Asia - Economic Data & News 01 (Jun 08 - Jun 16)

[winston]

Stocks » Asia Asia's 10 Most Profitable Companies by: David Hunkar

Asia has the two most populous countries in the world - China and India. They are also the two largest emerging markets in the so-called BRIC countries. Some of the countries in Asia are showing signs of recovery. For example, the Shanghai Composite Index has grown by 27% year-to-date until last Friday due to the Chinese government’s efforts to stimulate the economy. A Marketwatch news report on Feb. 13 said “Loans extended by banks rose to a record 1.62 trillion yuan ($237 billion) in January, accelerating from 771.8 billion yuan issued in December, according to data released Thursday by the People’s Bank of China.”

In addition to China and India, the former “Asian Tigers” of Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea are also in Asia. Singapore has become the new “Switzerland of Asia” due to its favorable status as an off-shore banking haven. Besides these countries, Japan, one of the top economies in the world, is also in Asia. The oil-rich Middle East countries hold some of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.

On the political front, China is a communist country but follows a unique type of economic system called “Market Socialism”(a relatively capitalist market with communist political system). India is the largest democratic country in the world. Except Israel, most of the Middle Eastern countries are monarchies or dictatorships.

So overall Asia is an interesting continent to monitor with its different types of economies and political systems. From an investment perspective, my research to identify the top 10 companies led to the FinanceAsia.com site which publishes the top 100 companies in Asia.

The following is a brief overview of the Ten Most Profitable Companies in Asia:

1. PetroChina Co. Ltd. (PTR) is an integrated oil and natural gas company in China. All of of its production-related assets are located in China. PetroChina had total revenue of $159B last year. Its P/E is 7.15 and its dividend yield is 4.65%. Annual EPS in the past 5 years increased by 23%. Currently S&P has a “Five-Star” rating on PetroChina.

2. HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC), one of the largest banks in the world, pays a dividend of 10.23%. HSBC is incorporated in the UK but FinanceAsia lists it in the top Asian companies since HSBC has huge operations in Hong Kong. HBC is currently not an investor’s favorite since it's a bank stock.

3. Samsung Corp. (SSDIF.PK) is a top digital equipment and home appliance maker from South Korea. In the US, the stock is thinly traded on the OTC market. Samsung does not pay a regular dividend.

4. A provider of mobile telecom services in mainland China and Hong Kong, China Mobile Limited (CHL) has a subscriber base of 399.5M as of August, 2008. CHL has a profit margin of about 27% and the annual earnings growth is 17%. Its market cap is $178.9B and its yield is 3.84%.

5. China Construction Bank Corp. trades on the OTC market under the ticker CICHF.PK.

6. Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Co Ltd (SHI) is another petrochemical company in China. The current yield is 5.39%.

7. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is not listed traded in US markets.

8. Bank of China (3988.hk) trades on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

9. One of the world’s largest integrated steel producers is POSCO (PKX) of South Korea. Due to the collapse in steel prices, PKX has fallen 59% in in the past 52 weeks. PKX does not pay regular dividends.

10. India-based Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC.NS) trades on the New Delhi Stock Exchange.

[winston]

Singapore PM warns of lengthy global slump

AP - Saturday, February 28CHA-AM, Thailand - Singapore's leader Prime has warned the global economic slump may last several more years if the U.S. doesn't fix its creaking banking system, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien also called on President Barack Obama to resist pressure from the American public for protectionist policies such as trade barriers to protect homegrown industries during the downturn.

Lee, in Thailand for the 14th annual summit of Southeast Asian leaders, told the Bangkok Post in a pre-summit interview that the U.S. _ the world's largest economy _ will be in recession for at least the rest of the year and could continue to stumble after that.

"So you could easily be in for several years of quite slow growth worldwide. And I think it's best that we prepare for that, and prepare our people," said Lee, son of Lee Kuan Yew, the city-state's leader from 1959 to 1990.

Leaders and top officials from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations _ a region of more than 500 million people _ are gathered in the Thai resort town of Cha-Am, 120 miles (200 kilometers) south of the capital Bangkok, for the grouping's 14th summit.

The meeting, usually dominated by human rights issues, is overshadowed this year by the global economic meltdown, which has already dragged the export-dependent region's most advanced economy _ Singapore _ into recession.

Thailand's economy shrank in the fourth quarter and others like Malaysia and Indonesia are facing rapidly slowing growth as exports crumble. Singapore warns that its economy will contract as much as 5 percent this year.

The region _ which groups one of Asia's richest nations with some of its poorest _ is at the mercy of global economic winds, particularly from the U.S., a major export market for Southeast Asian countries.

