MOP 6.00
Supported by
Closing editor: Joanne Kuai
Macau ‘Australia Day’ Cocktail Fri, 29 January 2016 | 6pm - 8pm | Terrazza, Galaxy Macau More information at www.austcham.com.hk
Synectics Systems signs contract with Macau casino Page 9
Year IV
Number 968 Monday January 25, 2016
Publisher: Paulo A. Azevedo
MGM announces bonus for non-management staff Page 9
Brocade appoints Larry Tam as MD for local market Page 8
Over 30m Visitor Arrivals in 2015 Over 30 million visitor arrivals in Macau. But the first annual decline since 2009. Falling 2.6 pct y-o-y in 2015, according to official data released on Friday. For full-year 2015, visitor arrivals totalled 30.71 million, down 811,004 y-o-y. The number of same-day visitors (16.41 million) and overnight visitors (14.31 million) decreased by 3.3 pct and 1.8 pct, respectively. Meanwhile, Macao Government Tourism Office predicts that the city’s visitor arrivals in 2016 will remain at a stable level. With products and marketing tailored to fit Pages 3&4
Issue resolved ‘No longer present’. Imperial Pacific’s former high shareholding concentration in a small number of shareholders. This follows Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission’s warning that major shareholder Inventive Star, along with 18 other shareholders, had undue influence. The percentage of issued shares is now calculated at 82.55
Geopolitical pow-wow
China and Iran are talking. Mapping out a wide-ranging 25-year plan to broaden relations. And expand trade. This, during the first visit by a Chinese leader to the Islamic Republic in 14 years. President Xi Jinping met with counterpart Hassan Rouhani on Saturday. A week after the lifting of international sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme
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Sands China declares interim dividend
HSI - Movers January 22
Its board of directors made the announcement on Friday. Macau casino operator Sands China Ltd. has decided to declare an interim dividend of HKD0.99 (US$0.127) per share. The payout is expected to be paid on February 26. To shareholders whose names appear on the register of members of the company as of February 9, per a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Page 9
SAT not sat
U.S. college entrance SAT exams were cancelled on Saturday in Macau and the Mainland. As students may have already seen copies of the tests. College Board, the New York-based testing firm, revealed that 45 test centres were affected
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www.macaubusinessdaily.com
%Day
Sands China Ltd
+11.24
China Shenhua Energy
+10.25
CNOOC Ltd
+8.10
PetroChina Co Ltd
+7.89
Galaxy Entertainment
+6.97
New World Developme
+0.47
China Life Insurance Co
+0.42
Want Want China Hold
+0.20
Sino Land Co Ltd
+0.10
Cathay Pacific Airways
-0.96
Source: Bloomberg
Interview
Cooking up a concept She was always into workshops and cooking classes. But was inspired by her European travelling experiences. Now Maggie Chiang operates an Italian and French cuisine restaurant and pastry shop in Macau. She could cater specifically to the market, she tells Business Daily, but prefers to do her own
Name
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thing. Whether that be selecting a restaurant in a ‘quiet’ district. Or creating her own culture for patrons to enjoy. Good management and leadership are key to resolving manpower turnover, she says. And sees great changes – and opportunities – in the new Macao
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2016-1-27
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January 25, 2016
Macau Macau to host 13th CEFCO The MSAR is to host the 13th edition of the China Expo Forum for International Co-operation (CEFCO 2017) according to a statement issued yesterday by the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM). Organised by the China Council for Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI), International Association of Exhibitions and Events (IAEE) and Society of Independent Show Organizers (SISO), the 13th CEFCO will be the first time that the event has been held outside Mainland China. IPIM says CEFCO seeks to be an exchange and co-operation platform for the domestic and foreign convention and exhibition industry, serving as a starting point for the MICE industry to explore common benefits and development.
Cheaper rooms but lower occupancy rate last month Macau’s 4-star hotels were the only category to register an occupancy rate y-o-y increase, at more than 20 pct y-o-y decrease in room rate, making them cheaper than 3-star hotels
last month, while the average room rate was MOP1,573 (US$196). In terms of hotel category, 4-star hotels were the only ones to register an occupancy rate increase on a yearly basis, increasing 1.6 per cent to 88.7 per cent. But this business performance was achieved at the cost of lowering room rates by more than 20 per cent, making the average room rate for a 4-star hotel room just MOP843.4, which was even cheaper than 3-star hotel rooms priced at an average MOP986.6, which is also 17.5 per cent lower than a year ago.
Yearly roundup
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verage occupancy rate for local 3-star to 5-star hotels decreased by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year in December 2015, even though
their rooms were 4.6 per cent cheaper than one year before, the latest data released by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) reveals.
The data, based on information provided by the Macau Hotels Association, showed that the occupancy rate at local 3-star to 5-star hotels reached 87.9 per cent
For the whole year of 2015, the data released by MGTO shows that the occupancy rate for all categories of hotel was 83.8 per cent, some 6.7 per cent lower than in 2014. The price on average was MOP1,491 - which was 7.8 per cent cheaper than the MOP1,617 offered in 2014. The 5-star hotels suffered the biggest drop in occupancy rate of 7.9 per cent to 83 per cent. However, the price drop in this hotel category was the slightest at 4.6 per cent, making the average price MOP1,840 compared to MOP1,928 a year before. For 3-star hotels, the price suffered the biggest drop of 16.9 per cent to MOP1,031 from MOP1,241 in 2014. The occupancy rate was somehow the highest among all hotel categories, however, reaching 86.8 per cent, still a 4.4 per cent decrease from 2014. The number also represents the slightest drop in occupancy rate compared to the other hotel types. In between, 4-star hotel room occupancy rate was 85.2 per cent, dropping 4.7 per cent from 89.9 per cent in 2014. The price dropped 14.5 per cent to MOP912.8 from MOP1,067 a year before.
Gov’t: Pearl Horizon case pending court verdict
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he SAR Government says that since the Pearl Horizon case has now entered judicial proceedings, no decisions have been made due to a lack of lawful or factual basis, according to a statement issued yesterday by the office of the Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan Hoi Fan. The government said procedures in reclaiming those plots of land have already been
launched according to relevant regulations in the Land Law. The statement followed Pearl Horizon homeowners staging another protest demanding the land dispute between the government and developer be resolved. The organizer said around 2,000 people had joined the march from the Polytex office in Areia Preta to the Government Headquarters to hand in the petition, while chanting demands that they
want to meet with the Chief Executive. The number of participant was put at 600 according to local police. The developer, Polytex, said recently that they have already filed a lawsuit against the government alleging delays in issuing the requisite approvals for the construction of the residential project. The developer is still eyeing a completion date for Pearl Horizon of 2018 if it wins the lawsuit.
The government announced the decision to take back the 68,000 square metre site at the beginning of last month, saying that developer Polytex Corporation Ltd. had failed to complete the land use before the land concession expiry date. Pearl Horizon, occupying a site known as Lot-P of Areia Preta on the Macau Peninsula, is designed to house 18 towers of a 5,000plus residential unit complex. Over 3,000 of these units
were sold off-plan before a brick was laid, according to the government’s earlier disclosure. The government said in yesterday’s statement that they reiterated that they have been paying attention to the homeowners’ interests and demands. In addition, it says that regardless of the verdict the government would try its best to protect the interests of the homeowners in accordance with the law.
Business Daily | 3
January 25, 2016
Macau
Visitor arrivals for 2015 down 2.6 pct to 30.7 million Macau’s overall visitor arrival figure for last year has been dragged down by a 4 pct fall in the most important visitor market, Mainland China Stephanie Lai
sw.lai@macaubusinessdaily.com
M
acau’s visitor arrivals for the full year of 2015 dropped 2.6 per cent year-on-year to 30.7 million, the first annual fall registered since 2009 as the number of Mainland Chinese visitors has dwindled, the latest data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) reveals. In 2015, the number of Mainland Chinese visitors – who make up 66 per cent of the total number of visitor arrivals - fell 4 per cent year-on-year to 20.4 million, according to official data. Most of these visitors were from the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian and Hunan. The Mainland Chinese visitors that travelled here via the individual visit scheme (IVS) last year, mostly from Guangdong Province, fell 0.5
per cent to 9.5 million. In the course of last year, however, the city saw an annual increase in the second and third most important sources of visitor arrivals: Hong Kong and Taiwan. As DSEC data shows, the number of visitors from Hong Kong increased by 1.7 per
cent to over 6.5 million, while those from Taiwan increased 3.6 percent to over 988,000. Visitors from South Korea, which has seen an increasing trend in the past few years, edged down 0.1 per cent yearon-year to 554,177 for 2015. Meanwhile, the city experienced a downtrend
in visitors from Malaysia (229,102 visitors), Singapore (158,814) and most European countries, according to the census service. For 2015, the number of overnight visitors decreased 1.8 per cent year-on-year to 14.3 million, attributable to a 5.1 per cent drop in those from
Mainland China (9.2 million) although those from Hong Kong and Taiwan actually increased by 10 per cent. On the other hand, the number of same-day visitors fell 3.3 per cent to 16.4 million. The city’s average length of stay of visitors edged up 0.1 days to 1.1 days in 2015, as overnight visitors rose by 0.2 days to 2.1 days, according to the census service. While a fall trend in visitors was evident in most of the months last year, the visitor arrival figure in December actually posted an uptick of 3.7 per cent yearon-year to 2.6 million. In the month, the number of overnight visitors, who account for half of total visitors, rose 14.2 per cent to over 1.3 million, the highest percentage recorded since January 2013.
