Huawei-Perfect World partnership blazes new trail for Chinese brands going global

Chinese telecom giant Huawei and online game developer Perfect World agreed here Thursday to launch a joint expedition into the world of online games.

After nearly 30 years of development, Huawei has become the world' s second largest supplier of telecom equipment and third largest manufacturer of smart phones, operating in 140 countries and regions and serving about one third of the global population.

Founded in 2004, Perfect World is a leading Chinese online game developer and operator, and has been China's biggest exporter of online games for seven years, with some of its products developing a fan base in more than 100 countries and regions.

Thus it is safe to assume that the alliance will allow the pair of hardware and software titans to combine their respective strengths to tap into the increasingly lucrative global online gaming market.

Yet the formation of the dream team has significance far beyond the gaming industry. It is a landmark venture that serves as a good example for Chinese brands seeking to take up a bigger share in global markets.

According to their agreement, Perfect World will design customized games that can give full play to the performance of Huawei consoles, thus enhancing players' gaming experience.

Such mutual reinforcement is inspiring and illuminating. China, long reputed as the factory of the world, has been under a paradigm-shifting transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China," and plenty of Chinese products are already advantageous not only in price but also in design and quality. But individually they face high marketing cost and white-hot competition.

By joining forces with complementary partners, Chinese firms can boost each other' s competitiveness and improve their chances both to consolidate their already established presence and to expand their reach into new markets. Such success will also help promote the reputation and popularity of Chinese products in general.

In addition, the Huawei-Perfect World partnership also provides a promising approach to the popularization of Chinese culture. Besides the Confucius Institute program, much else can be done.

For example, Perfect World integrates Chinese cultural elements, like historical stories and martial-arts novels, into innovative and popular online games, thus quietly acquainting game players with China' s time-honored arts and traditions. There is something worth learning from.

Source: Xinhua

China to face up to economic risks for emerging countries

China will not be impacted by the recent fluctuation in some emerging markets caused by the United States' tapering of its quantitative easing (QE) policy, and will face up to any external and internal risks, economists said.

Recent sell-offs in many emerging markets accelerated following the tapering. Some emerging economies, such as Indonesia, South Africa, Argentina, Turkey and India, suffered sharp capital outflows and fluctuations of exchange rates.

China, one of the emerging countries and the second largest economy, is able to cope with the risks and contribute to the stability of global economy, said Wang Jian, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

While it is true that the capital is flowing back to developed markets from emerging markets after the tapering, the capital will flow back to the emerging economies with less risks and higher pays, he said.

Instead of capital outflow, China witnessed more capital flow into the country.

Chinese banks' foreign exchange settlement sales surplus, a major contributor to a country's foreign exchange reserve, reached 447.5 billion yuan in January -- the sixth consecutive monthly surplus, as well as the biggest in recent years, according to Chinese authorities.

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) forecast that China may continue to receive large net capital inflow in 2014, and also vowed to establish a sustainable scheme to regulate the country's balance of payments.

China's efficient management of capital accounts serves as a preventative wall against any external fluctuation and China is less vulnerable to market volatility driven by capital flows, said Derek Scissors, an expert on Chinese economy at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

A report written by Ma Jun, the chief economist for Greater China of Deutsche Bank, also said China's economic fundamentals are much healthier than other emerging markets like Argentina and Turkey, and China is one of the least vulnerable emerging market economies to U.S. tapering in 2014.

China's political situation is stable, partly due to the success of the anti-corruption campaign, the report said.

In addition, China is implementing the most aggressive structural reforms in decades, including necessary ones to address the country's financial risks. This determination is not seen in most other emerging countries due to political stalemate, according to the report.

China's economic growth used to be driven by its demographic dividend, that is, its massive working-age population. However, with that dividend diminishing since 2012 together with the rising cost of labor force, China's economic growth could be significantly impacted, some economists said.

