ASIA: China will likely fail in its bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, but its move to submit an application highlighted the lack of US economic policy in Asia-Pacific. CPTPP is an 11-nation mega-trade pact formed in 2018 after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership a year earlier. […]

ASIA: China’s Evergrande Group dollar bondholders were still waiting for information about a key interest payment due Thursday, with some holders having given up hope of getting a coupon payment by the deadline, Reuters reported. The property developer was instead expected to provide more information in the coming month, the news agency said. Evergrande was […]

ASIA: Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that China would not build new coal-fired power projects abroad, using his address at the United Nations General Assembly to add to pledges to deal with climate change. China has been under heavy diplomatic pressure to put an end to its coal financing overseas because it could […]

ASIA: Crisis-hit Chinese property developer Evergrande used billions of dollars raised by selling wealth management products to retail investors to plug funding gaps and even to pay back other wealth management investors, executives of the company said in a statement. Evergrande financial advisers marketed the products widely, including to homeowners in its apartment blocks, while […]

Any small businessman is always trying to improve his business and expand it to be more profitable. That seems to be a common trait but what you must understand is that the same human trait dominates the bureaucracies and it is dominant at the United Nations, et al. From the very beginning, those in the […]

ASIA: Leaders of the United States, Japan, India and Australia will agree to take steps to build secure semiconductor supply chains when they meet in Washington next week, Reuters reported. US President Joe Biden will host a first in-person summit of leaders of the “Quad” countries, which have sought to boost cooperation to push back […]

ASIA: The People’s Bank of China added 90 billion yuan ($14 billion) of funds on a net basis through seven-day and 14-day reverse repurchase agreements on Friday, the most since February. Today was the first time this month it added more than 10-billion-yuan short-term liquidity into the banking system on a single day. The move […]

ASIA: China’s dramatic steps to contain the coronavirus this summer have taken a toll on consumer confidence in the country and are fueling concerns about the strength of the world’s second largest economy. Retail sales struggled in August, increasing just 2.5% compared to a year earlier, according to government statistics released Wednesday. That was much […]

ASIA: China’s sprawling real estate developer, Evergrande, has the distinction of being the world’s most debt-saddled property developer and has been on life support for months. The rating agency Fitch said this week that default “appears probable.” Moody’s, another ratings agency, said Evergrande is out of cash and time. Evergrande is faced with more than […]

ASIA: China’s GDP grew by 7.9% year on year in the second quarter of 2021, which was lower than the Caixin survey of economists that showed the median estimate for the second quarter was 8.2% growth. Chinese economists broadly agree that China’s potential growth rate is 6%. So, taking into consideration the base effect, China’s […]