ASIA: Recent outbreaks of the Delta variant have prompted travel restrictions and lockdowns in some cities in China, damping economic activities, while Beijing’s tough stance to deleverage the property sector, which contributes 14 percent to China’s gross domestic product (GDP), will further slow growth in the coming months, according to Andrew Fennell, a senior […]

ASIA: Retail sales growth in China bounced back in October, while industrial production also beat expectations. Retail sales, a key measurement of consumer spending in the world’s most populous nation, grew by 4.9 percent in October compared with a year earlier, up from the 4.4 percent increase in September, and above the estimate for a […]

  Forget the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All rights are now irrelevant.  Austria has just ordered that all unvaccinated are to be imprisoned in their homes. In Britain, reliable sources in London are saying that it may be necessary to impose lockdowns regularly well into 2026. The Netherlands has returned to a partial […]

I have said before when I met with the former Prime Minister of Australia trying to buy land for the people of Hong Kong and he refused to allow them to migrate because he was Labour and they would vote Conservative. It is always about power. Now Biden made a choice. He is raising the […]

  ASIA: The US central bank warned Monday that China’s ongoing property woes could elevate “financial stresses in China, [which] could further strain global financial markets and negatively affect the United States.” In its biannual report on financial stability, the Fed pointed specifically to the crisis at Evergrande, China’s most indebted developer. The company has […]

ASIA: China posted a record monthly trade surplus in October as exports surged despite global supply-chain disruptions. Exports rose 27.1% in dollar terms last month from a year earlier to $300.2 billion, data from the General Administration of Customs showed Sunday. That was the 13th straight month of double-digit growth, and exceeded economists’ expectations of […]

At last, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has begun speaking independently as he departs from the Biden agenda. Former President Trump and Powell notoriously clashed over interest rates, and we heard time and time again that the central bank was independent of government rule. Once Biden entered the White House, Powell seemed to be more […]

ASIA: China Evergrande Group appeared to have averted default with a last-minute bond coupon payment, a source said on Friday, buying it another week to wrestle with a debt crisis looming over the world’s second-biggest economy. Facing a deadline on Saturday to pay interest on a US dollar bond, Evergande sent $83.5 million to a […]

ASIA: China’s economic growth in the third quarter slumped to its slowest pace in a year, as a property slowdown and energy shortages highlighted rising pressure on policymakers. Gross domestic product grew 4.9 percent year on year between July and September, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday, compared with […]

ASIA: The Indian economy is poised to achieve 10.25 per cent GDP growth in FY 2021-22 on the back of effective government policies, Reserve Bank’s accommodative policy stance and improved business sentiments, industry body PHDCCI said on Monday. Last week, the Reserve Bank retained the GDP (gross domestic product) forecast for the current financial year at 9.5 […]