The impetus for China's economic growth will come from its new demographic dividend based on improved education and uplifting the skills of its labor force, a key factor in keeping future development sustainable, said Nicholas Borst, a scholar with the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics.

China enjoys huge advantages in this new demographic dividend, as well as scientific innovation, which will help deepen its market-oriented reforms and boost economic vitality, Scissors said.

China speeds up innovation in financial systems, which will help boost international income balances, improve the external economic environment and guard against financial risks, he said.

China has to improve government services to meet the challenges of the next twenty years, and reduce administrative intervention in economic activities to establish the decisive role of the market in resource allocation by 2020, according to Ken Lieberthal, a senior fellow with the U.S. Brookings Institution and a leading China expert.

It is down to the changes of government functions to deepen reform and to realize the Chinese Dream, he said.

China is faced with many challenges and should prevent hard landing of its economy, the economists agreed. Wang Jian pointed to the mounting debt incurred by China's local governments over the years and suggested it must be closely followed.

China's property market might have outgrown its boom days, Wang said, but predictions of an imminent property bubble burst and economic crash are premature.

The government should guard against the possible financial risks that market fluctuations may create and take measures to cope with the risks, Borst said.

Source: Xinhua

China Voice: Memorial days tell Japan: Never forget history

A nation, whether China or Japan, cannot fully understand itself or find its position in the world unless it levels a steady gaze on the glories and disgraces of its past.

China has set two memorial days to mark victory in the anti-Japanese war and mourn Nanjing Massacre victims. They will remember the horror of a crime, commemorate our heroic forefathers, speak of China's responsibility for a peaceful world, and serve as a reminder that the flag of justice shall never fall into the shadow of militarism.

Seventy-seven years ago, Japanese invaders captured Nanjing, then China's capital, and started 40-odd days of slaughter from December 13, 1937. More than 300,000 people were murdered without graves. Their tomb is our memory.

Sixty-nine years ago, the Chinese people embraced their victory over Japan on September 3, 1945 after suffering more than 35 million casualties. We owe our martyrs a promise that they did not die in vain and that memories of their brave fight against Japanese aggression will be carried on by their children and grandchildren.

China's war of resistance against Japanese aggression was an important part of the World Anti-Fascist War. For a long time, the Chinese contained the main forces of Japanese militarism in the Asia-Pacific region,annihilating more than 1.5 million Japanese troops.

In remembering, China keeps firmly in mind the foreign friends who laid down their lives on the battlefield of China, who helped Chinese refugees during the Nanjing Massacre, who opened up the Hump Route to deliver strategic supplies and who traveled thousands of miles to China to provide medical assistance.

Setting memorial days fits with the usual practice of the international community in that national memorials have been held annually at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland, Russia's World War II Memorial Stele and the Pearl Harbor Memorial Museum of the United States.

Time usually heals historical wounds, but wounds can never be forgotten.With deep memories of the scourge of war, the Chinese people are keenly aware of the value of peace and the importance of peaceful development, the only road to achieve national prosperity.

However, peace cannot be safeguarded by vague words, but by actions, especially when it faces direct threats from the rising militarism which used to trample human dignity and justice underfoot.

More than six decades after the Potsdam Proclamation was issued to the fascist forces, the influence of those who deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest has not been eliminated.

Japan as a defeated country failed to let the world feel safe by publicly challenging the post-war order under the excuse of becoming a so-called "normal country."

With a distorted attitude toward history, the current Japanese government refuses to admit the nature, let alone scale, of its war crimes during WWII. And that refusal has spread beyond the government to its broadcasting organization, whose board member even denied the Nanjing Massacre.

The Japanese government challenges China's sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands, which is an open defiance to the Cairo Declaration, an important international document in handling Japan's aggression.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visits to the shrine honoring Class-A war criminals has caused a growing chill in its relations with neighboring countries.

The world also has reason to be vigilant as the current government attempts to reinterpret its pacifist Constitution and lift a ban on Japan exercising the right of collective self-defense.

