All posts tagged South Asia

Manmohan Singh has Pushed Economy Back to 1991 Level: Venkaiah

Alleging that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has pushed the country’s economy back to the 1991 era of economic crisis, the BJP today hit out at the UPA government for allowing FDI in multi-brand retail.

“The Prime Minister is saying that the 1991 situation is coming back… Who is responsible for this? Prime Minister? You have been in power since last eight years. It’s because of your mismanagement of economy,” BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu told reporters here.

He said the current situation of economy was the result of government’s wrong priorities and overall policy paralysis. “From a robust economy, resilient economy you have turned it into a roasted economy,” he said.

Venkaiah was referring to the serious economic crisis of 1990-1991 when the country’s foreign exchange reserves stood at mere USD 1.2 billion in January 1991. India had to airlift its gold reserves to pledge it with International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan.

The former BJP president said senior Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi was against allowing FDI in retail.

Quoting Dasmunsi’s letter dated December 16, 2002, Venkaiah said, “Multinational retailers are continuously putting pressure on the government to take anti-national decision of allowing FDI in retail trade.”

 

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by byu2012 on October 5, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Asia, Economics, India
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Posted by byu2012 on October 5, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/manmohan-singh-has-pushed-economy-back-to-1991-level-venkaiah/

Workers Behind Asia’s Economic Miracle Head for Poor Old Age

Hundreds of millions of workers behind Asia’s economic miracle are heading into uncertain old age after governments failed to set aside enough funds for their pensions, said a book released Tuesday. 

“Without far-reaching reforms, the financial burdens of these (Asian pension) schemes on future workers may become politically unacceptable,” said the book, edited by Asian Development Bank principal economist Park Donghyun. 

The book, “Pension Systems in East and Southeast Asia: Promoting Fairness and Sustainability”, forecast current or looming problems both in rapidly greying East Asia as well as younger Southeast Asia. 

“Just as Asia’s economic landscape was transformed… due to exceptionally rapid growth, its demographic landscape is transforming due to a change in population age structure that is unprecedented both in its scale and speed,” it said. 

China will have 200 million people aged 60 or older by 2015, the year before its working-age population is forecast to begin to shrink, it said. 

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by byu2012 on September 26, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Asia, Asian conferences, Economics
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Posted by byu2012 on September 26, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/workers-behind-asias-economic-miracle-head-for-poor-old-age/

Stay Firm and A Stronger Government Will Emerge: India Inc. tells PM

India Inc. is throwing its weight behind the government’s reforms process even as UPA ally Mamata Banerjee has decided to quit UPA II.

“Mamata Banerjee has held the government to ransom for far too long. What she has done is not that surprising, because Ms Banerjee is the crusader of the poor. She plays the poverty card. I don’t think her sense of economic development is really about what the rest of the country wants,” Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairman cum managing director at Biocon, told NDTV.

“She has taken a stand, the government was half expecting it – may be not to this extent. But, so be it. Good economics never makes good politics. This is the time, when India is in a dire economic crisis and there is no option other than to take certain hard decisions.”

After Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee announced her party would no longer be a part of UPA II, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh allegedly reiterated his commitment to economic reforms, telling his senior ministers that the government “must stay the course” and that it has “an unfinished agenda” for the economy for which it will allow “like-minded people” to help.

 

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by byu2012 on September 23, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by byu2012 on September 23, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/stay-firm-and-a-stronger-government-will-emerge-india-inc-tells-pm/

India Lags Behind Other Asian Economies

Welcome to the harsh reality: the Indian economy is now growing at a slower pace than many other Asian economies.

 The Indian government said on Friday that the economy expanded by 5.5% in the April-June quarter, a modest 20 basis points more than the rate of expansion in the previous quarter. But it is lower than the growth rate reported recently by some other economies in the region.

In early August, Indonesia said its economy grew 6.4% in the second quarter of the calendar year, powered by domestic consumption and investment. The Philippines said later in that month that its economic growth was a better-than-anticipated 5.9%, with strong domestic consumption once more playing an important role. Malaysia is also keeping pace with India, with its latest data showing quarterly growth of 5.4%.

These new numbers show that India is no longer the second-fastest growing economy after China, something that was taken for granted not too long ago. In 2007, the last year of the synchronized global boom, India was growing by at least 3 percentage points faster than these countries, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). To be sure, China is clearly in the middle of a sharp slowdown, but its economy continues to grow faster than the Indian one.

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by byu2012 on September 11, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by byu2012 on September 11, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/india-lags-behind-other-asian-economies/

Hu Discusses Infrastructure Development and China’s Economic Policy on APEC

Chinese President Hu Jintaoon Saturday stressed the need for the Asia-Pacific region to upgrade infrastructure and discussed China’s current economic situation and economic policies.

During a keynote speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO summit, Hu said the world economy was recovering slowly and there were still some destabilizing factors and uncertainties.

In this regard, the Chinese president put forward a four-point proposal on infrastructure development in the context of promoting stable growth and recovery in the Asia-Pacific region.

Firstly, Hu said, the region should speed up infrastructure development to strengthen the foundation of development.

Secondly, the Asia-Pacific region should improve the connectivity and efficiency of its supply chains to ensure the smooth functioning of infrastructure, Hu said.

Hu said thirdly that the region should deepen reform of the investment structure to share opportunities in infrastructure development.

Fourthly, Hu said, the Asia-Pacific region should strengthen exchanges and cooperation to jointly promote regional connectivity.

