HK - Economic Data & News 01 (May 08 - Sep 14)

[winston]

If this one blows up, it will also bring your multi-million dollar HK condo with it ..

Daya Bay pledges to act faster on nuclear fears by Colleen Lee

The Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station in Guangdong will speed up the disclosure of incidents in order to address public fears about safety.

Chan Siu-hung, managing director of Hong Kong Nuclear Investment Company, which co- owns the power plant with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Company, said incidents will be disclosed within two working days even if they are minor in nature.

The government would also be notified. Up to now, there has been a monthly report of incidents.

"The [Hong Kong Nuclear Investment Company] practice of reporting non-emergency events monthly is on par with international standards. It does not mean we delay reporting any events that happened or concealed them," Chan said.

"With the advancing of our society, we understand there has been an increasing demand from the public for more transparency and speedy announcement [of such events]," he added.

"We think it is feasible to release information as soon as possible, which can help ease the public's worries over nuclear safety and help them understand more about the operation of the power station."

Non-emergency incidents are those classified as level zero and level one on a scale of 0-7 set by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and those at level two or above which do not require an emergency response.

That means incidents which pose no danger to the public or the environment, Chan said.

The move comes after a public outcry at the delay in reporting a "level zero" incident involving a suspected crack in a fuel rod that caused a slight increase in radioactivity in the cooling water at its unit two reactor on May 23 last year.

On October 23, a flaw was observed during an inspection at a pipe section of an auxiliary cooling system in the containment building to be used during an outage. Workers were exposed to radioactivity equal to two chest X-rays.

The information to be disclosed includes an initial classification of the incident, a brief description and an initial assessment of the impact on both the environment and public safety.

Chan said his company will also arrange appropriate disclosure on matters that are minor and may not be classified.

The Legislative Council's panel on security will discuss the new measures on Monday.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_deta ... 10112&fc=4

[winston]

Dear All,

I have moved the various discussions on LKS's port into the 'Ports Operators" thread, located in the "Business Sector" section.

If you would like to have it elsewhere, please do feel free to let me know.

Take care,
Winston

[winston]

Sometimes, you wonder whether these guys knows what's happening on the ground. Do they even know that some people are living in bird cages in HK ?



Derision and delight over budget U-turn

In an unprecedented U-turn that has caused as much derision as glee, Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah yesterday announced a budget plan to distribute HK$6,000 cash handouts .


Source: SCMP

[winston]

And when you still have people living in bird-cages and substandard living condition ...


Hong Kong picks Foster for $2.8 billion arts hub

British architect Norman Foster has won the contract to design Hong Kong's HK$21.6 billion ($2.8 billion) arts hub, nine years after triumphing with an earlier plan that was later scrapped.

Foster and Partners' "City Park" design for the 40-hectare (100-acre) West Kowloon cultural district was Friday chosen over two other plans by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas's OMA and Hong Kong's Rocco Yim.

Source: AFP Global Edition

[winston]

Hong Kong assets have ‘peaked’: analystRelated storiesThai bank outlook could be overly optimistic (April 22)
By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Hong Kong stocks and property prices — among the first to recover from the financial crisis — could be among the worst performers as global tightening gathers pace, according to analysts who cautioned of big changes.

A sudden outflow of capital from the city is possible as concerns mount over the corrosive effects of inflation on the core of the economy, according to Daiwa Capital Market’s Economist Kevin Lai.

“We have probably seen the peak, I can’t see any positive catalyst going forward,” Lai said in an interview with MarketWatch.

The city has been a big beneficiary of the U.S.’s low-interest rate policy, which fostered an environment where it was possible to borrow in U.S. dollars and invest in Hong Kong assets at minimal risk.

The trade was attractive in part because Hong Kong pegs its currency to the U.S. dollar, while its economic cycle tends to follow activity in mainland China.

It’s a mismatch that means prices for property and other assets rise quickly during an up cycle, but can fall just as sharply when the cycle turns.

In fact, Lai is worried that a massive turn could be at hand within the next two quarters.

“This is classical carry trade and at some stage these people will have to close their positions,” Lai said, referring to the group of hedge funds and other investors that have backed huge money flows into Hong Kong.

Nomura last week noted shrinking trade surpluses throughout Asia and new money flows to the region increasingly dependent upon higher interest rate differentials versus U.S. savings rates.

One ominous sign, according to Daiwa’s Lai, is the trebling of Hong Kong’s money base over an 18-month period beginning in September 2009. Daiwa estimates about $112 billion of overseas capital has entered Hong Kong’s banking system since the crisis.

The surge in deposits drove down interest rates and sparked a lending binge that helped push up property prices 24% in 2010, following a 30% rise in 2009.

Hong Kong banks extended $940 billion Hong Kong dollars ($120.9 billion) in new loans in 2010, a 29% rise from a year earlier, according to figures from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Mortgage lending for the year surged 19%, or by HK$258 billion dollars.

