky
Nancy Lui Neumann, managing partner at Hong Kong Executive Search, also sees a rising trend of professionals gravitating towards China and other parts of Asia to beat the downturn.
“In recent times, Wall Street investment banking professionals have even begun looking for opportunities in other spaces like corporate risk management and marketing,” says Neumann.
“These professionals used to see the investment banking industry as the goose that laid the golden egg… Now they see it a little differently, and I believe there will be more and more executives wanting to test-drive the Asian market,” she adds.
More India business stories
But the passage to China is unlikely to work out smoothly for many of these job seekers.
“This may be the beginning of a very one-sided love affair,” says Hupert. And why?
“Wall Street-style finance was never highly respected in China - and after everything that’s happened this year, it’s sort of looked upon like a war crime.”
In any case, China doesn’t have developed, deep financial markets of the sort Hong Kong, New York or London do. “And the kind of financial infrastructure that these Wall Street professionals are used to working with doesn’t exist here.”
Compounding their problem is the fact that the Chinese economy has problems of its own. “There’s a good chance that the worst of the economic downturn in China will occur when western economies start to recover, perhaps 18 months down the line,” says Hupert.
More critically, in China, the trend is of greater ‘localisation’. Chinese professionals who can be hired at much lower remuneration are thus moving up the ladder to occupy middle management positions - “the same posts that a lot of these ‘Western transplants’ see themselves taking up.”
“So, I’m very sceptical that these established finance professionals can transplant themselves into a ‘pure China’ environment,” Hupert adds.
There are other considerations that work to the disadvantage of these ‘job refugees’ and inhibit recruiters from hiring them.
More India business stories
“For one thing, these ‘newbies’ aren’t going to hit the ground running in China: some expats who come over take a long time to get the hang of things here.” More strikingly, when the US economy recovers and Wall Street and western banks and western companies start hiring again, “there’s a good chance these people will leave - with the blueprint for your business and quite literally the keys to the kingdom!” says Hupert.
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