Asia

Beijing, China:  China’s published statistics for foreign direct investment show that it is gradually rising overall. But the bulk of what China counts as foreign investment is money arriving from Hong Kong, which tends to be composed of mainland money that has been briefly routed through Hong Kong as a tax-minimisation measure. A new analysis by Rhodium, a New York research firm, shows that so-called greenfield investments from the European Union and Britain in new factories and other installations have plunged, reported The Straits Times. These investments fell to just under USD 2 billion in the first half of this year, compared with USD 4.8 billion in the first half of last year, according to Rhodium. A handful of German manufacturers, like Volkswagen, account for the...

Geo-strategically located on the Horn of Africa, Sudan is deemed as one of the mostimportant country of Africa, having access to Red Sea and further to theMediterranean Sea via Suez Canal. One would wonder why Sudan has so far notbeen able to exploit the world’s busiest sea-lane to its advantage. The country’s onlymajor port, Port Sudan, has so far been unable to generate the revenue it wassupposed to. Plagued with infrastructure challenges and ethnic strifes, Port Sudan’soperational capabilities are severely affected, leading Sudan further into economicslump. Sudan is in dire need of a port, which would provide an alternative yeteffective means of channelling the export-imports imbalances currently faced by it.Since the ouster of Omar al Bashir in April 2019, Sudan has been consistently ...

Beijing, China:   In 2016, China and Kyrgyzstan set up a new media outlet in Bishkek, and a veteran journalist, Murat, with more than 30 years of experience, was one of the dozens of professionals hired to run it, reported Nikkei Asia. The veteran journalist recalled how undue pressure from directors was constant to avoid criticism of initiative projects and to publish only stories that portrayed China in a positive light. Given a top editing role, he was dealing with the newspaper which is published in Kyrgyz, Russian and Chinese. Though at the start he thought that this is an opportunity to promote understanding between the neighbours. However, the truth soon surfaced for him. Another rhetoric that the Chinese asked the outlet to carry was the charity work done by Chine...

Last month, China’s foreign ministry announced that Beijing would waive 23 interest-free loans that matured by the end of 2021 for African countries. However, it did not reveal which countries would benefit or the total amount waived. In a study released on Monday, Boston University’s Global Development Policy Centre reported it had compiled a database containing 212 interest-free loans totalling US$2.22 billion between 2000 and 2020 in 38 African countries. The study noted that of the US$159.98 billion China had advanced to African countries in the past two decades, interest-free loans accounted for only 1 per cent. Authors Jyhjong Hwang, a research fellow, and Oyintarelado Moses, a data analyst and database manager, both at the Boston University centre, estimated that Beijing’s...

This year, their income is likely to be cut in half due to a record summer heatwave and drought that has smothered more than 20 provinces across the country. Poyang Lake and surrounding wetlands are an important source of irrigation for Jiangxi province, one of China’s rice growing heartlands. Though the lake’s size fluctuates annually between wet and dry seasons – but is shrinking overall – the lack of rain across southern China since July has seen water levels fall at the fastest pace on record, reaching a low of eight metres early in September. In late June, the body of water in the lake was 3,331 square metres (35,854 sq ft), but that had shrunk to just 727 square metres last week. “I have never seen a drought like this,” said Zhang. “The nearby ponds and reservoirs have d...

Brussels, Belgium:  “We will identify strategic projects throughout the supply chain, from extraction to refining, from processing to recycling. And we will build up strategic reserves where supply is at risk. This is why today I am announcing a European Critical Raw Materials Act,” said Von der Leyen in the annual State of the Union address, said Ursula von der Leyen, Global Times reported. However, industry experts have opposed the move by Von der and said that restructuring will take time and raise costs which will, in fact, aggravate the ongoing inflation in Europe amid the ongoing energy crisis. The industry experts also believe that the move by EU may also increase the cost of achieving Europe’s green targets amid the deepening energy crunch. “The consequences of decou...

Colombo, Sri Lanka:   Due to the country’s dependence on imports and borrowings for economically unviable infrastructure projects offered by China through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Sri Lanka is going through tough times and many other countries in Asia and Africa are also on the brink of collapse, a report by Europe Asia Foundation said. For example, Zambia, has numerous BRI projects like the new airport, two modern stadiums and a power station mean that they’ve developed an excessive debt situation. Through BRI, China eyes to influence around the globe with Chinese standards, norms and characteristics and as a consequence, the dependence of the indebted countries on China gets even greater, Former Minister of Environment and Member of European Parliament, Jo Leine...

Pakistan is struggling for post flood devastation relief and reconstruction and facing a huge resource gap despite getting restored IMF’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and World Bank’s intent of clubbing of two of its policy loans over USD 1 billion and Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) indication to provide approximately USD 1.5 billion emergency loans. The problem has in fact prompted the Pak Government to levy an unpopular super tax with three rates PRs.3000/-, PRs.5000/- and PRs.10,000/- to collect PRs.41 billion tax from shopkeepers and an additional tax of 5% on manufacturers having zero contribution to exports. The decision of the IMF to extend EFF to end-June 2023 and rephasing and augmentation bringing the EFF to USD 6.5 billion would give only a temporary relief.  The 7th and 8...

China’s eagerness to end its isolation in the world, whether on account of Covid or its continuing differences with the west, is making it re-invent itself as a friendly Asian giant. The new image was on display at the recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Uzbekistan, but there is no information as yet if there were any takers to the new public relations spiel. President Xi Jinping made it a point to meet the heads of all the central Asian states attending the meeting and trying convince them of his country’s genuine interest in the development of their nations. It was a déjà vu moment as several Asian and African nations have, in the past, heard the same stuff when China was imposing its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on them. In the meetings on the SCO s...

It is estimated that losses caused by the severe floods in Pakistan have accumulated to US$ 18 billion. This natural disaster has aggravated Pakistan’s macro-economic fundamentals despite resumption of the IMF Programme. Over and above these challenges, Pakistan faces a severe dollar liquidity crunch. One of the consequences of the floods and other economic disasters faced by Pakistan is that the demand for imports has gone up manifold but the country does not have enough dollars. In totality the exchange rate has gone under immense pressure whereby the rupee nosedived 9 per cent against the US dollar. The worst performance of the agriculture sector will put pressure on increased demand for commodities imports and if Pakistan fails to generate desired levels of dollar inflows it might cre...