In The News

Economic Worries in China as Companies Pile Up Debt

Keith Bradsher September 4, 2003
The Chinese economy's 8% annual growth rate has made it one of the most impressive development stories of the past decade, but its dynamism may be getting out of control. Economic analysts from J.P. Morgan to Goldman Sachs, from US government officials to even China's Central Bank leadership are concerned about overcapacity and bad bank loans. Chinese banks are notoriously unconcerned...

How Not to Be a Boiled Frog

Chua Lee Hoong September 3, 2003
Wages are not the only factor that leads to higher labor costs; corporate payments to retirement plans do as well. Foreign companies seeking to raise the bottom line search for countries with the lowest labor costs, often leaving formerly cheap nations for even cheaper ones. And Singapore has felt such a phenomenon first hand. Ten years ago Singapore enjoyed foreign direct investment (FDI) of...

How Washington Can be a Hyper-Power and a Hyper-Borrower

Philip Segal September 2, 2003
What kind of a superpower gets into so much debt that it has trouble pushing around countries that it would love to? The American kind, says Philip Segal, Markets and Finance Editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal. China and Japan - two major buyers of US government bonds - could do great damage to the American economy if they decided to stop buying or to suddenly sell their share of the US...

Is America's Economy Really Too Big to Go Down the Drain?

Stephen King September 1, 2003
To most people, the prospect of an American collapse is almost unimaginable. But to Stephen King, managing director of economics at HSBC, it is a very real possibility. In this article, King traces the economic success of the US in the 90s, arguing that this growth was due in large part to other countries which were willing to prop up the US economy. America frequently spent more than it...

China's Growth Creates a Boom for Cargo Ships

Keith Bradsher August 28, 2003
The world's cargo ships are heavily laden and busily transporting goods around the globe, but largely to or from China. Two years ago, many of these ships could be found lying idle in their home ports. Now, thanks to China's rapidly expanding economy, shipping lines are enjoying one of their most profitable booms ever. China is not only importing huge quantities of raw materials from...

Oh for Babies to Boost the Economy

Eddie Lee August 26, 2003
Are large families passé? In most developed and rapidly developing countries this increasingly seems to be the case. Across Europe, fertility rates have dropped well below replacement level – so low in fact that Germany will have to import half a million immigrants a year to keep the working-age population stable. A similar phenomenon is occurring in Singapore where the government is resorting...

Ecologists Fear Disaster as Oil Rush Takes Grip in Quake Zone

Nick Paton Walsh August 25, 2003
The Russian island of Sakhalin will soon be home to the largest energy project in the world, and there is fear, possibly the largest disaster. The oil rich island borders Japan and lies directly on top of an active seismic fault line, a fact that has environmentalists up in arms. They fear that the underground pipelines will not be able to withstand the island's frequent earthquakes and...