U.S. banks are loaded with hundreds of billions of dollars of toxic assets after the overheated American housing market imploded last year, sending shock waves through the global financial system.

Lee said fixing ailing banks in the U.S. and some major European nations will require politically difficult and costly decisions such as nationalization, massive injections of capital, or governments buying the banks' bad assets. All involve nationalizing the banks "one way or another," he said.

"I think the choices are not easy but they have to be made. If you do not make a choice then the outcome will be like what happened in Japan in the 1990s and it went on for more than a decade because the problem just lingered," said Lee.

On protectionism, Lee said the openness of the U.S. economy had for years driven the increase in global trade and rising prosperity, all of which was at stake if the U.S. turned inward.

"If America turns inward, it is going to do the world a lot of harm and do themselves a lot of harm," he said.

[kennynah]

as usual....like to tell people what to do.... all the while forgetting our naturally disadvantaged small tiny little red dot... but this is at least not so bad when compared to those times when these smart alecks talked about terrorism... at that time, i really felt we were being put at risks for rhetorics that we did not have to say publicly...

[winston]

The Asians are doing not too bad today:-

STI down only 1% and Nikkei is only down 1.5%. Maybe it's becuz the Asian anticipated the drop in the US yesterday and were already selling yesterday.

End of the world meh ? Let's see what the short sellers would be doing today. Continue to short-sell at this depressed prices or get squeeze when prices go up ?

Are there any new news that change fundamentals ? Who does not know that C, AIG and HSBC are not doing well ?

[blid2def]

The new buzzword for this year (besides "Nationalization"): Deglobalization?

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04221.html

Excerpt:

A Global Retreat As Economies Dry Up
As World Trade Plummets, Bustling Ports Stand Idle And Foreign Workers Track Back Home

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 5, 2009; Page A01

SINGAPORE This shimmering city-state was the house globalization built. When world trade boomed, Singapore's seaport at the crossroads of East and West became the Chicago O'Hare of freighters and supertankers. Singapore Airlines took off despite serving a country with no domestic air routes. Nearly everything manufactured here is made for export. One out of every three workers is a foreigner.

But as the world enters a period of deglobalization, Singapore is a window into the reversal of the forces that brought unprecedented global mobility to goods, services, investment and labor. With world trade plummeting for the first time since 1982, the long-bustling port has become a maritime parking lot in recent weeks, with rows of idled freighters from Asia, Europe, the United States, South America, Africa and the Middle East stretching for miles along the coast. "We're running out of space to park them," said Ron Widdows, chief executive of Singapore-based NOL, one of the world's largest container lines.

Thousands of foreign workers, including London School of Economics graduates with six-digit salaries and desperately poor Bangladeshi factory workers, are streaming home as the economy here suffers the worst of the recessions in Southeast Asia. Singapore is an epicenter of what analysts call a new flow of reverse migration away from hard-hit, globalized economies, including Dubai and Britain, that were once beacons for foreign labor. Economists from Credit Suisse predict an exodus of 200,000 foreigners -- or one in every 15 workers here -- by the end of 2010.

Singapore's exports collapsed by a stunning 35 percent in January, mirroring much of the rest of Asia. The export boom here was tied to credit-fueled buying sprees in the United States that stopped abruptly and may take years to return, if ever. Manufacturers are grasping for a Plan B. But none of the options -- mining domestic markets, or trying to tap consumers in still-growing China and India -- offers a truly viable solution. Adding to fears of a years-long depression for exports is a rising tide of trade protectionism in countries including neighboring Indonesia.

The scene in this port city -- along with a glimpse inside two of its reeling neighbors in export-dependent Southeast Asia -- illustrates the ebbing of a golden age of trade, innovation, wealth accumulation and poverty reduction through globalization.

"The collapse of globalization . . . is absolutely possible," said Jeffrey Sachs, a noted American economist. "It happened in the 20th century in the wake of World War I and the Great Depression, and could happen again. Nationalism is rising and our political systems are inward looking, the more so in times of crisis."

[mocca_com]

this is really interesting.. wonder why this author like to comment so much on SG?

[kennynah]

whatever the case maybe..20K or 200K exodus....our supposed elites in gahmen must now show its much self-touted abilities... time to see what they are made of.... i wont hold my breath... i've always advocated...better kaki ku kaki....(take care of yourself)

[winston]

Employment is a very good gauge of how strong the economy is...

============================================

Executive hiring in Asia deteriorates - survey

By Susan Fenton HONG KONG, April 2 (Reuters) - Job openings for executives in Asia have decreased, particularly in Japan, and are at their lowest level in Hong Kong since the Asian financial crisis as employers see little prospect of a quick rebound in business, a survey showed on Thursday.