A post-war order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until militarism is driven from the world.

A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Japanese militarism will not be erased. By remembering the past, however, China does not mean to continue the hatred but to avoid the repetition of historical tragedies.

As a peace-loving nation, China has reaffirmed its policy of observing bilateral political documents and promoting Sino-Japanese friendship.

It is still not too late for Japan to learn two words from its imperialist history: Never again. However, if Japan continues to turn a deaf ear to the call of peace and warning bells against its militarist past, it will have no place in the world.

Source: Xinhua

WEF: Top Technologies for 2014 Mining Metals from Desalination Brine

As the global population continues to grow and developing countries emerge from poverty, freshwater is at risk of becoming one of the Earth’s most limited natural resources. In addition to water for drinking, sanitation and industry in human settlements, a significant proportion of the world’s agricultural production comes from irrigated crops grown in arid areas. With rivers like the Colorado, the Murray-Darling and the Yellow River no longer reaching the sea for long periods of time, the attraction of desalinating seawater as a new source of freshwater can only increase.

Desalination has serious drawbacks, however. In addition to high energy use (a topic covered in last year’sTop 10 Emerging Technologies), the process produces a reject-concentrated brine, which can have a serious impact on marine life when returned to the sea. Perhaps the most promising approach to solving this problem is to see the brine from desalination not as waste, but as a resource to be harvested for valuable materials. These include lithium, magnesium and uranium, as well as the more common sodium, calcium and potassium elements. Lithium and magnesium are valuable for use in high-performance batteries and lightweight alloys, for example, while rare earth elements used in electric motors and wind turbines – where potential shortages are already a strategic concern – may also be recovered.

New processes using catalyst-assisted chemistry raise the possibility of extracting these metals from reject desalination brine at a cost that may eventually become competitive with land-based mining of ores or lake deposits. This economic benefit may offset the overall cost of desalination, making it more viable on a large scale, in turn reducing the human pressures on freshwater ecosystems.

Visualizing 15 Years Of Acquisitions By Apple, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, And Facebook

You grow old, you slow down, and you die. That is, unless you can inject some fresh blood. After watching the last generation of tech giants wither or stagnate, today’s juggernauts are relying on acquisitions to keep them young and relevant. Check out the interactive infographic below to compare the size, frequency, and focus of the last 15 years of acquisitions by Apple, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.

Business insurance provider Simply Business created this infographic, which is only available here on TechCrunch. Each dot’s size represents the price paid for that startup if it was disclosed. Scroll over them for a link to learn more about the deal. The plus and minus buttons in the top right let you zoom in on specific time periods. Select categories at the top to filter for certain types of acquisitions. The Frequency toggle reveals phases when companies did heavy buying. And you can click any of the tech giants’ logos to view a complete list of their full-scale acquisitions (small acqui-hires excluded). Sorry to our mobile readers, but it’s much easier (possible) to navigate this on the web.

Trends crystallized by the Simply Business infographic include:

• The drought of acquisitions by Yahoo in 2011 and 2012 before Marissa Mayer began her buying spree after being named CEO.
• Apple has kept the price of its acquisitions low despite its huge cash reserves, as it prefers to buy for technology rather than market share.
• Facebook accelerated its talent-focused acquisitions following its IPO to combat brain-drain.
• While Steve Jobs saw acquisitions as a “failure to innovate,” Tim Cook has been proactive about buying companies to bring new intellectual property to Apple.
• • There was a recession in acquisitions in the “Rest In Peace: Good Times” era from 2008 to 2009.
  • Social, mobile, and hardware acquisitions have come into favor as search, media, and advertising buys have waned in the past few years

And the biggest acquisitions (with disclosed prices) by the giants were:

• Apple – Anobit ($390 million), AuthenTec ($356 million)
• Amazon – Zappos ($900 million), Kiva Systems ($775 million)
• Google – Motorola Mobility ($12.5 billion), Nest ($3.2 billion), DoubleClick ($3.1 billion), YouTube ($1.65 billion)
• Yahoo – Broadcast.com ($5 billion), Overture ($1.83 billion), Tumblr ($1.1 billion)
• Facebook – WhatsApp ($19 billion), Instagram ($1 billion, closed at $715 million)
• Source: TechCrunch

China: YY Launches A Separate Online Education Platform 100.com

YY Inc. (NASDAQ:YY) , the leading live video streaming platform in China, today announced 100.com, an online education platform.