4 | Business Daily
January 25, 2016
Macau
MGTO: 2016 visitor arrivals to be stable The Tourism Office vows to closely monitor the latest economic trend and adjust its products and marketing strategies based on actual demand
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he number of Macau’s visitor arrivals in 2015 was slightly down 2.6 per cent compared with 2014 for a total of 30,714,628. This number is in line with its forecast of over 30 million by Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) earlier, according to a statement issued last week by the Office following the release of the official data. The Office attributes the slight decrease to ‘a number of external factors’ such as the instability of the international economic environment, stock market
plunge, and exchange rate movements, particularly the exchange rate adjustment in neighbouring regions. ‘Macau's tourism industry had to face greater competition,’ said the Office. Despite a slight decrease in total visitor arrivals in 2015, MGTO said it has actively made flexible adjustments starting from the fourth quarter of last year to coordinate related activities for tourism promotion. By unleashing the synergistic effect produced by different types of activities and mega events, MGTO
seeks to attract quality tourists from different source markets and further extend visitors’ length of stay. MGTO says the tourism industry achieved better performance in the fourth quarter, with the scale of decrease in tourist arrivals narrowing from 3.6 per cent in the first quarter to 1.7 per cent. In addition, the number of international tourist arrivals in the fourth quarter experienced growth as well, posting a period-on-period increase of 3.9 per cent. The Office stresses the
attractiveness of events saying that in December 2015 in particular a combination of multiple mega events including Macau International Marathon, Parade through Macau, Latin City and Macau Light Festival had driven positive growth in a range of tourism figures such as total visitor arrivals and numbers of Greater China and international visitors, all of which registered an increase compared to the corresponding period of 2014. The average length of stay for overnight-stay visitors also
increased when compared to the same period in 2014, with the ratio of overnight-stay visitors surpassing that of same-day visitors again since December 2012. ‘It is estimated that the number of visitor arrivals in 2016 will remain at a stable level,’ read MGTO’s statement. ‘Regardless, it depends upon the overall prospects of the global economy.’ MGTO pledges that it will closely monitor the latest economic trends and adjust its products and marketing strategies based on actual demand.
Macau police affirm city’s risk of terrorist attack
T
he city’s Association of Macau Police Officers and Judiciary Police has affirmed that Macau could be a target for terrorist attacks, a response that echoes the view published recently by risk consultancy firm Steve Vickers and Associates Ltd. that Macau’s casinos could be a target for Islamic terrorists seeking to attack Chinese, US and Jewish interests. Talking to local Chinese language media on Thursday, the Vice-Director of the Association of Macau Police Officers, Lei Wai Meng, said that
the city’s profile fit the target for a terrorist attack. “Every year Macau receives around 30 million visitors. And should a terrorist attack take place, it would result in injuries to these outside visitors from various countries,” Mr. Lei told Chinese television station MASTV, noting that an evacuation rehearsal has been difficult to conduct in the city’s tourist zones due to the crowd size. The police association’s representative reckoned that the local authorites have to be particularly
wary of domestic political problems in Mainland China in addition to keeping an eye on terrorist activity in the international community. In a report released on January 13, and cited by several media outlets, Hong Kong-based risk consultancy firm Steve Vickers and Associates Ltd. pointed out that a Macau casino could attract an Islamist terrorist attack given the Chinese, American and Jewish interests in the local gaming sector. When asked of the view expressed in the report, Macau’s head of
Judiciary Police Chau Wai Kwong told media that the city is still at “low risk” of terrorist attack. But local police have never ceased collecting intelligence and engaging in anti-terror drills, Chau stressed. He said that the Judiciary Police have a mechanism to communicate antiterrorist attacks intelligence with international units, and that the police here have been long-time participants in the anti-terror dialogue with its neighbouring Hong Kong and Guangdong counterparts. S.L.
Business Daily | 5
January 25, 2016
Macau
Exam breach affects over 500 students The exams, scheduled to take place last Saturday in Macau and on the Mainland, were cancelled due to the leak of test materials João Santos Filipe
jsfilipe@macaubusinessdaily.com
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t least 500 students were prevented from taking the SAT exam for admission to American universities last Saturday in Macau because some undergraduates had accessed the questions beforehand. The exam breach affected not only candidates in Macau but in Mainland China, where the tests scheduled for last Saturday were cancelled by the College Board, the company overseeing them. In the territory only two centres offer the SAR tests; namely, City University of Macau and University of Macau. On the Mainland, the exam was cancelled in 43 centres, including the cities of Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai. In City University of Macau, at least 500 students were slated to take the exam, the School revealed to Business Daily. The decision was announced on Friday, one day before the exam. For its part, the College Board only made the City University
of Macau aware of the exam breach on Thursday night (Macau time) due to the time difference between the territory and New York, where the American company is based. Business Daily also contacted the University of Macau for comment on the situation and the number of students affected in the territory. It declined to clarify the situation, however, saying that it “serves as an SAT test venue only for College Board in the United States” and that the private company takes “all registration and other administrative queries”. The American company failed to answer our newspaper’s queries about the total number of students involved and if any local persons were suspected of having accessed the questions before the exam.
College Board dodgy about the breach
The cancellation of the SAT exams in Macau and on the Mainland
was reported on Thursday in the American Press. However, College Board failed to reveal how exactly the breach had happened and why they suspected that some students had previously seen the exam to be taken on Saturday. It is also not clear if the students involved in the breach are locals or Mainlanders. College Board did not reveal the overall number of students affected in Macau and Mainland. According to the American newspaper Washington Post, quoting thedirector of media relations for College Board, Zachary Goldberg, the company sent a letter to SAT centres abroad to explain the situation. ‘Earlier today we regretfully informed a set of students that we are cancelling the Saturday, January 23 SAT international administration at certain test centers. This decision is based on evidence that some students have been exposed to test materials intended for this administration’, the letter sent reads. ‘We have
done our best to limit the number of centres cancelled and the impact on students’. College Board will email the students about the make-up test during this week, the letter also revealed to the ‘higher education partners’ of the company.
Total of 623 local students in the United States
In Macau, the SAT tests are not only taken by locals but by students from Mainland China, who also tend to go to Hong Kong and even to Thailand to take such exams. This happens because on the other side of the border, the exams are for the most part available in private and international schools. According to the College Board website the registration for the exam had as its deadline January 12 and a cost of U.S.100.50 (MOP806.65). In the academic year of 2013/2014, some 623 local students were enrolled in American institutions.
Tourism ministers gather in Madrid, discuss tourism and security
T
ourism Ministers and Heads of Tourism from 86 countries and regions attended a high-level meeting on global tourism and security held by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) last week. Attendees included Macau’s Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam Chon Weng. The forum was coorganised by the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in a bid to provide a platform for the tourism heads of the regions
to exchange ideas on offering a safe and comfortable tourism environment. Taleb Rifai, Secretary General of the UNWTO, presented three main topics - the sustainable development of the tourism industry; better usage of modern technology in providing tourism information; providing safe tourism environment - in his opening ceremony address. Alexis Tam said that being invited to attend the meeting demonstrated UNWTO’s recognition of the Macau SAR and that he hopes to better
understand other countries’ tourism safety measures and strategy in order to use them as references and better safeguard SAR tourism, according to a press release issued yesterday. The meeting concluded a number of resolutions and recommendations and David Scowsill of the WTTC (World Travel & Tourism Council) also confirmed that at the 16th Global Summit to be held in Dallas in early April the Tourism Ministers meeting with the press would feature on the programme. The WTTC, as representatives of the private sector, and the UNWTO, as the public sector, were keen to remind the industry and Ministers of Tourism of the existing example of what is being called public/private sector partnership.
6 | Business Daily
January 25, 2016
Macau
“Good management can resolve manpower difficulties for F&B industry” Good management and leadership are the keys to resolving manpower turnover, which is one of the biggest difficulties for the Food & Beverage (F&B) business in the city, Maggie Chiang, the founder of Mag Kitchen, Maquette and La Magie, believes. In an interview with Business Daily, the young entrepreneur shares the stories of her F&B career, as well as how her business is affected by the economic downturn Kam Leong
kamleong@macaubusinessdaily.com Photos by: Cheong Kam Ka
Why did you launch Mag Kitchen, which is a cooking kitchen, instead of a restaurant back in 2010?
At that time, I was still working for others, whilst I also taught cooking part-time. I’ve been learning cooking through participating in different kinds of workshop since I was very young. I joined cooking classes not only in Macau, but also in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places where I travelled. I don’t know why but I really like the environment of cooking workshops. When I was teaching cooking part-time, I had many ideas for my classes, especially after having attended so many workshops. And then I decided to find a place of my own for me to give cooking classes. Before that, many friends of mine had asked me to teach them how to cook or make a cake so I thought the direction of [launching a cooking classroom] would be a very good idea. On the other hand, I didn’t think I was qualified to open a restaurant myself then. Thus, I decided to go for cooking workshops first, which is one of my interests.