Lai says the concern is that Hong Kong’s money base could, in theory, shrink by two-thirds if investors unwind the carry trades and exit their Hong Kong investments.

Similar worries seemed to be on the minds of Hong Kong’s defacto central bank, the HKMA, which cautioned in a circular on April 11 that the rapid pace of Hong Kong’s credit growth was “unsustainable”.

Among its concerns the HKMA singled out the deteriorating loan-to-deposit ratio of local banks.

“If there is a liquidity outflow you can expect deposits to fall and the loan-to-deposit ratio will rise,” Lai said, adding the tone of the HKMA’s advisory revealed concern over the exposure of the banking system.

Investors, for the most part, are too complacent about the potential topping out of easy-money conditions, Lai said.

The Hong Kong Hang Seng Index ended Thursday trade at 24,138.3, ahead of an extended holiday weekend.

The index is up 12.5% over the previous 12 months, but 25% below its all-time high in November 2007 near 32,000, a period that coincided blow-off highs in China’s main stock indexes

Lai says he doubts the Federal Reserve will opt for a third round of quantitative easing after the current policy winds down in June.

Even if the policy is renewed, it likely won’t ignite a new round of capital flows to Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s economy is set to slow to around 3% annual GDP growth, according to Daiwa forecasts. That’s too slow a pace given the rising cost of capital and the inflated asset prices, Lai says, to be of interest to global hedge funds and other investors.

Lai says better value lies in China, where authorities are further ahead in the rate-tightening cycle and have more tools to help shore up the economy in the event of another down trend.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hong-k ... _news_stmp

[winston]

Pro-Ai graffiti in Hong Kong sparks warning by Chinese army

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A spate of graffiti appearing across Hong Kong in recent weeks in support of detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has sparked a warning by the Chinese army garrison in the city, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

An artist in the former British colony calling himself Cpak Ming recently projected an image bearing the words "Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" onto a wall at the People's Liberation Army (PLA) harbor-front barracks in the heart of the city.

While the brief artistic stunt with a camera, that was photographed and uploaded onto Facebook, left no physical trace, a PLA spokesman in Hong Kong said such acts breached Hong Kong laws and the PLA would "reserve its legal rights" to act, the South China Morning Post reported.

"No one can paint or project pictures and images onto the outer wall of the barracks with the garrison's permission. Such an offence is a breach of Hong Kong law. The PLA reserve its legal rights," the PLA spokesman was quoted as saying.

Ai, a globally acclaimed avant-garde artist and rights activist has been detained for almost one month for alleged though unspecified economic crimes, as part of a crackdown by jittery Chinese authorities fearing possible contagion from Middle East uprisings against autocratic regimes.

Besides the so-called flash graffiti beamed onto prominent buildings in Hong Kong, a rash of pro-Ai images has also been spray-painted onto walls, pavements and public spaces by a group of anonymous artists, sparking a police investigation into possible criminal damage.

Critics say Hong Kong is under political pressure from Beijing to arrest the artists, potentially testing the limits of tolerance in the free-wheeling capitalist hub which was once a British colony but reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

The Chinese army has tended to maintain a low-profile in Hong Kong which was promised a high degree of autonomy and full democracy after the 1997 handover, though its rare warning suggests the continued spate of pro-Ai protests by the city's outspoken artistic community have begun to ruffle feathers.

Some Hong Kong lawmakers, however, saw nothing wrong with the imaginatively conceived flash graffiti to protest China's harsh crackdown in recent months against government critics it fears pose a challenge to Communist Party rule.

"He is just expressing his opinion in a very short period of time and poses no permanent damage to the building," Ronny Tong, a pro-democracy lawmaker and barrister was quoted as saying. "I cannot see why it is a criminal offence."

Chinese authorities on Friday released human rights lawyer Teng Biao, a day after a visiting U.S. official in Beijing for human rights talks, denounced his secretive 70-day detention.

Source: Reuters US Online Report World News

[winston]

Hong Kong businessman stands up for China dissidents
By Joyce Woo (AFP) – 5 hours ago

HONG KONG — Hong Kong businessman Lew Mon Hung is an unlikely hero for China's growing legions of dissidents.

The strait-laced financier insists he is a Chinese patriot, a point underscored by his membership of a political advisory body to Beijing.

He will not touch questions about ending China's one-party rule and dismisses Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp, frequently a thorn in Beijing's side, as "radicals."

But the 62-year-old has been anything but a muted political appointee in recent years, railing against China's jailing and mistreatment of dissidents and arguing that the country's opaque justice system is in serious need of reform to prevent abuse by police and the courts.

"I am a Chinese first and foremost. I love my country," he said from a glitzy office in Hong Kong's financial core covered from floor to ceiling with articles he penned about the city's political freedoms and human rights.

"(But) I'm here to serve the people -- I do what's right. We have a duty to speak up for the people."

One such person is artist Ai Weiwei, who was locked up in April as part of a major government crackdown on dissent. The move followed online calls for demonstrations in China to emulate those that have rocked the Arab world.