YY, actually, has had YY Education, an online live video streaming service for teachers to give students lectures that was launched as early ad in 2011. There have been more than 100,000 video lectures delivered, according to the company. It claims there are more than 800 educational institutions and 20,000 teachers on the platform, with 6 million monthly active users.

As one of the three categories of YY offerings, YY Education, however, was way less profitable than the other two. YY Music and YY Gaming accounted for 47% and 32% of YY’s total revenues in Q3 2013. David Xuelin Li said they didn’t expect to see meaningful revenues coming from YY Education on the latest earnings conference call in late 2013.

Different from YY Education, 100.com is not focused on video lectures but includes all kinds of educational materials, text, online tools, mobile apps, etc.

Source: TechNode

PowerPoint Doesn't kill Presentations; People kill Presentations

Prezi: Presentation Software with a Twist
Most of us have created computer presentations, usually in the form of a linear slideshow with software such as PowerPoint. Prezi adds something special to your presentations with panning, zooming, and rotating “slides”. Don’t get me wrong; PowerPoint is a perfectly fine presentation application when it is used properly. It's like the old GIGO adage: garbage in...garbage out! You've probably heard some of the PowerPoint haters' claims of "death by PowerPoint" and "PowerPoint is evil." PowerPoint is not evil. PowerPoint doesn't kill presentations; people do.

And Prezi is no different in that regard. When used properly, it can “wow” your audience with visuals that will help them remember what they are learning. If overused, some of the Prezi features can literally give your audience motion sickness. In any presentation software, the best practices of good visual design are a necessity. We have all seen the typical “bullet list PowerPoint”, and perhaps even worse, we have had a presenter read the bullet lists to us. And perhaps even worse, we have been guilty of such a malicious act. PowerPoint's major fail is the bullet list template which they provide. It is the go-to template for most PowerPoint Probies.  But guess what? Prezi also provides a bullet list option! The same mistake can be made with Prezi: too much text and not enough graphics. Presentations are meant to be visual, not textual; not verbose. This is true whether you are presenting in person or creating a self-running presentation. We can make great presentations with PowerPoint. We can make great presentations with Prezi. We can also make lousy ones with both applications. They are only tools. 

When creating a PowerPoint to be used with a presenter, make use of the notes section! The slide should include an appropriate, meaningful graphic and little text. Just put the main points on the slide. The notes section serves as the speaker's script or a general outline of what will be said. When presenting, the speaker should use a dual monitor setup with only the slides showing on the projector and the notes version showing on her computer. The speaker can also memorize the points to make, but speaker notes should still be added to the presentation. After the presentation, the speaker can hand out printed copies of the notes slides, which show both the slide and the speaker notes. Do this after presenting so the audience isn't distracted by reading ahead, and so that they have the material you presented to take with them.

But how can speaker notes be used in a self-running PowerPoint? Easy! Record the narration for each slide! If your presentation is online, provide a download of the notes slides, perhaps in PDF format.

So how is Prezi different? Prezi consists of a huge “canvas” where you, the designer, can place elements such as text, images, videos, and more. You can place them anywhere on the canvas and then create a path from one element to the next and the next, and so on (thus, the panning effect). Prezi acts like a camera which is moving around on the canvas zooming in on the elements individually (thus, the zooming effect). When a canvas element is zoomed, it fills the screen. If elements are rotated slightly, the “camera” will zoom to them, turning the element so it is no longer rotated (thus, the rotating effect—the one that can make your viewers seasick if overused).