You were offering private dinners then, as well. Have you seen demand for private dinners growing these few years? Yes, I did provide private dinners. But actually, it was not me initiating the service. When people asked me to cook for them, I cooked. Then, when people started
to ask me to make birthday cakes I made them. And others might ask if I could do wedding souvenirs for them, so I did. This is how I’ve expanded [my business] – things happen naturally themselves. Speaking of private dinners, although we’ve changed the function of the venue where Mag Kitchen is located, I do see people’s demands have changed. A few years ago, they were very excited about trying new things, so the form of private dinner was more like gathering together to have fun. But now, private dinners are mostly operated in people’s homes, and their demands for food have changed, too.
When did you realise it was time to launch your first restaurant?
I had been hoping to open one. After having given cooking classes for many years, and teaching so many different people, it came to a point where I felt like I wanted to learn more. It’s because when I was cooking for private dinners, I realised I could cook sixteen dishes all by myself. I thus had the thought that I should learn more to see what I could develop later. That’s why I went to France and Italy for cooking classes.
Your restaurant Maquette is located in one of the quietest streets of Macau. Why is that? I enjoy life. That’s why I didn’t want my cooking classes to be like a class at all. I want to offer
fun and different experiences for people. Since I went to Europe to learn cooking I started to plan what my future restaurant should be like. The restaurants in Europe gave me a lot of inspiration so I decided my restaurant should be very comfortable and Europeanlike. Hence, I also decided that my restaurant should be of a small size, with some European elements inside. After I came back to Macau, it took me more than half a year to find a venue I liked. In the beginning, I was searching for a place in Sai Van Lake, which is a quite relaxing and leisurely area of the city that could give people the feeling of being on vacation. But I couldn’t find a suitable place there. When I passed by this street, I knew this is what I’d been looking for despite the fact that the street is very quiet and not many people pass by. I called the realtors, trying to rent the place. A landlord agreed to lease me the unit in the beginning but later changed his mind. Nevertheless, I still thought this shop would be the best for my restaurant as I was seeing other shops. Luckily, the realtor called me a few months later, saying the new landlord was willing to lease me the shop….
Opening a restaurant here, were you worried the area would be too quiet for you to attract customers?
I didn’t think about that then. I believe that I should be the one to offer my culture to others when I like something, rather than I look for a place that meets their interests. This was my thought at that time - I wanted to create a culture for people to enjoy this place.
In Macau, European cuisine is dominated by Portuguese food. To attract more customers, have you thought about adding Portuguese elements to your business?
No, I haven’t. As I said, everything I do, I follow my heart. Although there are many people, especially in the F&B industry, adjusting their operations in order to meet market demand, I, on the contrary, like to put my own thoughts into my business so that people can see and try different things. I didn’t think it would be a good idea if I could find a special place like this but offer ordinary things that people generally want. Although it’s true that it may attract more customers, this conflicts with my initial concept.
Meanwhile, La Magie, the new store you launched last year, is near one of the busiest districts in the city – Nam Van… The location of La Magie was before Mag Kitchen. I don’t have time to give cooking classes anymore, so I decided to transform the place to
Business Daily | 7
January 25, 2016
Macau something new. Even though I’ve opened a restaurant which can accommodate many of my restaurant ideas, I’d still like to make cakes. Of course, I can sell cakes in my restaurant, yet the feeling would be different. As such, I came up with the idea of selling my desserts, especially French desserts, in another place. After consideration, I decided to do it in the location of Mag Kitchen. I’ve been teaching classes there for many years. There are many people passing by every day, seeing what I have to sell. Some neighbours and students in the area would not come to my restaurants to eat. And I thought it would be great if I could bring them French street-food culture.
Manpower challenges How are Maquette and La Magie performing in terms of business?
The business of Maquette is already very mature. I can leave my staff to operate themselves with no worries at all. After all, it has been opened for some time and we’ve already gained some frequent customers that are familiar with our food. Meanwhile, for La Magie, it has only been open less than six months. In terms of operation, there are still many improvements needed, especially for human resources. I’ve been asking other chefs if there are any pastry chefs who can work for me. Frankly, it’s like impossible to hire a local pastry chef. However, to hire a foreign chef, I need to apply for more labour quota [from the government]. This is the first thing needed to be solved for La Magie. Only after that could I continue expanding my ideas and my thoughts.
Do you think human resources are the most difficult challenges for operating an F&B business in Macau?
Yes, it’s difficult. But this only happens at the beginning of your business. After all, if you’re able to set up your own team, your later operation should be fine. For example, for Maquette, we hired many different people - many part-time at the beginning - yet there was always turnover. In the end, I hired non-resident workers. By teaching and training them the basics, they develop themselves along with your business. Hence, they stay and work with you together. For La Magie, I feel the same pain now as the operation is still in the beginning stage. Nonetheless, I believe after you find an appropriate worker, whether they stay depends on your
way of training and managing your staff as a leader. If they can develop their own advantages, their performance would for sure be boosted. It requires skill [to manage human resources].
What are the other challenges for operating an F&B business in Macau? Well, restaurant management. I cook from my passion. And from the passion, I did private dinner services before I opened my own restaurant. After opening the restaurant, I realised it requires certain knowledge to manage a restaurant. In the beginning, I did spend some time exploring my own ways. This is really about experience; and you need to learn. But now I feel OK after these few years. On the other hand, I’ve started to be an advisor to other restaurants.
How do you see the local conditions for the F&B business? It still needs time to grow the food culture here. After many hotels and good restaurants opened in the city, the local food culture has been cultivated a lot. People have accepted many new things and
Maggie Chiang Maggie Chiang is a young Macauborn chef and entrepreneur who has successfully turned her interest in cooking into a career and her own business. In 2010, Ms. Chiang first launched cooking school Mag Kitchen near St. Joseph’s Seminary and Church in Rua do Seminário on the Peninsula. In addition to offering cooking classes and workshops, she provided private-dinner service and wedding souvenir catering services via the establishment. After studying in cooking schools in France and Italy, she opened her first
restaurant Maquette in 2013. The restaurant, whose menu is strongly influenced by French and Italian cuisine, is located in Estrada Lou Lim Ieok on the hillside of Taipa Pequena Hill. As an art lover, the young lady also combines her food with art elements. In 2015, the entrepreneur turned Mag Kitchen into a new French dessert and pastry shop - La Magie, hoping to bring French street-food culture to the city. In the same year, the young female chef won an Excellence Award in the Young Entrepreneur category of the Business Awards of Macau.
Although there are many people, especially in the F&B industry, adjusting their operations in order to meet market demand, I, on the contrary, like to put my own thoughts into my business so that people can see and try different things
their food culture has also followed the changes. For example, people may not have ordered dishes by courses in a Western restaurant before, but now they do. Of course, there is no wrong or right for that. It’s just that the culture is a bit different from the real Western style. The improvement of local food culture is good news for the whole industry.
The number of French and Italian restaurants is growing. Do you feel such growth brings competition or boosts market demand?
Since opening my restaurant, I’ve never thought about competition or have seen what others are doing on purpose. I’ve been focusing on developing my own things. From other F&B people I know we share similar thoughts. We’ll try each other’s food. We will exchange our own ideas. In my opinion, when people truly like cooking, they will exchange their own ideas rather than think about competing with each other.
Maquette is a fine-dining restaurant. Has the economic downturn affected the business, and are you worried?
We can really feel the difference for the F&B industry amid the economic downturn. When we F&B people talk with each other, we notice the difference, that fewer people are eating out now. But we cannot be worried as the business is launched already. The only thing you can do is come up with some new ideas to maintain the operation. It’s more difficult for the business but you need to come up with something new. For example, to reduce kitchen waste, I recently changed my menu to a set menu only. It’s true that customers don’t have as many choices as before. However, in terms of restaurant management, we would waste much less food. There’s no other way; we can only keep going.
Have you thought about launching your business in casinos?
I have thought about that. But I won’t take the initiative myself. If some big-scale hotels would like to gather local SMEs to develop local features, like Broadway street in Broadway Macau, I think it would be very meaningful.
What are your future plans?
For the near future, I’d like to host an exhibition combining food and art. This is actually an ongoing project. The exhibition would be held in Macau and Hong Kong. This is my direction for this year. Meanwhile, I’ll continue providing advice to other restaurants as an advisor as it is a very pleasing and challenging job. I would like to use my knowledge to help other restaurants and to share my thoughts. When bosses are not kitchen people themselves, it’d be hard for them to manage the kitchen as it is difficult for most chefs to listen to a person without any kitchen knowledge. Hence, I think this job is interesting.
8 | Business Daily
January 25, 2016
Macau Brocade appoints Larry Tam as MD for local market Specialising in data and storage products, Brocade Communications Systems has appointed Larry Tam as managing director (MD) for Hong Kong and Macau, the company announced last week. Prior to this appointment Larry Tam was manager for the two Special Administrative Regions of network products company Juniper Networks. “I am excited to join Brocade at this important juncture where networking and the data centre are undergoing major transformative changes. I look forward to working closely with our customers and partners in Hong Kong and Macau to help them reap maximum value from their networks as a platform for innovation,” said Tam in a statement.
