Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts

Friday, September 12, 2014

“Rich” China still needs foreign investment

September 11, 2014.
In the past 20 years, foreign owned companies have made a great contribution to China’s social progress and have become an integral part of China’s economy. Although China has enjoyed rapid development and a wealth of capital, it will never stop trying to attract foreign capital and it will never turn its back on foreign companies. China’s policy of investment and cooperation will not change, said Wang Yang, deputy Prime Minster of China’s State Council.
The basic policy of attracting foreign capital has not changed.
With China’s GDP ranking 2nd in the world, its companies are becoming more competitive. The pattern of attracting foreign investment inwards and encouraging domestic companies to go abroad is shifting, but China’s basic policy of attracting foreign capital has never changed. To date it has attracted 1.5 trillion dollars in foreign direct investment, topping the developing world for 22 years. In 2013 it attracted 124 billion dollars and ranked 2nd in the world. At the same time, foreign-owned companies have also gained great benefits in China - 85% of foreign-owned enterprises are making profits and 90% are willing to expand their investment in China.“Money” is not only the focus in terms of attracting foreign capital.
Foreign capital has two functions in reform and opening-up. Foreign capital helps China to become the world’s largest trader, manufacturer and exporter, and plays a role in helping China to integrate into the world.
 However, in the process of attracting the foreign capital China has not significantly improved its technology and scientific research level. Wang Yang noted that it is important to introduce advanced technology, sophisticated management techniqes, and intellectual resources. To set up an economic system consistent with international rules plays a key role in upgrading China’s economy.
Creating a fair investment environment is the key.
Creating a fair investment environment is an increasingly important means of attracting foreign capital. A fair competitive environment is more attractive to foreign companies than preferential policies. As a result, China will make its market more open to outside investors and supranational privilege will be eliminated in attracting foreign capital. Private, state-owned and foreign enterprises should be treated equally.
 
The article is edited and translated from《引进先进技术经验 借鉴成熟市场做法》, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition, author: Zhou Xiaoyuan

Editor:张媛、Huang Jin

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Japan, India to step up security, economic cooperation

September 02, 2014, TOKYO —
Japan and India agreed Monday to step up their economic and security cooperation as visiting Prime Minister Narendra Modi won pledges of support for his effort to revitalize the lagging Indian economy.
Modi, who brought a delegation of more than a dozen Indian tycoons to Japan, said he hopes to elevate still relatively low-key business ties with Japan to a “new level.”
In a joint statement issued after their talks, the two leaders reaffirmed the importance of upgrading defense ties, a priority for both given China’s growing assertiveness in the region. Modi also welcomed Japan’s relaxation of restrictions on exports of defense-related equipment and technology.
He and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “recognized the enormous future potential for transfer and collaborative projects in defense equipment and technology,” the statement said.
As part of their “Investment Promotion Partnership,” the two sides set a target of doubling Japan’s foreign direct investment in India. Abe also pledged to raise public and private investment and financing from Japan to 3.5 trillion yen within five years and to provide an aid loan of 50 billion yen to the India Infrastructure Finance Co.
Abe said he would work with Modi to “strengthen the cooperative relationship between our two countries.”
The statement listed construction of high-speed railways and other transport systems, cleanups of the Ganges and other rivers, food processing and rural development and construction of “smart cities” as priorities.
In a speech to Japanese business leaders on Monday, Modi promised to set up a team to facilitate trade and investment.
Modi became prime minister in May with pledges to transform India’s troubled economy and is keen to win more support for ambitious energy and construction projects, including high-speed railways.
“When I became prime minister, there were high expectations. Not just high expectations, but people expected speed in decisions,” Modi told leaders of Japan’s five big business groups. “I give you the assurance that what we have done in the past 100 days, the results will be seen very quickly.”
In the joint statement, Abe reiterated his hope India will adopt its bullet train technology, promising Japanese financial, technical and operations support.
Japan and India agreed also to continue joint and Japan-U.S.-India military exercises and to accelerate talks on the purchase by New Delhi of US-2 amphibian aircraft.
The two sides said they would step up talks on nuclear energy cooperation, claiming “significant progress” despite having failed to reach a last-minute agreement on safeguards sought by Japan. The two sides meanwhile pledged to strengthen work on preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons and on nuclear safety.
The statement said Japan and India will cooperate on advanced, clean coal technology, which is expertise sorely needed to help combat the choking pollution in India’s major cities.
The two countries said they are in the process of finalizing a commercial contract on production and export to Japan of rare earths, which are minerals used in mobile phones, hybrid cars and other high-tech products.
During Abe’s first term in office, in 2006-2007, the two countries signed an agreement on cooperating in building an industrial corridor between Mumbai and New Delhi, two of India’s biggest cities. At that time, Modi was chief minister of the fast-growing, business-friendly state of Gujarat.
In a gesture toward his golf-loving Japanese hosts — Abe golfs frequently — Modi boasted of having beefed up the links in Gujarat during his years as chief minister.
Since taking office, Modi has traveled to neighboring Nepal and Bhutan and attended a summit of the BRICS emerging nations — Brazil, Russia, India and China. He helped launch an effort to open bank accounts for the poor in India and has set up an investigative team to look into corruption. Meanwhile, the economy has picked up pace in what some analysts are calling the “Modi bounce.”
Japanese businesses are increasingly looking to expand trade and investment in fast-growing Southeast Asia and India, a market of nearly 1.3 billion people.
- By Elaine Kurtenbach, Japan Today.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Debating China's Economic Growth: A Western Perspective

