In The News

Terrorism Could Cost East Asia 3% in Growth over 5 Years: Study

Donald Urquhart June 22, 2004
A study by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has found that the long-term economic effects of terrorist threats are substantial. The developing economies of East and Southeast Asia are most vulnerable to negative effects, the report says, as they are more dependent on exports and foreign direct investment than developed country economies. Economic growth in the region...

Korean Businesses Ride Russian Economy

Kim Jung-min June 18, 2004
South Korean businesses' early entry into the Russian Federation and their aggressive manner in marketing seem to have paid off. Korean products have gained brand recognition among Russian consumers and are nowadays often put on the top shelves in stores around the country, some even earning the prestigious Narodnaya Marka title for "National Brands" from the government. Indeed, as...

Court Limits Sales on eBay

Kristina Merkner June 18, 2004
A Frankfurt court has decided that it will enforce a German law allowing publishers to fix the prices of their books. An entrepreneurial journalist who had sold about 40 review copies of a book on the online auction site, eBay, was in violation of the law, the court said. There was some legal debate over whether European Union free-trade regulation made the law invalid, but the German book...

Death at Sandheads

Ashis K. Biswas June 17, 2004
Mysteriously, merchant ships have sunk continuously at the Sandheads in India's Bay of Bengal, leading many to question why. More mysterious, however, is the fact that ships continue coming here and sinking. Official estimates indicate that at least 81 ships have gone down in this area in the past 30 years, including eight since 1997. Innumerable crewmen have lost their lives in these...

Islamic Finance: Banks Have Their Work Cut Out

Siow Li Sen June 10, 2004
Islamic finance is growing at an estimated 15 per cent a year, reports this Straits Times article, but bankers in Singapore are doing little to seize the opportunity for growth. Islamic banking is popular in some Southeast Asian countries because of its certainty and principles, which prohibit usury, or the charging of interest on loans; its ethical and equitable mode of finance is derived from...

How Big a Threat to West is Growth of China?

Stephen King June 7, 2004
The ongoing, rapid economic growth in developing countries like China and India might have deep repercussions in the developed West, argues Stephen King, managing director of economics at HSBC. Although per capita gross national income and commercial energy consumption is significantly lower in China and India than in the US and UK, these countries also have two of the world’s largest populations...

China: The Missing Member at the G-8 Table

Jeffrey E. Garten June 3, 2004
China's key position in the world economy is increasingly obvious. A slew of indicators, from car usage and steel output to population size, shows that China cannot be ignored. Yet, writes Jeffrey E. Garten, Dean of the Yale School of Management, China will not be attending the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Georgia. Americans and others should wake up to China's importance for even...