Prezi doesn't have a speaker notes option. But the presentation can be saved as a PDF and handed out. However, additional speaker notes should be provided, which creates an extra step in the process using a separate software application. For a self-running Prezi, narration can be added.

What’s Wrong with PowerPoint?  Why do I need Prezi?
Nothing is wrong with PowerPoint. Prezi just has a different take on creating presentations. In a PowerPoint slideshow the viewer sees one slide at a time. A Prezi can begin with the entire canvas visible and all the elements arranged on it in a creative, inventive, attractive design that could represent the theme of the Prezi. For instance, in a Prezi about clouds, the elements could be arranged on the canvas in the shape of a cloud. The viewer will see the cloud shape, but not all the elements will necessarily be visible. The viewer will see some elements clearly; these could contain visible main ideas.  Others may appear as a tiny shape or speck, and still others may be so small the viewer won’t see them at all on the opening canvas. Then, let the zooming begin! Remember, when Prezi zooms to an element it fills the screen, so those tiny specs or invisible elements can suddenly appear from nowhere!

Let's just all remember one thing: PowerPoint and Prezi are tools. Are you handy enough to use them?

Source: Schwab Foundation Daily

China: Yuan's devaluation message

"The unexpected fall of the yuan against the US dollar since mid February has gained far more attention than is justified by its size.

The Chinese currency slid for a seventh day on Wednesday to a six-month low against the greenback, sparking widespread speculation that its long-term strengthening has now reversed.

Given that many other emerging-market currencies are under great pressure from the reversal of capital flows triggered by the US withdrawal from its super loose monetary policy, it would be understandable if the Chinese currency follows suit as its economy slowed.

Yet, the fact that the yuan has so far weakened by only about 1 percent against the US dollar during this round of depreciation should not be taken as compelling evidence that the steady rise of yuan has come to an end.

Although the world's second-largest economy has bid farewell to its double-digit growth, there is no sign of any fundamental change to its global competitiveness that would significantly affect the value of its currency.

Hence the abrupt change in the exchange rate of yuan against the US dollar just after the country registered much-better-than-expected trade growth in January must be telling us something else.

Some people have pointed to the rising number of speculators betting heavily on the continued rise of yuan as a reason why Chinese policymakers need to step into the foreign exchange market.

The negative impact of such short-term capital inflows, especially when accelerated, would make a good reason for the Chinese authorities to make a timely intervention. But that can hardly be a key reason given the country's effective control over capital account.

More likely, the real reason that Chinese policymakers would like to let the currency drop for the moment lies with their growing concern over the country's ballooning foreign exchange reserves, which had soared to $3.82 trillion at the end of 2013.

The rapid accumulation of more than necessary foreign exchange reserves will only make it increasingly difficult to address China's domestic and international imbalance while protecting the value of its forex reserves, the world's largest.

The recent storm in the currency teacup might be sending the message that there will be more actions are in order to better regulate the country's balance of payments to support domestic reform and growth".

Source: ChinaDaily

S&P 500 Closes at a New Record

            The Wall Street Journal reports, "the S&P 500 clinched an all-time high Thursday for the first time in six weeks as stocks rallied on the heels of the Federal Reserve chief's testimony to Congress.

The S&P 500 gained 9.13 points, or 0.5%, to 1854.29, ending near the session's high and firmly above the former closing high of 1848.38, notched on Jan. 15. Thursday was the fourth day in a row that the S&P 500 made a run at a record close, but the index failed to hold its gains in the previous three.

Gains wiped away all of 2014's early weakness for the index, sending the S&P 500 up 0.3% this year".

After hitting its Jan. 15 record, the S&P 500 abruptly fell 5.8% over jitters about emerging-market growth. But stocks have bounced back despite a string of disappointing U.S. economic data, which many economists have chalked up to poor weather.