An interesting debate has been going on in the West since the Great Recession which embroiled the Western economies but which had a marginal effect on the Chinese economy. This starkly different effect of the Recession on the West and on China has drawn attention to the strength and resilience of the Chinese economy and spawned this debate. Two ideas on China can no longer be denied attention. Firstly, that despite the stated ideology, the capitalistic nature of the Chinese economy can no longer be denied. Secondly, the astonishing Chinese growth of last 3 decades is not merely an objective fact, but when examined in comparative terms it has hugely important strategic dimensions. Chinese economic power has quickly changed global power equations and the West cant believe that it has to grapple with a China which threatens to outstrip Western power levels. Many in the West still do not realize that things could be going out of hand.


The main issue  which has sparked debates and discussions on this topic were:

China Does Capitalism Better Than America   (video & transcripts)
For the motionOrville Schell - Prof, UC, Berkley and Peter Schiff  - CEO & chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital and TV contributor. Peter Schiff is a legend. He predicted-dissected the American mortgage bubble with superb clarity long before it became a global crisis.
Against the motionIan Bremmer - founder and president of Eurasia Group, Teaching at Columbia University; Minxin Pei - Prof., Claremont Mckenna College
The Outcome - At the beginning of the night, 17 percent of the crowd at NYU’s Skirball Center voted for China’s state-based capitalism, 50 percent backed America’s market-based capitalism, and 33 percent were undecided. Two hours later, the pro-China ranks had dwindled to 9 percent, 85 percent favored the United States, and 6 percent were undecided.

Debater Orville Schell's articles/interviews on the issue
Debater Peter Schiff's articles/interviews on the issue
Debater Ian Bremmer's, articles/interviews on the issue
  • Katy Waldman interviews Ian Bremmer, Slate, March 6, 2012
  • Ian Bremmer and Aldo Musacchio, 'The Economist' Debates, January 24, 2012. Debate - This house believes that state capitalism is a viable alternative to liberal capitalism.
Debater Minxin Pei's, articles/interviews on the issue
This is a review by a Libertarian on the I2 debate mentioned above.

Other articles related  to this topic are:

The U.S. Must Learn From China's State Capitalism to Beat It 
Richard A. D'Aveni, Prof., of Strategy at  Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College in The Atlantic.


Can Asian-Style Capitalism Save the West? by Michael Schuman in TIME

How America Can Beat China's State Capitalism by Richard A. D'Aveni, Prof., of Strategy at  Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College in The Businessweek.

A Dying Model: Chinese Capitalism By Dr. Minqi Li , Prof, Economics at the University of Utah
Prof. Li has a Leftist orientation.




Book Reviews of Books on related topic
1. How China Became Capitalist by Economics Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase and Professor Ning Wang. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
i) http://www.american.com/archive/2012/november/how-china-became-capitalist
ii) http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0305741012000938 Review by Yongshun Cai in The China Quarterly 2012
Luke McDonagh, Fellow LSE.
By Alberto Mingardi, CATO Institute (Liberal think tank)

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Prof. Kondapalli reviews Martin Jacques's "When China Rules The World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World"

Dr. Kondapalli, Professor in Chinese Studies, reviews Martin Jacques, When China Rules The World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World in The Financial Express. He says, the book is tour de force into not just the rise of China, but also on the global trends today, specifically after the US misadventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. Jacques takes us through the rise of the West from the industrialisation revolution of 18th century and modernity to the current rise of China (and India). The broad sweep of his arguments, grounded well on statistics, diplomatic events and political trends, although not new, provides for a few cogent views, namely, China’s inevitable rise is of strategic dimensions and is to “transform the world more fundamentally than any other new global power in the last two centuries.”


Friday, January 22, 2010

IS CHINA GROWING TOO FAST: The Economist


BEIJING recently suffered its lowest temperature in 59 years, but the economy is sweltering. Figures published on Thursday January 21st showed that real GDP grew by 10.7% year on year in the fourth quarter....