 

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by byu2012 on September 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Asia, Asian conferences, China, Economics, Policy
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Posted by byu2012 on September 11, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/hu-discusses-infrastructure-development-and-chinas-economic-policy-on-apec/

Asian Prosperity and Dismantling of the ‘American Dream’

The next US president could be Obama, it could be Romney, or even Ron Paul, but the larger part of the global market forces that will impact on the US economyremain unchanged and largely outside the control of US planners.

 
The best that US governments can do in reaction to these emerging forces, short of waging an imperialist war of conquest on the emerging economies of Asia, is enact policies for a soft-landing of the US economy as it falls from its lofty heights of prosperity in the next decades.

 

It is understandable that American politicians mount the politicking podium, carefully edit and restrict analysis of the nature of challenges facing the US economy , make glib promises to create more jobs, stimulate industrial production, cut spending and increase revenue but offer only scanty details about how they intend to achieve these goals. But of course, we know that politicians only tell the electorate what they know they want to hear – promises of prosperity irrespective of the reality of obvious sobering forecasts for the future.

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by byu2012 on September 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Asia, Asian conferences, Economics, US
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Posted by byu2012 on September 11, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/asian-prosperity-and-dismantling-of-the-american-dream/

Government Trying to Protect Indian Economy from Global Mess: PM

“The world as a whole is faced with serious economic difficulties, grappling with recession, and we are trying to prevent India being affected by what is happening in the outside world,” the prime minister told reporters outside the Parliament.

Criticizing the BJP for disrupting Parliament, he said the government was keen to discuss its strategy to deal with the economic problems.

“Parliament should have discussed these issues – what is our economic strategy to deal with these global tensions, these global developments – but Parliament was not allowed to do any of these things,” he said.

Later in a written message addressed to the people of India, Manmohan Singh said the Indian economy can bounce back.

“We must work hard to ensure that the Indian economy returns to high growth. I have no doubt we can do it,” he said.

The Indian economy has been under stress in the recent quarters. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a sluggish 5.5 percent in the first quarter of the current financial year.

The country’s GDP growth slumped to 6.5 percent in 2011-12, even lower than the 6.7 percent growth during the global financial crisis of 2008-09. The economy expanded by 8.4 percent in 2010-11.
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by byu2012 on September 10, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by byu2012 on September 10, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/government-trying-to-protect-indian-economy-from-global-mess-pm/

Indian Economy May Surprise on Upside: Report

A Deutsche Bank report on Friday said that all is not as bad as is being made out about the country and that there can be some positive surprises in the offing, as the economy is fundamentally strong and pro-growth measures are being rolled out.

Noting that the consumer demand is strong and the country remains a relatively attractive destination for investors, the report said, “There may be an undue concentration of pessimism, which may be ripe for some upside surprise, as the economy is not dysfunctional,” Deutsche Bank chief economist Taimur Baig said in a research note.

The German bank said the report was prepared after its research representatives recently met with policy advisers and economic and political thinkers in New Delhi.

“Despite the ongoing slowdown, the economy remains characterised by strong consumer demand, nimble business owners and continued goodwill from foreign investors as well as NRIs, thus job creation has not been impacted, nor have capital inflows.”

 

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by byu2012 on September 9, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by byu2012 on September 9, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/indian-economy-may-surprise-on-upside-report/

Indonesian Leader Issues Foreign Investment Call

 Indonesia’s leader on Saturday invited foreign investors to help fund a huge development plan that Jakarta projects will require $500 billion dollars in investments by 2025.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued the call during a speech to global business executives in the Russian port of Vladivostok ahead of an annual Asia Pacific economic summit that he will host next year.

The necessary investments will go toward projects relating to infrastructure development, food, energy, and science and technoloy, Yudhoyono said.

“In the years and decades ahead, we are embarking on a massive development initiative,” said Yudhoyono, who was to meet with other leaders from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) bloc for a two-day summit opening Saturday.

The plan, announced last year, is aimed at spurring development in key sectors up to the year 2025.

“We project that this master plan will require some $500 billion of domestic and foreign investment,” he said.

Yudhoyono urged investors to take a look at Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest nation with a population of 240 million people.

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by byu2012 on September 9, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Asia, Asian conferences, Economics, Indonesia
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Posted by byu2012 on September 9, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/indonesian-leader-issues-foreign-investment-call/

“Resource Nationalism” Clouds Indonesia’s Economic ProspectsBy Michael Buehler

In Indonesia, considered by many to be one of the most promising economies alongside China in Asia, there has been an increase in regulatory changes in a variety of sectors ranging from mining to oil. Although attributable to political competition between elite factions ahead of the 2014 presidential elections, many of the changes are also indicative of growing “resource nationalism” within the country, which raises serious concerns about the predictability of the business environment and long-term economic growth. To ignore this trend is to miss what could be a crucial factor in the future of Indonesia’s growth.

In the mining sector, foreign investors heralded the 2009 mining law as a breakthrough in Indonesia’s extractive sector since it allowed foreigners to obtain full mining licenses for the first time. The government has since adopted various, more protectionist measures including a law adopted earlier this year that effectively strips foreigners of their control over mining assets by requiring them to divest at least 51 percent of their shares to Indonesian buyers after 10-years of operation. Finally, new regulations have been adopted to reserve coal for the domestic market as well as new export duties and the use of a government benchmark price.

 

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by byu2012 on September 9, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Asia, Asian conferences, Economics, Indonesia
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Posted by byu2012 on September 9, 2012

https://theasiancenturyreport.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/resource-nationalism-clouds-indonesias-economic-prospectsby-michael-buehler/

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