Even in China, where there is a shortage of executive talent, the survey showed a surge in the number of companies planning to cut staff.

The survey by recruitment firm Hudson showed that a quarter of Japanese employers plan to cut staff this quarter while only 22 percent plan to hire, compared with 31 percent who were ready to hire in a similar survey three months ago.

In Hong Kong, 22 percent of employers said they would reduce headcount this quarter and just 14 percent plan to hire -- the lowest since the survey's launch in the fourth quarter of 1998, when Asia was reeling from a regional financial crisis.

As a financial and trading centre, Hong Kong is being hit doubly hard by the global banking crisis and economic downturn and some jobs have already been cut at investment banks as part of global reductions in headcount.

The survey covers four markets -- Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and China (Beijing and Shanghai) -- all of which have seen exports plunge in recent as key markets in the West fell into recession.

Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore are in recession and analysts say they are unlikely to rebound until the U.S. economy shows signs of recovery.

Analysts say China will be hard pushed to meet its 8 percent growth target this year, its lowest growth in a decade, and the survey showed that 21 percent of firms there plan to cut staff in the next three months, up from 8 percent in the previous survey.

That was partly offset by 30 percent of firms in China saying they would be hiring this quarter.

Hiring expectations in Singapore, already low, fell less sharply than in previous quarters as 20 percent of employers said they would add staff, compared with 23 percent in the previous survey. However, 19 percent of respondents said they would reduce headcount, up from 12 percent in the previous survey.

Job prospects are particularly weak in banking and financial services across the region.

Opportunities are better for executives seeking work at technology infrastructure, mobile telecoms and enterprise software companies in Japan and companies in healthcare and life sciences in Singapore, the survey said.

The quarterly survey by Chicago-based Hudson Highland Group Inc covered responses from nearly 3,000 managers at multinational firms across industries in the four markets.

[LenaHuat]

Job prospects are particularly weak in banking and financial services across the region.

I scowl whenever I meet bankers.

[winston]

East Asia faces slower growth: World Bank

AFP - Wednesday, April 8TOKYO (AFP) - - Developing nations in East Asia face a sharp slowdown in economic growth and a "painful surge" in unemployment that will prevent millions of people escaping poverty, the World Bank warned.

A precipitous drop in global demand is slashing exports from the region, resulting in widespread factory closures, rising layoffs and lower wages, the Washington-based multilateral lender said in a report released here.

There are glimmers of optimism however, with the Chinese economy likely to begin recovering in the second half of 2009 -- boosting the region as a whole, it added.

How long the rebound lasts will depend on the health of key big economies such as the United States, Europe and Japan, which are major buyers of Asian products.

Economic growth in developing East Asia will slow to 5.3 percent in 2009, down from 8.0 percent last year and 11.4 percent in 2007, the Bank said in a report on the region which excludes Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

In December it had forecast growth of 6.7 percent this year.

For countries other than China, "the deceleration is even more stark," said World Bank economist Vikram Nehru.

China's economy is expected to expand 6.5 percent in 2009, marking a sharp slowdown from the double-digit growth it had been enjoying before the global economic downturn began.

The Bank said there were tentative signs that the Chinese economy may be almost over the worst thanks to Beijing's huge stimulus spending package, with a recovery "likely to begin this year and take full hold in 2010."

"We now see early signs of stabilisation," said Nehru.

That was good news for the rest of the region, he told a briefing in Tokyo, "because China is a very important market for developing East Asia."

Any recovery in Asia, however, is likely to come too late to spare many people from losing their jobs.

Officially an additional one million people became unemployed in the region over the year to January, leaving about 24 million without work.

In reality the situation is even worse, the Bank said.

"Recent numbers are likely to be only the beginning of a painful surge in unemployment throughout the region," it warned.

The crisis means that 10 million more people in the region will remain in poverty in 2009 than was expected just a year ago, the report said.

While the total number of destitute is likely to continue to decline from the current level of 200 million, some countries, such as Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand, will suffer a rise in poverty, the Bank said.

"Even for countries with positive growth in per capita income, there will be significant hardships as people shift in and out of poverty amid large increase in unemployment," it warned.

"The slowdown in poverty reduction in all countries and the increase in the number of poor in some could have important, perhaps even irreversible effects if malnutrition increases, parents take children out of school or forgo health care, or if households dispose of assets at depressed prices," it said.

East Asia is well placed to recover from the current economic slump once global growth picks up, thanks to the strength of its exporters.

But the Bank said the region was unlikely to return any time soon to the rapid pace of growth of the past decade, because consumers in Western markets are expected to remain more frugal than they were before the economic crisis began.