Traders said much of Thursday's action was concentrated in single stocks, with little new information hitting the market to reshape investors' views. As in recent days, activity was driven in large part by short-term players waiting to see if the S&P can hold all-time closing highs before buying or selling.

In testimony before Senate lawmakers on Thursday, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellenacknowledged recent "soft data," noting the harsh weather has played a role. She said the central bank could reconsider the reduction of its monthly bond purchases if its economic outlook changes significantly.

Thursday's gains were broad, with technology and materials stocks helping drive eight of the S&P 500's 10 sectors higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 74.24 points, or 0.5%, to 16272.65 and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 26.87 points, or 0.6%, to 4318.93.

Meet Oppia, Google’s New Open Source Project That Allows Anyone To Create An Interactive Learning Experience

Google has become an increasingly active participant in the world of education, particularly when it comes to exploring the role technology can play in re-imagining the way we learn.

Google’s educational experiments continued today, beginning with the launch of its first 

MOOC-style course, now open to the public, on how to interpret and understand online data. The second experiment, quietly announced on Google’s Open Source Blog, was the launch ofOppia, a project that aims “to make it easy for anyone to create online interactive activities” that others can learn from.

The motivation behind Oppia, Google explained, stems from the fact that, while a growing amount of educational content is now delivered via video and SMS, much of it remains static and asynchronous. Or, said another way, digitizing a lecture or presentation isn’t enough; there is still plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the way these tools create opportunities for interactivity, dialogue and feedback.

Google’s new open source project essentially aims to take the headache or mystery out of the process by providing the framework by which anyone can quickly create these types of interactive learning experiences and add them to their site. But, beyond that, Oppia also has potentially interesting implications for teachers, and not necessarily in a way that reduces their concern of one day being replaced by a robotic or holographic, AI version of themselves.

In other words, Oppia works to improve the interactivity of the learning process by assuming the role of a mentor or teacher who asks questions of the learner. Then, based on how the learner responds to those questions, the teacher decides how to proceed, which questions to ask, how to give feedback and so on. In describing Oppia, Google says that one can think of it as a “smart feedback system,” which is an attempt to begin automating how we “teach a person to fish” — to use its example.

The system gathers data on the ways learners interact with whoever is guiding the exploration, and the content they provide, and shares it with authors to make it easy for them to fix problems with their lesson. Authors might log in to Oppia to find an answer that learners are providing to a question but which the system isn’t correctly or adequately responding to, for example.

The “teachers” can then “create a new learning path” for the question, basing their feedback on how they would respond to the question were they actually interacting with the person in real life. Oppia then provides the feedback to any future learner responding to the question. The project also allows teachers to accept responses to their lessons in numeric, text and multiple choice formats, and offer clickable maps and code evaluators, for example.

On the technical side, Google says that it’s based Oppia on an extensible framework, allowing developers to add their own inputs and extend the range of potential formats and types of responses that Oppia understands. Explorations, as Google calls the lessons users can build through its system, that are created on an Oppia server can be embedded in any web page, and embeddings can “refer to a particular version” of the exploration so that future changes don’t mess with the principle version, Google explained.

In addition, users can also collaborate on creation and editing of explorations, with version control, and the system allows parameters to be associated with a learner, which aim to enable teachers to create deeper interactive experiences. Oh, and Oppia has a built in responsive UI for mobile devices, as well.

As with many Google projects of this kind, it’s not totally clear how much attention and support Google intends to throw at Oppia going forward. The project’s home page conspicuously says that Oppia is not officially a Google product, which would seem to imply that Google isn’t planning to dedicate a ton of manpower or resources to the project. Instead, the company is likely hoping that developers will assume ownership of Oppia and that the community will take over maintenance.

Source: TechCrunch

Weibo owner faces modest growth in '14

Sina Corp - a Chinese online media company that runs Weibo, China's version of Twitter - received a "buy" recommendation from an analyst who also reduced her 12-month price target after the company reported modest fourth-quarter and full-year revenue growth.

