Archive for June, 2016

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16/06/2016

India Makes It Easier for Local Airlines to Fly Overseas – India Real Time – WSJ

India’s federal government on Wednesday relaxed the criteria for domestic airlines to fly overseas as part of a new civil-aviation policy aimed at driving growth in the sector.

Local carriers will no longer be restricted by the number of years they have operated domestically to fly abroad, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said.

Until now, they were required to complete five years of domestic service and have at least 20 planes in operation before being permitted to fly overseas. The government scrapped the time requirement but carriers must still reach the same criterion for planes or deploy 20% of their fleet on domestic routes.

Newer carriers such AirAsia India Pvt.—the local joint venture of Malaysia-based AirAsia Bhd.—and Vistara—the Indian airline venture of Singapore Airlines Ltd., have been pushing for a relaxation of the rules.

The new National Civil Aviation Policy was welcomed by Amar Abrol, CEO of AirAsia India, which started operating in India in June 2014. “The NCAP gives us clear direction to ramp up our operations in India and grow our business in the domestic segment before we scale our operations to fly international,” he said in a statement.

Both AirAsia and Vistara will need to increase their fleets significantly to qualify for starting international flights. AirAsia now has six planes and Vistara has 11.

Source: India Makes It Easier for Local Airlines to Fly Overseas – India Real Time – WSJ

Posted in aviation, Economics, India alert | 1 Comment »

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16/06/2016

In China, One Nail House Doesn’t Get Hammered – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Standoffs between developers and property owners in China are usually grim affairs almost always ending the same way: demolition. One holdout in the southern city Shenzhen is scoring a rare–but perhaps mixed–victory after fending off the bulldozers for more than a dozen years.

Developer Shenzhen Xiafeilong Real Estate has given up knocking down a three-story building belonging to unidentified owners in the city’s Luohu district, according to state-owned China News Service.

Photographs online show the water-stained facade of the three-story building, juxtaposed against newer high-rise apartments that are more than 20-stories high.

Resistance by homeowners to development usually draws sympathy from ordinary Chinese, who often complain that local governments in their zeal for growth and revenues favor developers and ignore property rights. Holdouts like the Shenzhen building have become popular symbols of resistance, known as “nail houses”  because they stick out like nails from a flat surface, such as a razed construction site for example.

“The fact that the government decides you’re going to move and the price you’re going to accept as compensation results in nail houses. It’s a form of negotiation tactic, or sometimes, an act of civil disobedience,” said Michael Cole, a property market observer and founder of real estate website Mingtiandi.com.

Xiafeilong, the developer, couldn’t be reached for comment, nor could the owner or owners of the nail house, who weren’t identified in media reports or in a government statement on the matter.

The three-story building appears to be mostly for residential use, with a computer repair shop at a corner storefront, according to photos and media accounts. A female employee answering the phone at the computer repair shop said she wasn’t aware of any demolition plans or faced any pressure to move.

China News Service said the landlord and the developer spent years on legal battles after they couldn’t agree on compensation for the demolition in 2000.

Xiafeilong initially wanted to build a high-rise apartment and offered the owner an apartment in the new development as compensation, according to Shenzhen Business News. The owner demurred as he wanted cash compensation or another home in a nearby complex, the Shenzhen Business News said in a 2014 article.

In 2013, the space around the nail house became a car park for residents in the surrounding residential towers, China News Service said. The Shenzhen government’s Internet Information Office, in a posting on its official social media account, said the developer realized that the nail house “did not impact its main development, so it simply stopped asking.

”Unlike previous nail-house standoffs, support online was more mixed. Some praised the outcome. “This shows that Shenzhen is civilized, unlike other places,” said a web user on the comments section following pictures of the nail house hosted by Tencent Holdings.

Others, however, saw it as an example of the landlord’s bad timing or greed. Prices for apartments and land in Shenzhen have soared by more than 60% on a year-over-year basis in recent months.

“The nail-house owner has a heart which not content like a snake that wants to swallow an elephant,” said another web-user. “Why could other parties come to an agreement but not you?

”A hotpot restaurant owner in a nearby building said it’s a blow to the neighborhood. “It would be better to demolish the building and build something modern so that it can drive more economic development in the area. Right now it’s an eyesore,” said the shop owner, who declined to give his name.

The government’s Internet Information Office gave its own assessment, citing an unidentified–and perhaps fictitious–web user: “The owner of the nail-house weeps in the toilet.”