Imperial Pacific stress high shareholding concentration issue resolved It told the Hong Kong bourse and securities trade watchdog that the issue of high shareholding concentration in a small number of shareholders is ‘no longer present’
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ong Kong-listed casino operator Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd. told the Hong Kong bourse on Friday that the issue of high shareholding concentration in a small number of shareholders has no longer been the case since at least November 30 last year. Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) had previously warned against this situation as it could lead to a substantial fluctuation in the company’s share price. In its Friday filing, Imperial Pacific said that on January 19 it had completed its investigation into the shareholding structure of the company, which shows that the major shareholder Inventive
Star Ltd. held 90,854,629,280 of total issued shares, or 64.68 per cent of the entire issued share capital as at November 30. Inventive Star Ltd. is wholly owned by casino investor Ms. Cui Li Jie. In an announcement filed last month, Imperial Pacific revealed that Inventive Star Ltd. has already decreased its shares from 75 per cent of the entire issued share capital to 64.6 per cent. This announcement followed SFC's warning issued in July saying that the company's major shareholder Inventive Star, along with 18 other shareholders, held 92.6 per cent of the issued shares of Imperial Pacific – a condition that
investors should be wary of as the price of the shares could fluctuate substantially. In Imperial Pacific’s Friday filing, the company noted that while Inventive Star held 64.68 per cent of the then entire issued share capital, public shareholders owned 35.4 per cent of the entire issued share capital in the firm. Among the public shareholders, the group of these 18 largest shareholders (excluding Inventive Star) collectively held 17.71 per cent of the entire issued share capital as at end-November. The company, which runs a casino resort project on Saipan Island, said that the closing prices of the company were between HK$0.158 and HK$0.26 in the past six months – a level that
the company deemed consistent with the then market condition and in line with the trend of the Hang Seng Index at that time. “The company's shares have been traded at a relatively steady price and there has not been any major fluctuation in the company's share price above and beyond the overall market volatility in recent months,” Imperial Pacific stated in the Friday filing. ‘The company is of the view that even if the company's shareholding was highly concentrated as at July 15, 2014, such issue is no longer present at least since November 30 last year,’ Imperial Pacific wrote. S.L.
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January 25, 2016
Macau MGM China to pay special bonus to non-management staff MGM China will pay a special bonus worth one month’s salary to its non-management staff. The staff of the company was made aware of this decision last Wednesday, the gaming operator told Business Daily. The payment to the workers of the company will be executed in two different instalments with the first paid by the end of this month. MGM China is the third operator to confirm that it will continue its bonus scheme in 2016 in spite of overall gross gaming revenue decline of 34.3 per cent to MOP230.84 billion (US$28.77 billion) from MOP351.52 billion. The first operator to announce this was SJM Holdings, followed by Wynn Macau.
Synectics Systems signs ‘multi-million pound’ contract with local casino Although the name of the gaming operator was not revealed the shares of the company went up 10 per cent following the announcement João Santos Filipe
jsfilipe@macaubusinessdaily.com
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urveillance technology company Synectics Systems has announced a ‘multi-million pound’ contract signed with a major gaming operator in Macau that has boosted the share of the company at the London Stock Exchange by more than 10 per cent. The contract signed by Synectics Systems (Macau) Limited is to provide ‘an integrated surveillance solution for a new casino resort in Macau’. However, it did not announce the other party to the agreement or the casino in which it will be installed. However, it revealed that it is a casino that is ‘currently under construction’. ‘Synectics now supports over 100 gaming properties around the world. Our extensive US experience in the sector has enabled us to demonstrate two key attributes to the Asia Pacific market, which are quality and reliability”, said Paul Webb, Chief Executive of the company. “From that base we’ve built a reputation that is going from strength to strength and this major new contract confirms
Sands China declares interim dividend
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acau casino operator Sands China Ltd. has declared an interim dividend of HK$0.99 ($US0.127) per share, according to a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It is expected the Interim Dividend will be paid on Friday, February 26, 2016, payable to shareholders of the company whose names appear on the register of members of the company up to February 9, 2016. The filing also said there will be
an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) to be held on Friday, February 19, ‘at which a resolution will be put forward to the shareholders to consider and, if thought fit, approve a proposed amendment to the terms of the company’s equity award plan’. The casino firm did not provide details about the proposed amendment, saying only that additional information would be ‘dispatched in due course’. In a separate filing, Sands China
also announced that Wilfred Wong Ying Wai has been appointed as an executive director of the Company (‘Executive Director’) and a member of the Remuneration Committee and the Sands China Capital Expenditure Committee (‘Capex Committee’) of the Company with effect from January 22, 2016. Wilfred Wong Ying Wai, aged 63, was appointed President and Chief Operating Officer of the Company effective November 1, 2015.
that our solutions are the preferred choice of some of the region’s premier gaming operators”, he added. According to the information released by the company, the contract is expected to begin in the next few months and be for the most part completed by the end of the financial year. The contract was announced on Thursday morning (UK time) in a filing with the London Stock Exchange. At the end of that day’s session the shares of the company closed up 10.87 per cent at GBP127.5 (MOP1460.4) each. The UK-based company opened an office last year in Macau as part of its strategy to tackle the Asia Pacific market. “Our new Macau office will play a crucial role in our continued growth strategy by boosting our ability to offer technical support at a local level. The investment demonstrates our commitment to existing customers and to the Asia Pacific market as a whole”, the Chief Executive of Synectics Systems said at the time.
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Greater China
IMF’s Lagarde says markets need clarity on yuan Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he believed China should use capital controls to stabilise its currency while keeping domestic monetary policy loose Paul Taylor and Noah Barkin
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inancial markets need more clarity on how Chinese authorities are managing their currency, particularly the relationship
of the yuan to the U.S. dollar, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Saturday. Sharp swings in the yuan have
We believe China will have a soft landing, not a hard landing. A lot of people in the market believe demand in China is decreasing. We don’t agree Tidjane Thiam, CEO, Credit Suisse
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF, speaks during a panel session on Saturday
Central bank won’t rush to cut bank reserve ratio A vice governor of the central bank said the bank would keep the yuan basically stable against a basket of currencies
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hina’s central bank will not rush to cut the amount of cash banks must hold as reserves, despite a liquidity squeeze ahead of the Lunar New Year, an assistant central bank governor has said, according
to sources. The central bank “will not easily cut banks’ reserve requirement ratios (RRR)”, Zhang Xiaohui told senior officials of policy banks and commercial banks at a recent meeting on liquidity
management, said the sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. “On the one hand we should maintain reasonable and adequate liquidity in the banking system, on the other hand we should pay
contributed, along with a dramatic fall in the price of oil, to global market volatility since the beginning of 2016. Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, speaking on the same panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, said he believed China should use capital controls to stabilise its currency while keeping domestic monetary policy loose. Asked whether she would back capital controls by China for a period, Lagarde avoided a direct reply but said: “Certainly a massive use of reserves would not be a particularly good idea ... Some of it was already used.” She said that the market needed “clarity and certainty” about China’s exchange rate basket “in particular with reference to the dollar, which has always been the reference”. “That would be the right move to make,” she added. Kuroda said China was right to keep monetary policy accommodative to help cushion the country’s transition from a export-led industrial economy to a demand-driven consumer economy without excessive depreciation of the yuan. “This is my personal view and may not be shared by Chinese authorities, but in this kind of contradictory situation, capital control could be useful to manage exchange rate as well as domestic monetary policy in a consistent, appropriate way.” He said Beijing was struggling to avoid either an excessive depreciation or an excessive appreciation of its currency. Chinese economic data signalling slowing growth in the world’s secondlargest economy have sent investors into a panic globally in the first three weeks of 2016, with oil prices also plunging as a result of oversupply in the market.
attention to the pressure on the renminbi (yuan) exchange rate from excessively loose liquidity,” she said. Yi Gang, a vice governor of the central bank, told the same meeting the bank would keep the yuan basically stable against a basket of currencies. Yi blamed some Chinese financial institutions for betting on the yuan’s depreciation. The central bank has taken a flurry of steps, including intervening in currency markets and imposing capital control measures, to support the weakening yuan. Zhang said the central bank could use other policy tools to add liquidity to the banking system, as cutting reserves could send a strong
KEY POINTS C.bank will keep liquidity “reasonable and adequate” -sources C.bank worries cutting ratio could put pressure on yuan -sources Says will use other policy tools to add liquidity -sources
signal on policy easing, according to the sources. Moves by the central bank to inject more than 600 billion yuan (US$91.19 billion) in liquidity ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in February could substitute for a cut in the cash amount banks must hold as reserves, the central bank’s chief economist was this week quoted as saying. Zhang said the liquidity injections, via the three policy tools of the standing lending facility (SLF), the mediumterm lending facility (MLF) and pledged supplementary lending (PSL), could be between 600 billion and 800 billion yuan. Liquidity often tightens ahead of the week-long holiday and the central bank usually injects large amounts of cash into the banking system before the festivities to keep rates steady. The first day of the new year is February 8. The central bank has cut interest rates six times since November 2014, and cut the amount of cash banks must hold as reserves, but such steps have had limited impact on economic growth. More easing steps are widely expected in coming months. China’s economic growth slowed to 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the weakest since the financial crisis, adding pressure on a government that is struggling to restore investor confidence. Reuters
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January 25, 2016
Greater China Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam told the Davos panel that many people in the markets did not necessarily believe China’s official growth figure of 6.9 percent for 2015 and feared the Chinese economy was facing a “hard landing”. “We believe China will have a soft landing, not a hard landing. A lot in people in the market believe demand in China is decreasing. We don’t agree,” he said. Part of the market slide was due to a massive distressed sales of assets by sovereign wealth funds and asset managers prompted by falling oil prices, Thiam added. Both Lagarde and Kuroda suggested investors could trust China’s official growth data. The Chinese central bank has been generous with liquidity, pumping a net 315 billion yuan (US$48 billion) into the banking system ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in early February. It was the biggest weekly injection since January 2014 and analysts suspected it was larger than that warranted to avoid any hint of a cash crunch during the long holiday. According to sources, Zhang Xiaohui, an assistant governor of the central bank, said it would not rush to cut the amount of cash banks must hold in reserves, as doing so could send a strong signal on policy easing. Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told Reuters the IMF board’s decision to include China’s yuan in the basket of major currencies used to calculate the Special Drawing Right in which the Fund lends to members was “an additional positive constraint” on China’s management of its currency. Reuters
Hong Kong Exchange Fund posts 2015 investment loss The investment return for 2015 was -0.6 pct in an adverse financial environment, compared to 1.4 pct in 2014
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ong Kong’s Exchange Fund, which is used to back the Hong Kong dollar, posted an investment loss of HK$18.3 billion (US$2.35 billion) in 2015, its first time in the red since 2008, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said on Friday. The figure compared with a HK$44.7 billion investment gain in 2014. The Exchange Fund in November posted an investment loss of HK$36.8 billion for the first nine months of 2015. The investment return for 2015 was -0.6 percent in an adverse financial environment, compared to 1.4 percent in 2014. “Barely a few weeks into 2016, we have already observed further turbulence in the global financial markets, which once again underscored the imbalance and instability of the current global financial conditions,” Chief Executive Norman Chan said. “The financial markets may continue to see wide fluctuations for some time. Facing an even more complex and difficult investment environment, the HKMA will continue to manage the Exchange Fund prudently and make suitable defensive moves in response to market changes.”