Chinese officials have refused to reveal the whereabouts of Ai, who is being held for unspecified "economic crimes," sparking an outcry in the West and proving to Lew that "those in power have no concept of justice."

Lew's outspoken views have won him plenty of admirers in the former British colony which guarantees civil freedoms not seen in mainland China.

"People on the street are raising their thumbs at me and saying 'Way to go, you!' he said with a smile. It makes me happy."

However, his views have also put him on a collision course with Beijing and threaten to cost him his job as a Hong Kong delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a largely toothless advisory body to the central government that Lew joined in 2008.

He regularly scolds Beijing's treatment of human rights activists in a Hong Kong newspaper column, describing the imprisonment of tainted milk activist Zhao Lianhai as "the injustice of the millennium".

Lew ran full-page advertisements in two Hong Kong newspapers last year to protest the jailing of Zhao -- whose son was among several hundred thousand made ill by tainted milk products in one of the country's worst public health scandals -- calling the verdict a "guilty verdict for the innocent."

The businessman made a proposal through the CPPCC that the district court that delivered a harsh ruling against Zhao should be held accountable for unlawful acts, a move credited as being partly responsible for the activist's subsequent release.

But Lew is equally critical of Hong Kong's own government for banning Tiananmen activists Wang Dan and Wu'er Kaixi from entering the city for democracy icon Szeto Wah's funeral in January.

Many top political figures in the city's pro-democracy movement regularly lash out at China's leaders.

But Lew -- who fled to Hong Kong from China in 1973 and later made a name for himself in the mergers and acquisitions business -- is performing a tough balancing act.

He says top Chinese officials are well aware of his past -- swimming for nine hours from the mainland to Hong Kong with only his bathing trunks -- describing his flight during a turbulent political period as "unique historical circumstances."

However, he does not have much time for lawmakers and activists who are calling for full democracy in his adopted home.

"They view Hong Kong as a quasi-independent state -- but in reality we are "one country, two systems," he said, referring to the semi-autonomous system under which Hong Kong returned to China.

Nor will he support calls by some activists for an end to China's one-party state, adding that "it is too sensitive for me to comment (further)."

But the outspoken Lew insists the spectacular rise of his native land must "be accompanied by a respect for freedom, democracy, rule of law, human rights, fairness, social justice and other universal values."

"Only then will the nation's rise be a blessing to its people and only then will it win the respect of the world," he said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... 38cda1.231

[winston]

Civil servants in the upper band in HK will get an increment of 7%

Source: The Standard HK

[winston]

Good that I just missed these guys. I was just in HK last week ..

Hong Kong boosts security on 'bin Laden' ship

HONG Kong police said today they have stepped up security over the visit of the US aircraft carrier from which Osama bin Laden was buried at sea, as the crew remained tightlipped about the incident.

The nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson and its support ships arrived in the southern Chinese city yesterday for a port call, after local media highlighted security concerns and fears of a militant attack following the Al-Qaeda leader's death earlier this month.

Police said they had stepped up patrols in key neighbourhoods such as the rowdy Wan Chai entertainment district, which many of the 7,000 sailors are expected to visit during their four-day shore-leave. The ship is scheduled to leave on Wednesday.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaki ... 6061487960

[winston]

Hong Kong journalists say freedom under threat

A Hong Kong journalists' group warned Sunday freedom of expression in the city had deteriorated, saying it had become intolerant of dissent as Beijing strengthened its grip on the territory.

The former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but retains a semi-autonomous status under the "one country, two systems" model with civil liberties including freedom of speech not enjoyed in mainland China.

"There are now growing, and disturbing signs, that the one-country element is over-riding two systems," the Hong Kong Journalists Association said in its annual freedom of expression report.

"This could have far-reaching implications for Hong Kong's autonomy and one of its most fundamental rights -- freedom of expression and press freedom," said the group, which represents some 500 journalists in the city.

It said Beijing had "become more aggressive" in pursuing its policies towards Hong Kong, which had responded by barring visits by mainland dissidents while the city's police had become less tolerant of protestors.

The group said Hong Kong journalists faced increasing restrictions in reporting especially coverage of public protests, after a TV journalist was among more than 200 people arrested following an anti-government march on Friday.

"We are moving further and further away from an open and transparent society," association chairwoman Mak Yin-ting told a news conference.

"What we are more wary is the police have taken a tough line towards protests, where even reporters have been barred and human rights observers were pulled away from the scene," she said.

Daily protests are common in Hong Kong, and they are largely peaceful and allowed by the authorities but the police have made two mass arrests in recent weeks.

Police arrested 231 people and used pepper spray to disperse demonstrators after a march Friday by tens of thousands of people venting their frustration at government policies and soaring property prices.

Last month, they detained 53 people for illegal assembly after a massive candlelight vigil to mark the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.

In January, two former leaders of the Tiananmen pro-democracy protests were refused entry to attend the funeral of a Hong Kong democracy icon, prompting criticism that Hong Kong was bowing to pressure from China.

Source: AFP Asian Edition