Source: In China, One Nail House Doesn’t Get Hammered – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Posted in China alert, demolition, Economics | Leave a Comment »

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15/06/2016

India Police Probe Trade in Human Organs – India Real Time – WSJ

Police in India’s capital Delhi have uncovered a complex network illegally trading in kidneys. Suryatapa Bhattacharya report.

Earlier this month, a woman marched into a police station in India’s capital to file a domestic-abuse complaint and then made another allegation: that her husband was involved in illegal organ-trafficking.

Police said that accusation sparked a probe that had yielded 12 arrests as of Tuesday after authorities said they uncovered a complex nationwide network that was illegally trading in kidneys.

Donors, mostly poor residents of rural areas, were paid about $6,000 to give their kidneys to wealthier people in need of transplants, police said. The recipients paid more than $37,000. Traffickers produced counterfeit documents to make it appear as though the donors and recipients were related, police said. A 1994 law outlawed organ sales but permitted donations between family members.

The suspects—including five middlemen and four people who allegedly sold their own kidneys—were held on suspicion of trafficking in human organs and forgery, police said. They were in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment. It was unclear if they had legal representation.

Most countries prohibit organ selling, in part because of fears the poor and sick will be exploited by unscrupulous brokers.

Source: India Police Probe Trade in Human Organs – India Real Time – WSJ

Posted in Caste, Crime, Economics, India alert, Politics, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

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12/06/2016

Indian Home Ministry Rejects Google Street View Proposal – India Real Time – WSJ

Virtually roaming through India’s streets using Google Street View may not be possible anytime soon, after a government official said the company had been blocked from rolling out its street-mapping feature.

A spokesman for the Home Ministry said Friday that it has rejected a plan from Alphabet Inc.’s Google to expand its maps feature that provides 360-degree panoramic images in the country, citing security concerns.

The spokesman didn’t elaborate on the worries but noted that the final decision on whether to permit Street View in India could come, “hopefully during this year,” once other governmental bodies have had their say.

A Google spokesman declined to comment.

Source: Indian Home Ministry Rejects Google Street View Proposal – India Real Time – WSJ

Posted in Economics, India alert, Politics, privacy, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

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12/06/2016

Electronics Maker Automates as China Costs Rise – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Regardless of the assurances, I am concerned that we have started down a very slippery slope and in a generation or two we will have personless factories and maybe personless offices.  When that happens where will humans be earning salaries and hence, are going to be buying the stuff the factories will be churning out and who will pay for the offices; and – indeed – what will be done in those offices?

Is anyone in government, whether Chinese, Swedish, Japanese or American, putting their minds to this frightening future?

“A new generation of machines is gradually transforming this electronics factory in China’s manufacturing hub.Inside the sprawling factory, owned by Jabil Circuit Inc.—the world’s third-largest contract manufacturer for companies such as Apple Inc. and Electrolux SA—robotic arms assemble circuit boards as driverless components-laden carts glide nearby. Machines also are starting to replace workers in checking circuit-board assemblies for errors.

“This is the past,” said David Choonseng Tan, an operations director at Jabil, pointing to a line of workers hunched over the assembly line. “And this,” he said, gesturing to a line of machines next to them, “is the future.”

Rapidly changing product models make it challenging for electronics companies like Jabil to automate all aspects of the assembly process, according to John Dulchinos, a vice president at the company. Still, Jabil has increasingly embraced automation and advanced technology, a shift encouraged by the Chinese government as the world’s second-largest economy grapples with labor shortages and high costs that are making neighboring countries like Vietnam increasingly competitive for mass production.

Manufacturers elsewhere in the world are also investing in automation and robotics in an effort to wean themselves off “chasing the needle”—moving to ever-lower-cost countries in pursuit of cheap labor.

In Stockholm, Sweden, roughly 8,000 miles away from China, fuel-cell maker myFC has built a 2,000 square-foot smart factory that will eventually have five robots doing the work of 20 full-time humans. The robots assemble power cards used for portable electronic devices while 3D printers churn out prototypes of new designs.

“We are building one cell, then we can export that to any country, any customer,” says Bjorn Westerholm, chief executive of myFC.

Jabil says that it’s hoping that a key piece of its automation—a boxy white platform it calls Flexi-Auto Cell—can also be redeployed at factories elsewhere in the world. The idea, according to Jabil, is for technology to be able to emulate the worker’s flexibility in switching from one task to another.