Green car subsidies end announcement reveals automakers’ strategies The government sees new energy vehicles as a means for China’s auto industry to catch up to foreign competition Jake Spring
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hina will maintain plans to gradually phase out subsidies for green energy vehicles until they are fully eliminated in 2021 and allow the market to determine the direction of green car development, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said on Saturday. But auto executives speaking alongside Lou at an industry conference in Beijing laid out differing visions as to which technology the market will favour: Tesla-style pure electrics or plug-in hybrid cars currently favoured by Volkswagen AG and others. Green car sales more than quadrupled in 2015 with the market finally taking off after years of subsidies and preferential government policies, leading China to surpass the United States to become the world’s largest market for electric cars. The government sees new energy vehicles, a catch-all for pure electric, hybrid and fuel cell cars, as a means
for China’s auto industry to catch up to foreign competition while also combating pollution that chokes many urban areas. Lou reiterated plans to cut subsidies by 20 percent over the next two years and 40 percent by 2019-2020, eliminating them altogether after 2021 so that the industry does not grow dependent on them. Instead, Lou said China should pursue market-based policies. He praised California’s emissions policy, under which Tesla can generate environmental credits from its emissions-free vehicles and then sell the credits to other companies, for playing a critical role in the success of the Silicon Valley carmaker. This was an example to learn from, he said. China has yet to institute a similar system. “Credit trading is the most effective way to ensure government neutrality
KEY POINTS HK$18.5 bln Q4 income vs Q3’s HK$63.8 bln fund loss HK 2015 equities loss at HK$5 bln vs 2014’s HK$6.5 bln gain Forex loss at HK$44.9 bln vs 2014’s HK$52.7 bln loss Volatile market to continue for some time - HKMA chief Among the defensive moves deployed were a shorter bond portfolio duration, greater holdings of cash, and cuts in non-US dollar assets, the HKMA said. Hong Kong’s central bank had said last Monday it had no plans to change the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the U.S. currency, despite recent market volatility. The HKMA is the key manager of the Exchange Fund, which is under the control of the financial secretary and invests in equities, bonds, foreign exchange and other securities and assets. Reuters
KEY POINTS Subsidies to end by 2021 VW, BMW betting on plug-in hybrids in near-term BAIC, NextEV favor pure electric on the technology’s development. The market should be able to choose the technical route,” said Lou. Other automakers like Beijing Automotive Group and start-up electric maker NextEV also praised pure electric car maker Tesla as a model for development. Executives from Volkswagen and BMW AG said they remain focused on plug-in hybrids as a the most viable technology in the near-term as China transitions toward electric cars. “Once we leave the city we are forced to confront the problem of a nationwide high-powered charging infrastructure - if you really see it as a realistic goal, I personally have some doubts - to drive pure electric over long distances,” said Jochem Heizmann, head of Volkswagen Group China. VW instead favours plug-in electric vehicles that can use electric engines for city driving and switch to gasoline engine for longer inter-city drives. Chairman Wang Chuanfu of BYD, which makes China’s best-selling plug-in hybrid, said he expects buses to achieve full electrification, with commercial vehicles being completely electrified within the decade and passenger cars being fully converted by 2030. Reuters
Visual China buys Corbis Entertainment Chinese image licensing company Visual China Group said it acquired on Friday the image division and content licensing unit of photo library Corbis Entertainment, owned by Microsoft Corp’s co-founder Bill Gates. The company signed another deal with media service provider Getty Images to distribute Corbis’ images and content to customers, thus bringing in a major photo library and an image distributor to China. Getty Images would distribute Corbis’ content, creating a collection of over 200 million images and videos and certain archived historical contents for creative and editorial use.
AgBank may lose US$593 mln The Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (AgBank) found 3.9 billion yuan (US$592.87 million) exposed to risk after an incident in the notes resale business, it said on Friday. Agbank, China’s third largest lender, is working with authorities to investigate the incident which took place at its Beijing branch, it said in a brief statement on the Hong Kong stock exchange. It did not provide further details. Earlier on Friday, Chinese financial publication Caixin reported that AgBank may lose 3.8 billion yuan from a bills of exchange scam allegedly carried out by two employees.
C.bank frees up some firms for overseas borrowing 27 financial institutions, as well as firms registered in free trade zones in Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Fujian, will no longer need approval to issue foreign debt. The central bank will apply its macro-prudential management rules to the selected firms from January 25, letting them conduct cross-border financing activity up to a limit linked to their assets or net assets, it said in a statement on its website. The central bank said it had accumulated “replicable experiences” from a pilot scheme on cross-border financing in Shanghai’s free trade zone that was launched in early 2005.
Dalian Wanda to develop industrial park in India Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group said on Friday it would develop a US$10 billion industrial park in northern India, its first project in the country. The company owned by China’s richest man Wang Jianlin said it would be the lead investor in the project’s initial infrastructure and also ask Chinese firms to take part. Construction on the first phase of the 13 square km park in Haryana state is due to start this year, the company said. “Haryana State will provide Wanda with the most preferential policies,” it added in a statement.
Q4 property loans rise as market recovers Bank lending to China’s property market increased in the fourth quarter of 2015, official data showed on Friday, another sign of mild recovery in the housing market. Outstanding loans to property developers and home buyers at the end of December were 21 percent higher than a year earlier, central bank data showed. At the end of September, the total was 20.9 percent bigger than the year-earlier level. In a sign of buoyant home sales, mortgages rose 23.2 percent by the end of December from a year earlier.
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Asia
Investors sour on Abenomics as global gloom deepens Some foreign investors have already pulled out money, with exchange data showing they became a net seller of Japanese stocks last year Hideyuki Sano
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enewed turmoil in global markets is beginning to erode investor confidence in Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s pledge to revitalise the economy through his massive ‘Abenomics’ stimulus programme. Doubts over the efficacy of Abe’s cocktail of monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural reforms have been growing for several months as the world’s third-largest economy fails to motor on and inflation remains a long way off the Bank of Japan’s 2 percent goal.
KEY POINTS Scepticism on Abenomics at highest level ever Speculators bet on yen’s gains, inflation expectations subdued Doubts grow on whether stimulus is working
Philippines well-placed to weather China slowdown Trade between China and the Philippines is still relatively immature, limiting the downside impact from current woes and offering upside for future ties Ben Hirschler
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he Philippines cannot escape some impact from China’s slowdown but is less exposed than many emerging markets and has a good chance of growing its economy by 7 percent in 2016, the country’s finance minister said on Friday. “No one is immune. When China sneezes, lots of
countries get a cold,” Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima told Reuters on the side-lines of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos. “Fortunately for us, because of our own problems in the past, we were rather latecomers in connecting ourselves to China and the rest of the world. In a sense, this is a blessing in disguise.”
