China & East Asia

Chinese Renmninbi is on the launch pad of being a world currency. The efforts by China to convert it into a hard currency substituting the US Dollar may reach a finishing point at the March end scheduled BRICS meeting at New Delhi.             China already has adopted a clear stand against the US Dollar as the global currency and suggested that Dollar should be replaced by IMF’s Special Drawing Rights.             It is not just the hard currency ambitions that motivate China to provide renmninbi loans to other BRICS countries. The country has a vast foreign exchan

The last fortress against global recession is coming down. Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao in his speech to the parliament has declared that the problems in the world economy are penetrating into the Chinese economy. He said the government cuts the targeted GDP growth rate for this year to 7.5%. The premier has described that the evolving financial crisis and structural problems in the domestic economy are posing downward risks.  “The global financial crisis is still evolving. Some countries will find it hard to resolve the sovereign debt crisis anytime soon.” Wen commended about the situation.             The C

India and China are having big potential in their bilateral trade. It is expected that both of them will lead the world economy in the coming decades. They are the fastest growing and they belong to the top 4 biggest economies of the world. China and India are the largest populated countries as well.              Perhaps, the most important aspect from the trade point is that both countries share boundaries and this means that the scope for cross border trade is bigger. Justifying to these positive factors, India- China trade is growing at a high pace. Trade between the two has reached a figure of US $75 billion in 2011.

The Chinese economy which had withstood all the global crisis situations over the last twenty five years is now showing signs of yielding to the current world recessionary pressures. Latest quarterly GDP growth rate trends, factory output data by various rating agencies indicate the Chinese economic growth rate is coming down from its traditional dragon figure of nearly 9%.   Bloomberg has estimated Chinese growth rate for 2012 at around 7.5%, compared to 8% estimate it prepared for the crisis year of 2008. Besides slowing trade and growth, few other macroeconomic problems are there for the Chinese regulators and the government to deal with right now. Steadily increasing inf

The newly built African Union Head Quarters at Addis Ababa now can be seen as a monument of China’s increasing engagement in the continent. The head quarter has been freely built by China spending $200 mn. China’s effort to make stronger relationship with Africa by using money power comes at ‘its’ right time when most of the developed countries are in financial turmoil.     Main purpose of China’s exercise is to consolidate its economic engagement with Africa. China is buying large number of African assets especially resource and mineral based assets over the last one decade. Security of critical resources is important for China to feed

Japan’s trade deficit in the last year is the first annual one since 1980. The country, known for its electronic exports, has registered a trade deficit of $32 billion in 2011. Immediate reason for the Asian giant’s unusual trade deficit is the large volume of oil imports that was necessitated after the quake-resulted nuclear energy crisis.                 Strong yen for most part of 2011 also contributed to the deficit. People have invested heavily in yen because of the Euro crisis. On the export front, factory output came down; supply chains for MNCs like Toyota and Sony have broken resulting