Jabil’s vision of manufacturing, however, isn’t one in which machines will replace workers completely, but rather one in which they’re freed up to focus on less-tedious tasks.

“We are not going for a lights-off factory,” says KC Ong, a senior vice president of operations for Jabil. In the factory of the future, “we’ll still have a lot of people.””

Source: Electronics Maker Automates as China Costs Rise – China Real Time Report – WSJ

Posted in China alert, Economics, robots | Leave a Comment »

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10/06/2016

China now rivals US and Europe as growth engine for Asian exports | South China Morning Post

China is now an equal or even bigger driver of export growth in neighbouring economies than the US and EU combined, marking a significant shift in the economic pecking order since the 2008 global financial crisis.

That’s according to research by Deutsche Bank AG economists who weighed up the influence of the US and China over the rest of Asia through the prism of export growth, as well as the currency and bond markets.China committed to free trade, market reforms, says senior official

In Taiwan and Indonesia, for example, the growth of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) dominates the US and European Union’s as a source of export demand. In other economies, the trading giants are equally important.

“This is noticeably different from the pre-crisis years when China was much less important –- bordering on irrelevance – as an engine of growth in the region,” Deutsche analysts led by Asia-Pacific chief economist Michael Spencer wrote in a note.

After a rocky start to the year, China has been aided in its growth prospects by a record surge in credit in the first quarter. Key indicators for May are expected to show that the economy is continuing to find its footing and growth is on track to hit the Communist Party’s goal of 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent for 2016.

The International Monetary Fund in April upgraded its China growth forecasts by 0.2 percentage point for this year and next, following signs of “resilient domestic demand” and growth in services that offset weakness in manufacturing.

China needs market-driven interest rate system to help yuan become global currency: economists

Beyond the pace of GDP growth, China’s currency gyrations are also increasingly important across the region. While the dollar still drives volatility in most Asian currencies, the yuan is as least as important for fluctuations in the Malaysian ringgit and South Korean won and is growing in significance for other exchange rates, except the Philippines peso.

“Asia is far from being a ‘yuan bloc’, but idiosyncratic shocks to the yuan cannot be ignored,” according to the Deutsche analysts.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) surprised traders this week by setting the reference rate at weaker-than-expected levels, helping send the currency to its biggest declines in four months versus a trade-weighted basket that includes the yen and the euro. The rate’s fixing had become more predictable since early February after the PBOC pledged greater transparency and the yuan increasingly tracked moves in the dollar against major currencies. That was after a sudden weakening of the yuan in January fuelled fears of a devaluation and triggered global market turmoil. During the subsequent three months, the central bank adopted a more market-based system to set the rate and said the basket would play a bigger role.

China cooling imports are sending a huge chill across the global economy

But the US still dominates in the bond markets, and moves in Treasury yields continue to steer Asian bond trading. And even if Asia central banks don’t match rate tightening by the US Federal Reserve, financial conditions in the region may tighten if US yields increase.

“We find only weak evidence that fluctuations in Chinese yields have any impact on other countries’ bond markets,” the analysts said.

Source: China now rivals US and Europe as growth engine for Asian exports | South China Morning Post

Posted in China alert, Economics, globalisation, growth | Leave a Comment »

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10/06/2016

For India’s surging economy, small is beautiful | Reuters

For Rohan Sharma, business has never been better. Sales at his autoparts company in Gujarat are booming and the order book has almost doubled in the past year.

His Bhagirath Coach & Metal Fabricators has just invested nearly $120,000 in new machinery and plans to spend up to $1.2 million this year to expand capacity.

That’s an encouraging sign for Asia’s third-largest economy, where stressed balance sheets at big firms and heavy reliance on bank credit, which has dried up following a surge in troubled loans, have stymied efforts to revive private investment.

Sharma does not face such constraints. He says his firm is debt-free and relies mainly on internal resources to fund capacity expansion.

A survey from the Reserve Bank of India shows he is not alone. The annual study of nearly 240,000 unlisted small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) found they are saving their way to growth, helping transform India into the world’s fastest-growing large economy in the past two years.

India has more than 45 million SMEs, accounting for nearly 40 percent of gross domestic product. Most are unlisted, and their earnings growth has outpaced listed companies for the past three years.