As a result, trade between China and the Philippines is still relatively immature, limiting the downside impact from China’s current woes and offering upside for future ties. Meanwhile, strong domestic consumption, remittances from overseas workers and a thriving business process outsourcing sector have made
the economy one of the world’s fastest-growing. Full-year gross domestic product (GDP) data is due this week and will show robust growth, Purisima said. “Whatever happens I think it will be 5.7 percent or upwards,” he said. For 2016 Purisima is “cautiously optimistic” of achieving 7 percent. That would be at the lower end of the government’s aspirational target of 7-8 percent, reflecting pressures from the slowdown in China. “The challenge is to bring it up to the 7 percent level because that’s when we really have a good chance of addressing issues of poverty,” he said. The Philippines received a vote of confidence earlier on Friday from South Korean ratings agency NICE Investors Service, which upgraded its credit rating by a notch. It was the 24th positive credit rating action during the six-year rule of President Benigno Aquino and Purisima
said it reflected the economic reforms the administration had made. A rating of investment grade or above from a range of agencies make it wellplaced to tap international markets, although it is currently relying mainly on domestic borrowing to finance its budget. Purisima said the aim was to go to the international bond market “in the first quarter” of 2016 but there were no immediate plans to issue a yuan-denominated so-called “panda” bond. “We’d like to see more stability in the policy environment relating to the yuan before we have confidence of getting into that,” he said. General elections in the Philippines in May will be closely watched by investors but Purisima argued there was little cause for concern since none of the candidates were proposing major shifts in economic strategy. Reuters
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January 25, 2016
Asia Those doubts have heightened in the past few weeks as the free fall in oil prices and concerns about China’s slowing economy and its perceived policy missteps sent global financial markets into a tail spin at the start of the year. “The perception on Abenomics is changing,” said Tomoichiro Kubota, senior market analyst at Matsui Securities. “It has been boosting share prices essentially by working on expectations. But after all expectations were just expectations.” Speculators, who were firm believers of a weak currency under Abe, became net buyers of the yen in the past couple of weeks, helping to drive the Japanese unit to one-year high of 115.97 to the dollar earlier this week. Inflation-linked JGBs are pricing the lowest inflation expectations since the bonds were re-introduced in 2013. It stood at 0.55 percent, below its 2014 peak around 1.4 percent, and some distance from the Bank of Japan’s inflation target of 2.0 percent. As the global outlook darkened and growth at home slowed to an anaemic pace, Japanese shares wiped out all the gains since the Bank of Japan (BOJ) expanded its stimulus in October 2014. Earlier in the week, the Nikkei fell more than 20 percent - widely seen as a yardstick for a bear market - from a peak hit in June last year. That in turn puts at risk voter support for Abenomics given a rally in Japanese shares to an almost twodecade high last year is seen as one of his major achievements.
Foreign investors losing patience?
While Japan’s economic ills are partly a consequence of global headwinds,
The perception on Abenomics is changing, [...] It has been boosting share prices essentially by working on expectations. But after all expectations were just expectations Tomoichiro Kubota, senior market analyst at Matsui Securities
including the deflationary impact of low oil and slacking global demand for Japanese exports, investors are starting to question if Abenomics could put growth and inflation on a sustainable footing. The absence of steady growth and consumer prices over the last three years have tempered investors’ hopes that Abe’s strategy could spur a revival of economic fortunes. Tellingly, shares of brokerages and property firms - formerly darlings of Abe’s reflation policies - have returned to levels when BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda set in motion a burst of massive stimulus in April 2013.
“This symbolises how inflation expectations have fallen,” said Matsui Securities’ Kubota. Foreign investors also appear to be losing patience with Abenomics. “Now we are in the ‘wait and see’ mode, I think, especially for foreigners Abenomics has to deliver also on the reform side,” said Hans Rademaker, chief investment officer at Robeco Group. Some foreign investors have already pulled out money, with exchange data showing they became a net seller of Japanese stocks last year, a stark turnaround from 2013 when they bought 15 trillion yen of Japanese shares. In 2014, they were net buyers of a smaller sum. That is an ominous sign for the market considering foreigners’ net selling occurred only twice this century during major market downturns - in 2000 when the dot com bubble burst and in 2008 when the global financial crisis gummed up financial markets. Another risk is that Japanese investors, who have piled up foreign assets on the conviction that the yen is unlikely to strengthen, may do a U-turn and buy back the yen. This grim backdrop has stoked speculation that the BOJ will take additional easing steps at its policy meeting next week. But for some players, more stimulus brings its own risks. “Japanese investors haven’t repatriated their funds. If they start to do so, that is quite dangerous,” said Arihiro Nagata, general manager of derivatives at SMBC Nikko Securities. “But an even more dangerous thing is to have the BOJ ease its policy next week and that does not work.” Reuters
South Korea Q4 GDP growth seen easing Weak economic growth in China, South Korea’s biggest export destination, has further clouded export prospects
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outh Korea’s economy is expected to show slower growth in the fourth quarter of last year versus July to September as weak exports undermined the effect of a slow but steady recovery in domestic consumption. A Reuters poll of 20 analysts produced a median estimate of 0.7 percent growth in the October-December quarter on sequential terms, down from 1.3 percent in the third quarter. This would be better, though, than a 0.3 percent growth seen in the second quarter when the economy was hobbled by an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that dented consumer sentiment. “Growth was likely led by domestic consumption and investment, while
a meaningful economic rebound will be impossible if exports are not resuscitated,” said Kathleen Oh, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank. Oh said exports this year were unlikely to show meaningful gains. South Korean exports dropped 11.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year on an annual basis, which was the biggest quarterly fall since the third quarter of 2009. Weak economic growth in China, South Korea’s biggest export destination, has further clouded export prospects, a factor highlighted by data this week showing the Chinese economy grew at its slowest pace since 2009 in the fourth quarter of last year.
Nepal approves first constitution amendment Nepal’s parliament has voted to amend the country’s new constitution after its promulgation four months ago, on Saturday night. Speaker of the parliament Onsari Gharti Magar announced endorsement of the first amendment to the Constitution of Nepal at a House session in the Nepalese Capital Kathmandu. The amendment has ensured higher representation in the government bodies on the basis of proportional inclusion of the Madhesis, as well as other marginalized communities. However, the lawmakers of agitating Madhesi parties have shunned the voting saying the constitution amendment failed to address their core demand of fresh demarcation of provincial boundaries.
Indian ruling party BJP re-elects president India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday re-elected Amit Shah as its president for a second term, said local media. Shah, who is a close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi serving as BJP president since 2014, will serve as the party’s head until 2019. Analysts say this year is critical for the BJP to consolidate its power as it would fight for a series of local legislative elections in several key states, after suffering setbacks in local elections of Delhi and Bihar last year.
Singapore supports Lagarde for second term The Monetary Authority of Singapore said yesterday it supported the nomination of the International Monetary Fund’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, for a second term. Lagarde launched her campaign for her second term on Friday with ringing endorsements from a host of major economies that looked past a court case against her in her native France. Her first term ends on July 4 and the IMF has said it wants to wrap up the selection process by March 3.
Thailand reports 2nd MERS case
KEY POINTS Advance estimate due at 8 a.m., Jan 26 (2300 GMT, Jan 25) Exports bite into growth amid consumption recovery Firm rebound timing unclear as improvement uneven
Consumption was likely the saving grace that propped up South Korea’s growth late last year, as the government urged retailers to launch nationwide discount sales to attract consumers, mirroring the Black Friday sales seen in the U.S. after the Thanksgiving holiday. Some analysts and local media have expressed concerns that government efforts may fade early this year, although the finance ministry is hoping to promote spending through budget front loading to maintain consumption. The Bank of Korea only slightly revised down its 2015 growth estimate last week, lowering it to 2.6 percent from 2.7 percent. South Korea posted 3.3 percent growth in 2014. Reutes
Thailand’s public health ministry said yesterday that the country had detected a second case of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The patient, a 71-year-old Oman man, is now being quarantined at an infectious diseases institute in central Nonthaburi province, Public Health Minister Piyasakol Sakolsatayadorn was quoted by the Nation newspaper as saying. The patient arrived in Thailand on Friday, Piyasakol said, adding the health authorities are searching for 37 people who had direct contact with him, including medical staff, hotel staff and a taxi driver.
Reliance Communications Q3 profit falls Indian telecoms company Reliance Communications Ltd posted a 14.9 percent drop in quarterly profit on Friday, as cut-throat competition for customers in a crowded mobile phone market squeezed margins. India is the world’s second-biggest market for mobile phone users behind China, but tough competition has resulted in wafer-thin profit margins for carriers in a market that has one of the cheapest call rates in the world. Debt-burdened Reliance Communications (RCom), controlled by billionaire CEO Anil Ambani, undertook a series of deals during the December quarter to raise money and expand coverage.
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International Venezuela opposition rejects ‘emergency’ decree Venezuela’s opposition refused on Friday to approve President Nicolas Maduro’s “economic emergency” decree in Congress, saying it offered no solutions for the OPEC member-nation’s increasingly disastrous recession. Underlining the grave situation in Venezuela, where a plunge in oil prices has compounded dysfunctional policies, the International Monetary Fund forecast an 8 percent drop in gross domestic product and 720 percent inflation this year. Maduro’s decree, issued a week ago, envisaged wider executive powers to control the budget, companies and currency. But the opposition says he already has sufficient powers and Maduro is the real problem.
Italy says talks on bad loans going well Talks between Italy and the European Union on how to manage a mountain of bad loans weighing on Italian banks are going well, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Friday. Combined, Italian banks have 201 billion euros (US$217 billion) of bad debt sitting on their balance sheets, tying up capital and preventing new credit being advanced to feed a fledgling economic recovery. After dragging on for a year, negotiations between Rome and Brussels have gained a new sense of urgency in the last few days after the banks’ share prices plunged.
Brazil keeps oil royalty formula Brazil will not change the system it uses to calculate oil and natural gas royalties paid by local producers, the government said on Friday, bringing a measure of relief to an industry hammered by plunging crude prices. The resolution, published in the official gazette, maintains a system used to calculate minimum oil and gas prices. Those prices are used as a basis to calculate royalty payments to the government. The decision was applauded by Brazil’s oil industry association IBP.
