Chinese mainland, Hong Kong sign expanded economic accord
July 30, 2008
July 29 (Xinhua) — The Chinese central government and the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) on Tuesday signed Supplement V to the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), which will allow Hong Kong enterprises greater and easier access to the mainland market.
The supplement was a fifth supplement to CEPA, which has been expanded each year since it was first signed in 2003. The supplement was signed by John Tsang, financial secretary of the HKSAR government, and the central government’s Vice Minister of Commerce Jiang Zengwei at a ceremony witnessed by HKSAR Chief Executive Donald Tsang. [Read more]
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China’s PPI rises 7.6 percent in first half of 2008
July 23, 2008
July 17 (Xinhua) — The producer price index (PPI) for China’s industrial products rose 7.6 percent year on year during the first half of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday.
The growth of PPI, which measures the value of finished products when they leave the factory, was 4.8 percentage points higher than the same period of last year.
The PPI jumped 8.8 percent in June year on year, compared with 8.2 percent in May.
The purchaser prices for raw material, fuel and power rose by 11.1 percent, compared with 13.5 percent in June. The growth was 7.3 percentage points higher than a year earlier.
The year-on-year growth of the prices for housing in 70 large and medium-sized cities went up by 10.2 percent, 4.2 percentage points higher than the same period last year. The growth rate was 8.2 percent in June.
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World Packaging Machinery Market Report
July 23, 2008
Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report related to the Packaging industry is available in its catalogue.
World Packaging Machinery Market
This report analyzes the worldwide markets for Packaging Machinery in Millions of US$. The major product segments analyzed are Aseptic Packaging Machinery, Blister Packaging Machinery, Bottles Cleaning/Drying Machinery, Bottling and Canning Machinery, Cartoning/Case Forming Machinery, Coding/Marking/Labeling Machinery, Flexible Packaging Machinery (Form-Fill-Seal Machinery, & Pouching Machinery), Laminating, Delaminating Machinery, Palletizing Machinery, PET Packaging Machinery, Testing/Inspecting/Detecting Machinery, Thermo Forming Machinery, Vacuum Packaging Machinery, Wrapping Machinery (Bundling/Strapping/Lacing Machinery, Individual Wrapping Machinery, Over-Wrapping Machinery, Shrink Wrapping Machinery, Stretch Wrapping Machinery, & Twist Wrapping Machinery), Miscellaneous Packaging Machinery, and Accessories and Parts for Packaging Machinery. The report provides separate comprehensive analytics for the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Latin America. Annual forecasts are provided for each region for the period of 2000 through 2015.
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An Economic Alarm (from Vietman)
July 22, 2008
Articele written by Lan Xinzhen,Beijing Review
Devaluation of currency, runaway inflation, huge outflow of speculative capital, decreasing resident purchasing power, a series of strikes against price hikes … Vietnam is confronted with an economic crisis.
Although the Vietnamese economic crisis has not yet caused any severe adverse reactions for other Asian economies, the international community, particularly emerging economies, is not relaxing its vigilance.
An alarm to China
In fact, the problems bothering Vietnam also exist in China in varying degrees, so the economic crisis in Vietnam arouses disquiet among economists over the economic development of China.
“If the Vietnamese economic crisis further expands, it is likely to spread to other countries, and China may be infected,” said Cao Honghui, head of Financial Market Research Office of the Institute of Finance and Banking of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). In his opinion, as with Vietnam, South Korea and Thailand are experiencing record inflation highs in the last seven and 10 years respectively, and inflation in Indonesia has also surpassed 10 percent. If these emerging economies are confronted with the same problems as Vietnam, it will be impossible for China to escape alone.
According to Cao, the most likely problem is that the hot money withdrawn from countries like Vietnam may flow to China, making it more difficult to strictly control excessive liquidity.
The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, has launched a circular, requiring banks and other financial institutions to pay close attention to capital flows of foreign capital accounts and prevent an inflow of hot money.
A report released by China International Capital Corp. Ltd. says that among emerging Asian economies, China has the most stable economic situation and its foreign exchange reserve is the largest in the world. With improving fiscal conditions, it has ample fiscal revenue and the banking system is being perfected. However, once neighboring emerging markets are in turmoil because of inflation, the crisis may influence China in three aspects. [Read more]
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Yuan yet to see equilibrium
July 22, 2008
BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) — The yuan, the Chinese currency, has appreciated more than 20 percent against the greenback since the country dropped its peg to the U.S. dollar with a one-off two-percent revaluation exactly three years ago.
The central parity rate of the yuan, or renminbi (RMB), was set at 6.8271 yuan against the dollar on Monday after peaking at 6.8128 last week, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trading System.
Both represented a 21 percent rise against the dollar compared to 8.2765 yuan per dollar before the de-pegging, announced on July21, 2005.
Let’s see what’s ahead as well as the route of the yuan’s appreciation over the past three years and its impact on the economy and normal people.
TO RISE, OR NOT TO
Many critics from outside China said the government had kept the currency undervalued by at least 20 percent to give its exporters an advantage in the world market, when the country took the move.
With the yuan now nearing 6.8 yuan against 1 dollar, analysts started to ponder on the equilibrium prices of the yuan, especially as the national economy slowed in the first half, and anticipation for the yuan’s continued bilateral appreciation began to ebb.
Many believed the yuan would continue its upward motion in the near term, but there may be expectations for its depreciation as early as the end of this year.
They said the yuan’s exchange rate was gradually approaching its equilibrium and could eventually become a truly flexible currency moving in both directions.
“Market expectations for the yuan’s further appreciation have apparently eased,” said Liu Dongliang, a China Merchants Bank analyst.
He noted the five-year future prices for the yuan already indicated a depreciation from the three-year and four-year prices on the forward market.
However, “no one can tell the exact equilibrium price,” said Lu Zhengwei, chief economist of the Fujian Province-based Industrial Bank.
“Theoretically speaking, one can tell from figures like international payments to see whether the exchange rate reflects the true value of a currency,” Liu said. But the exact equilibrium was hard to trace, and it could be a dynamic equilibrium instead of a static one, he added.
Ha Jimin, China International Capital Corporation chief economist, believed conditions of the equilibrium could be found in trade figures.
He said the equilibrium would strike when trade came to account for about 3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). China’s trade, at present, contributed about 5 percent of the GDP.
He said the yuan would continue to rise but at a slower pace in the second half; its depreciation might emerge when the dollar reversed its sliding trend in the first half of next year at the earliest.
Lu, however, said the equilibrium might come at an earlier time, or at the end of this year, as the slowing economy may dampen market expectations.
The latest statistics showed China’s GDP rose 10.4 percent in the first half over the same period last year, 1.8 percentage points lower than the first half last year.
Both Lu and Ha put the annual rise of the yuan at around 10 percent this year, or at around 6.6 yuan per dollar. The currency had so far risen nearly 7 percent since the end of last year.
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