“We never allowed exuberance to get the better of hard business logic,” Sharma said.

Sales at smaller private firms grew 12 percent in 2014/15, the central bank survey showed. Sales at listed big companies rose 1.4 percent over the same period.

Operating profit of the unlisted firms grew an annual 16.6 percent in the year, three times the pace at listed companies, and they increased their gross savings.

While higher expenses halved net profit growth at private firms, they still grew at double-digit pace. In contrast, listed companies struggled with shrinking profits.

Debt-laden big listed firms, meanwhile, are still reluctant to undertake new investments, and foreign firms can find India’s labyrinthine regulations overwhelming.

Also, infrastructure and resources needed for complex manufacturing, like roads, skilled labour and consistent power supply, is often lacking.

That led to a contraction in capital spending in the January-March quarter. Despite that, strong consumer spending helped power economic growth of 7.9 percent, the fastest rate among the world’s major economies.

Source: For India’s surging economy, small is beautiful | Reuters

Posted in Economics, India alert, SME | 1 Comment »

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10/06/2016

Indian men given life for gang-rape of Danish tourist | Reuters

Five Indian men were sentenced to life in prison on Friday for raping a Danish tourist in the heart of New Delhi‘s tourist district in 2014, in a case that reignited worries about sexual violence against women in India.

The men, all in their twenties, were found guilty by a Delhi court on Monday for robbing and raping the 52-year old Dane at a secluded spot close to New Delhi railway station.

“All the five convicts have been sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment for their offences,” additional public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava, told Reuters at the court. The Dane was walking through an area of narrow lanes near Delhi’s Paharganj district, a tourist area packed with backpacker hotels, on the evening of Jan. 14, 2014, when she asked a group of men for directions to her hotel.

The men then lured the woman to an area near New Delhi railway station where they raped her and robbed her at knife-point, the prosecution said in its chargesheet.

India was shaken into deep soul-searching about entrenched violence against women after the fatal gang-rape in December 2012 of a female student on a bus in New Delhi.

The crime, which sent thousands of Indians onto the streets in protest against what many saw as the failure of authorities to protect women, encouraged the government to enact tougher jail sentences for rapists.

Police accused nine men of attacking the Danish woman in 2014. Three are juveniles being tried in a separate court while a fourth died during the trial.

Lawyer D.K. Sharma, representing the five convicted men, said his clients would appeal against the verdict.

Source: Indian men given life for gang-rape of Danish tourist | Reuters

Posted in Crime, Gender issues, India alert, rape, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

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10/06/2016

Is China Rattled By the India-U.S. Love-In? – India Real Time – WSJ

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made strengthening ties with the U.S. one of his key foreign-policy objectives, as the two countries seek to counterbalance China’s growing footprint in Asia.

In a speech to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress Wednesday, the conclusion of a three-day trip to the country, Mr. Modi didn’t directly mention China, but said: “In Asia, the absence of an agreed security architecture creates uncertainty.

”A strong India-U.S. partnership can “help ensure security of the sea lanes of commerce and freedom of navigation on seas,” he added.

So is the beefed-up alliance between the two countries making Beijing uncomfortable? The country’s press provides some clues.

Source: Is China Rattled By the India-U.S. Love-In? – India Real Time – WSJ

Posted in China alert, Chindia Alert, Diplomacy, GeoPolitics, India alert, Politics | Leave a Comment »

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10/06/2016

17 People Die on India’s Roads Every Hour, Report Says – India Real Time – WSJ

India’s roads are getting more dangerous, with 17 people dying in accidents every hour, a new government report shows.

“Much more needs to be done,” to make India’s roads safe, Sanjay Mitra, secretary of the Ministry of Roads and Transport said in the report.

The data is pretty damning. The total number of road accidents in India increased 2.5% in 2015, to 501,423. The number of people killed climbed 4.6% to 146,133. Injuries rose by 1.4%.

Road accidents also got more severe. The total number of people killed per 100 accidents was up 2.1% at 29.1 in 2015.

The Ministry of Roads and Transport said it had identified 700 “black spots” on roads, where more than five people died in the past year, and that it has earmarked 6 billion rupees ($89.9 million) to fix defects.

Source: 17 People Die on India’s Roads Every Hour, Report Says – India Real Time – WSJ

Posted in Economics, India alert, Social & cultural | 1 Comment »

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