Morgan Stanley sees 20 pct chance of U.S. recession Morgan Stanley economists are clinging to their forecast of a 20 percent chance the U.S. economy will slip into recession in 2016 on evidence of contraction in the factory sector and signs of slowing among services industries. They forecast gross domestic product was little changed in the fourth quarter and would likely grow 1.8 percent in 2016. Among economists polled by Reuters, the median forecast is for U.S. GDP growth of 0.80 percent at an annualized rate in the fourth quarter and annual growth of 2.5 percent in 2016.
S&P raises Greece rating Standard and Poor’s raised Greece’s rating to “B minus” from “CCC plus”, saying the country is broadly in compliance with the terms of its 86 billion euro financial support program after recapitalizing its banks and taking budgetary steps. Despite various shocks, Greece’s economy had proved to be more resilient than expected, the ratings agency said on Friday. “By the end of March, we expect a compromise to be reached on pension reform that will balance the government’s preference to raise social security contributions and consolidate the separate pension funds into a single system,” S&P said.
Strong U.S. housing data offers ray of hope for slowing economy Economists had forecast home resales rebounding 8.9 percent to a 5.20-million rate in December
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.S. home resales rebounded strongly in December from a 19-month low and prices surged, indicating the housing market recovery remained intact despite signs of a sharp deceleration in economic growth in recent months. The National Association of Realtors said on Friday existing home sales jumped a record 14.7 percent to an annual rate of 5.46 million units, after being temporarily held back by the introduction of new mortgage disclosure rules, which had caused delays in the closing of contracts in November. Sales were also boosted by unseasonably warm weather and buyers rushing into the market in anticipation of higher mortgage rates. The mortgage disclosure rules are intended to help homebuyers understand their loan options and shop around for loans suited to their financial circumstances. Realtors said the rules had significantly increased contract closing time frames. November’s sales pace was unrevised at 4.76 million units. Economists had forecast home resales rebounding 8.9 percent to a 5.20-million rate in December. Sales rose 6.5 percent to 5.26 million units in 2015, the strongest since 2006. Last month’s snap-back should offer some assurance that domestic demand remains fairly healthy, even as growth appears to have braked sharply at the end of 2015 because
of a downturn in manufacturing and mining activity. While a separate report hinted at some stabilization for the downtrodden manufacturing sector, dollar strength and on-going efforts by businesses to reduce an inventory overhang suggest the sector’s troubles are far from over. Housing is being supported by a strengthening labour market, which has resulted in an acceleration in household formation. Sales, however, remain constrained by a dearth of homes available for sale, which is limiting choice for buyers. In December, the number of unsold homes on the market tumbled 12.3 percent from November to 1.79 million units, the lowest level since January 2013. At December’s sales pace, it would
take 3.9 months to clear the stock of houses on the market, the fewest since January 2005, and down from 5.1 months in November. A six-months supply is viewed as a healthy balance between supply and demand. With inventories still tight, the median house price jumped 7.6 percent from a year ago to US$224,100. House prices increased 6.7 percent in 2015. Although higher prices could side-line potential buyers, especially those wanting to purchase a home for the first time, they are boosting equity for homeowners, which could encourage them to put their homes on the market. Last month, the share of first-time buyers was 32 percent, up from 30 percent in November. Reuters
Google to pay US$185 mln UK back taxes The deal comes as governments around the world seek to clamp down on multinational companies shifting profits overseas to reduce their tax bills Tom Bergin
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oogle has agreed to pay 130 million pounds (US$185 million) in back taxes to Britain, prompting criticism from opposition lawmakers and campaigners who said the “derisory” figure smacked of a “sweetheart deal”. Google, now part of Alphabet Inc, has been under pressure in recent years over its practice of channelling most profits from European clients through Ireland to Bermuda, where it pays no tax on them. In 2013, the company faced a UK parliamentary inquiry after a Reuters investigation showed the firm employed hundreds of salespeople in Britain despite saying it did not conduct sales in the country, a key plank in its tax arrangements. Google said late on Friday the 130 million pounds would settle a probe by the British tax authority, which had challenged the company’s low tax returns for the years since 2005. It said it had also agreed a basis on which tax in the future would be calculated. “The way multinational companies are taxed has been debated for
many years and the international tax system is changing as a result. This settlement reflects that shift,” a Google spokesman said in a statement. The deal comes as governments around the world seek to clamp down on multinational companies shifting profits overseas to reduce their tax bills. EU competition authorities have investigated arrangements used by Amazon and a unit of Fiat in Luxembourg, Apple in Ireland and Starbucks in the Netherlands, and may start new probes. British finance minister George Osborne welcomed the deal, saying on Twitter it reflected new rules that he had introduced, but others were less impressed. John McDonnell, finance spokesman for the opposition Labour party, said the tax authorities needed to explain how they had settled on the figure of 130 million pounds, which he described as relatively insignificant. “It looks to me ... that this is relatively trivial in comparison with what should have been made, in fact one analysis has put the rate down
to about 3 percent, which I think is derisory,” he told BBC Radio on Saturday. Prem Sikka, professor of accounting at Essex University, agreed. He said that for a company that enjoyed UK turnover of around 24 billion pounds over the period and margins of 30 percent, the settlement represented an effective tax rate in the low single digits for Google. “This is a lousy number and we need to know more,” he said. Richard Murphy, a tax expert who has advised the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, on economic policy, said the deal was “a disaster” and that, based on the turnover and margins Google enjoyed, “They should have been paying 200 million pounds a year.” Between 2005 and 2013, Google had UK turnover of 17 billion pounds and its main UK unit reported a tax charge of 52 million pounds, filings showed. In 2014, it had UK revenues of around 4 billion pounds, according to its annual report, but has not yet published its UK tax charge. Reuters
Business Daily | 15
January 25, 2016
Opinion Business
wires
Leading reports from Asia’s best business newspapers
Should business travel be obsolete? Ricardo Hausmann
THE KOREA HERALD
Professor of the Practice of Economic Development at Harvard University, where he is also Director of the Centre for International Development
Korea is moving to encourage local banks to lend more to mid-credit borrowers, a segment typically underserved in Korea’s retail loan market, polarized between cheap, but hard-to-get, bank loans and expensive nonbank loans. According to industry sources and multiple local reports, the Financial Services Commission is currently devising measures to bolster retail banks’ middle-market lending, with its sights set on borrowers with credit scores just below levels that would qualify them for a bank loan. It wants to see banks develop loan products for them, particularly no-collateral personal loans with interest rates around 10 percent.
PHILSTAR The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC) warned the slowdown in cash remittances from overseas Filipinos could leave the Philippines more exposed to global cyclical currents. HSBC economist Joseph Incalcaterra said the share of remittances to both the gross domestic product (GDP) and the current account (CA) would decrease as the Philippine economy moves into a period of sustained higher growth compared to the past decades. “This means the Philippines’ natural external buffer that has provided a back-stop for growth in times of challenges may erode, leaving the Philippines slightly more exposed to global cyclical currents,” he said.
THE TIMES OF INDIA India has asked its oil firms to boost ties with resource-rich Africa as the south Asian nation wants to take advantage of tumbling crude prices to lock in supplies to meet future demand. India is seen as the most important driver of energy demand growth in the world in the years to come with its oil consumption seen rising by 6 million barrels per day (bpd) to about 10 million bpd by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year extended US$10 billion in credit to African nations.
THANH NIEN NEWS Top Vietnamese meat processor Vissan has announced that it will have an initial public offering at the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange on March 7. The firm, officially known as Vietnam Meat Industries Limited Company, has set a starting price of VND17,000 (US$0.76) per share for the IPO. It will offer 11.33 million shares, equivalent to 14 percent of its registered capital, to both local and foreign investors. Both Vissan and its parent trading company Satra are partly owned by the sate.
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hink about it: You can call, email, and even watch your counterparty on FaceTime, Skype, or GoToMeeting. So why do companies fork out more than US$1.2 trillion a year – a full 1.5% of the world’s GDP – for international business travel? The expense is not only huge; it is also growing – at 6.5% per year, almost twice the rate of global economic growth and almost as fast as information and telecommunication services. Computing power has moved from our laptops and cell phones to the cloud, and we are all better off for it. So why do we need to move brains instead of letting those brains stay put and just sending them bytes? Why waste precious work time in the air, at security checks, and waiting for our luggage? Before anyone starts slashing travel budgets, let’s try to understand why we need to move people rather than information. Thanks to a research collaboration on inclusive growth with MasterCard and an anonymized donation of data to the Centre for International Development at Harvard University, we are starting to shed some light on this mystery. In on-going work with Dany Bahar, Michele Coscia, and Frank Neffke, we have been able to establish some interesting stylized facts. More populous countries have more business travel in both directions, but the volume is less than proportional to their population: a country with 100% more population than another has only about 70% more business travel. This suggests that there are economies of scale in running businesses that favour large countries. By contrast, a country with a per capita income that is
100% higher than another receives 130% more business travellers and sends 170% more people abroad. This means that business travel tends to grow more than proportionally with the level of development. While businesspeople travel in order to trade or invest, more than half of international business travel seems to be related to the management of foreign subsidiaries. The global economy is increasingly characterized by global firms, which need to deploy their know-how to their different locations around the world. The data show that there is almost twice the amount of travel from headquarters to subsidiaries as there is in the opposite direction. Exporters also travel twice as much as importers. But why do we need to move the brain, not just the bytes? I can think of at least two reasons. First, the brain has a capacity to absorb information, identify patterns, and solve problems without us being aware of how it does it. That is why we can, for example, infer other people’s goals and intentions from facial expressions, body language, intonation, and other subtle indicators that we gather unconsciously. When we attend a meeting in person, we can listen to the body language, not just the spoken word, and we can choose where to look, not just the particular angle that the video screen shows. As a consequence, we are better able to evaluate, empathize, and bond in person than we can with today’s telecom technologies. Second, the brain is designed to work in parallel with other brains. Many problemsolving tasks require parallel computing with brains that possess different software
Travel is significantly more intense to and from countries and industries that possess or use more know-how
and information but that can coordinate their thoughts. That is why we have design teams, advisory boards, inter-agency taskforces, and other forms of group interaction. Conference calls try to match this interaction, but it is hard to speak in turn or to see one another’s expressions when someone is talking. Conference calls have trouble replicating the intricacy of human conscious and unconscious group interactions that are critical to solve problems and accomplish tasks. The amount of travel should then be related to the amount of know-how that needs to be moved around. Countries differ in the amount of know-how they possess, and industries differ in the amount of knowhow they require. Controlling
for population and per capita income, travel is significantly more intense to and from countries and industries that possess or use more knowhow. The countries that account for the most travel abroad, controlling for population, are all in Western Europe: Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Norway, and the Netherlands. Outside of Europe, the most travelintensive countries are Canada, Israel, Singapore, and the United States, a reflection of the fact that they need to deploy many brains to make use of their diverse know-how. Interestingly, countries in the developing world differ substantially in the amount of know-how they receive through business travel. For example, countries such as South Africa, Bulgaria, Morocco, and Mauritius receive much more know-how than countries at similar levels of development such as Peru, Colombia, Chile, Indonesia, or Sri Lanka. The fact that firms incur the cost of business travel suggests that, for some key tasks, it is easier to move brains than it is to move the relevant information to the brains. Moreover, the fact that business travel is growing faster than the global economy suggests that output is becoming more intensive in know-how and that know-how is diffusing through brain mobility. And, finally, the huge diversity of business travel intensity suggests that some countries are deploying or demanding much more know-how than others. Rather than celebrate their thrift, countries that are out of the business travel loop should be worried. They may be missing out on more than frequent flyer miles. Project Syndicate
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January 25, 2016
Closing Japan opposition urges minister to clarify graft claims
Beijing to spend 16.5 bln yuan for cleaner air in 2016
The opposition Democratic Party of Japan plans to urge embattled Economy Minister Akira Amari, who attended the World Economic Forum in Davos this weekend, to clarify graft allegations made against him in a tabloid magazine. A key architect of the government’s “Abenomics” policies, Amari and his secretary have been accused by the weekly Shukan Bunshun magazine of taking money from an unidentified construction company in an alleged violation of a political funding law. “I want him to show good faith and clear up the graft allegations,” Tetsuro Fukuyama, vice secretary general at the DPJ, said yesterday.
Beijing will earmark 16.5 billion yuan (about US$2.57 billion) to improve air quality in 2016, sources with the Beijing environment authorities said yesterday. The funds will be used to cut back on coal use and eliminate outmoded vehicles in the capital. The average density of PM2.5, airborne particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter, in Beijing last year declined by 6.2 percent year on year, statistics with the Beijing Environment Protection Bureau show. Beijing aims for a year-on-year drop of 5 percent in its average PM2.5 reading in 2016. The city government has promised to remove 200,000 high-emission vehicles from the roads this year.
Iran, China vow closer ties as Xi visits The two countries’ presidents issued a joint statement outlining a long-term “comprehensive strategic partnership”
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ranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday hailed a “new chapter” in relations with China after talks with President Xi Jinping, who is touring the region to boost Beijing’s economic influence. The Asian giant and the Middle East’s foremost Shiite power aim to build economic ties worth up to US$600 billion within the next 10 years, Rouhani announced. The two leaders oversaw the signing of 17 agreements in areas including politics, the economy, security and cooperation on peaceful nuclear energy. “With the Chinese president’s visit to Tehran and our agreements, a new chapter has begun in Tehran-Beijing relations,” Rouhani said in a televised speech, flanked by Xi. It is the first visit to Iran by a Chinese president in 14 years, state news agency IRNA said, and comes just days after sanctions against Tehran were lifted under a historic nuclear deal with world powers. “Iran is China’s major partner in the Middle East and the two countries have chosen to boost bilateral relations,” IRNA quoted Xi as saying.
“China and Iran are two important developing countries that must continue regional and international cooperation,” Xi added. Beijing has long taken a back seat to other diplomatic players in the Middle East, but analysts say the region is crucial to Xi’s signature foreign policy initiative known as “One Belt One Road”, touted as a revival of ancient Silk Road trade routes. Beijing is Tehran’s top customer for oil exports, which in recent years were hit by US and EU sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Trade between the two countries was worth US$52 billion in 2014. They did not elaborate on their goal of developing relations worth US$600 billion over the next decade. According to Iranian media, more than a third of Iran’s foreign trade is with China. The two presidents issued a joint statement outlining a long-term “comprehensive strategic partnership”. The two countries agreed to enhance cooperation including in fossil and renewable energy, transportation, railways,
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) talking with Chinese President Xi Jinping (C) as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (L) looks on, in Tehran on Saturday
ports, industry, commerce and services, said the statement published by Mehr news agency.
‘Constructive role’
In the statement Iran welcomed China’s commercial “belt” and the “21st century Silk Seaway” projects, pledging to help the initiative. China has committed to “invest and finance upstream and downstream energy projects in Iran”, it said. China “acknowledges Iran’s constructive role in the fight against terrorism and maintaining peace and stability in the region”, it added, while supporting
Tehran’s increased regional and international role. China, along with the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Russia, was among the countries that agreed with Iran in July to curtail its nuclear activities in exchange for ending international sanctions. Xi was accompanied by three deputy premiers, six ministers and a large business delegation. Late Saturday he met supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said Tehran “would never forget” Beijing’s cooperation during the years of international sanctions against Iran.
Beijing vows to fight economic crimes
Chinese brokerages see surging profits in 2015
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“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always sought relations with reliable and independent states like China,” Khamenei’s website quoted him as saying. That is why the agreement on long-term strategic relations is “very wise and prompt”, and must be “seriously followed up” until it becomes operational, he said. “Westerners have never been able to gain the trust of the Iranian nation,” he added. Xi was quoted as saying that “the economies of Iran and China complete one another”. Countries on the Silk Road route can “protect their interests against the American pattern of disrupting the regional economic balance by boosting cooperation,” Xi added. Xi’s tour, his first of the Middle East as China’s president, has also taken him to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In Cairo, Xi offered US$55 billion in loans and investments to the Middle East, a region where China wants to strengthen its economic presence. AFP
Vietnam signals leadership shift
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hinese brokerage firms posted big profits in 2015 boosted by easing measures from policymakers, according to the Securities Association of China (SAC). Combined net profits of 125 brokerage firms totalled 244.76 billion yuan (US$36.97 billion) in 2015, said the SAC. In 2014, the combined net profits of 120 brokerage firms stood at 96.55 billion yuan, SAC data showed. The aggregate revenues of 125 brokerages hit 575.16 billion yuan in 2015, compared with 260.28 billion yuan posted by 120 brokerages in 2014. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 9.4 percent in 2015 despite wild fluctuations in the summer. A round of bullish performance started in August 2014, fuelled by excessive leverage. By the time of the sudden collapse in mid-June, the Shanghai index had risen over 150 percent since August 2014. But it started to nosedive steeply, and repeatedly, after it hit 5,178.19 points on June 15, plummeting by 43.5 percent from the June peak to 2,927.29 points on August 26, the lowest level during the market rout.
ainland’s procurators pledged to crack down on economic crimes as the country embraces a “new normal” of slower growth but of high quality. Procurators will play an active role in regulating Internet finance, and fighting securities and futuresrelated crimes, according to a statement released Saturday after a national meeting that brought chief procurators from across the country together in Beijing. Chinese authorities have announced a campaign to regulate Internet finance, which is growing rapidly but threatens social stability due to illegal activity. Political and legal work departments at all levels will cooperate with banking regulatory authorities to establish a monitoring and warning system against financial risks and enhance information sharing among different regions and departments, according to a statement released at the central conference on political and legal work held Friday to Saturday in Beijing. Procurators also vowed to protect the legitimate rights of state-owned enterprises, private businesses, small and micro companies, and foreign-funded enterprises equally to encourage business vitality.
Xinhua
Xinhua
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ietnam’s Communist Party leaders have nominated General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to another term, a setback for rival candidate Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as the party plots the country’s political course for the next five years. Current Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc meanwhile has been nominated by the party’s central committee to be the next prime minister, the state-controlled VietnamNet news website reported yesterday, citing Vu Trong Kim, vice chairman of the central committee of Vietnam’s Fatherland Front. The nominations show the level of behind-closeddoors jostling among factions and personalities within the one-party system and signals a possible move away from economic reforms pursued by Dung. The prime minister has also criticized the country’s Communist neighbour and biggest trading partner, China, over territorial disputes. The party’s central committee will officially choose the next general secretary -- one of the most influential roles in the country --- in secret near the end of the congress. Delegates vote on members of a new central committee, which in turn picks the general secretary and politburo members. Bloomberg News