Echo He, a senior equity analyst who covers Sina for Maxim Group LLC, a New York-based securities and investment management firm, cut her price target to $90 from $95 following the company's earnings report on Feb 25.

"Sina's recent earnings revenue was in line, but it's not that strong," He said on Tuesday in an interview with China Daily. "Going into 2014 the company is working toward growing Weibo's revenue and its user base. In order to do that they're probably going to continue to invest, so they won't see significant improvement on Weibo or the company's profitability in 2014."

The company's 12-month net revenue climbed to $665.1 million and its fourth quarter revenue was $197 million - year-on-year increases of 26 and 42 percent, respectively. The fourth-quarter profit was Weibo's first since being set up in 2009. Advertising revenue grew by 163 percent in 2013 to $56 million, according to Sina.

"Our partnership with Alibaba has played an important role in advertising revenue growth in the fourth quarter," said Charles Chao, chairman and CEO of Sina, during the company's earnings report conference call. "2013 has been a challenging year for Sina with the migration to mobile Internet accelerated and the competition in mobile and the social space intensified. Long-term sustainable growth for Weibo is largely dependent on our ability to continue to grow our user base."

Xinhua reported on Tuesday that Sina Weibo is planning a stock market listing in New York at some point in the first half of 2014. The news of the proposed listing, which will seek to raise $500 million, came out shortly after Sina released its latest financial results.

Sina, which maintains a 71-percent stake in Weibo, faces competition from Tencent Holdings Ltd, owner of the popular WeChat instant-messaging application.

He, the analyst with the Maxim Group, said Weibo's plan for an IPO is "the right position for Sina".

"Given the competition in the market, especially from WeChat, I think the IPO is better earlier than later," He told China Daily. "The concern is whether they can still maintain the growth of their user base."

Josef Schuster - founder of Ipox Schuster LLC, a Chicago-based independent financial-services firm specializing in global IPOs - said the spin-off of Weibo is "an opportunistic move for the company".

"The evaluations are quite high," Schuster said Tuesday in an interview with China Daily. "Momentum in the IPO market is very strong and there is a lot of interest in that space in China. There is an opportunity for the company to capitalize and take advantage of the market in the US."

Source: ChinaDaily

Shanghai regulates taxi booking apps

The Shanghai city government has followed Beijing's lead and moved to restrict the usage of increasingly popular taxi booking apps.

The apps usually allow users to bid for cabs by adding an additional flat fare but they do so at the expense of cab companies that provide dispatch services to the cabbies.

It has also resulted in complaints that Shanghai passengers are having increasing difficulty hailing cabs on the street, because many refuse to pick up customers paying normal fares.

Instead taxi drivers cruise the streets with their eye on a collection of cell phones mounted on their dashboards running different apps, all searching for fare bids.

Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Ltd has developed a function in its popular Wechat messaging system that allows customers to book and pay for cabs using its e-payment mechanism, and refunds a portion of the fare to the user.

Analysts say the app was developed in part to help Tencent compete with rival e-commerce giant Alibaba for a share of the online payment market, which Alibaba's Alipay product dominates. Alibaba has also invested in a popular cab-hailing app.

Neither Tencent nor Alibaba immediately responded to requests for comment.

The new regulations, published on the website of the Shanghai Municipal Transport and Port Authority, bans the use of taxi booking apps by cab drivers during rush hour periods and bans their use entirely by private vehicles licensed for hire.

Drivers are also not allowed to use the apps while driving, and can be fined for refusing to pick up ordinary fares.

Source: ChinaDaily

China: A pension deficit could loom

China will prepare for a possible pension shortfall in the future amid a rapidly aging population, said a senior social security official on Wednesday.

In 2013, the country saw a surplus of 400 billion yuan ($65.3 billion) in the pension fund for urban employees, said Hu Xiaoyi, vice-minister of human resources and social security, at a news conference.

The total surplus of funds for urban workers, unemployed urban residents and rural residents stood at 3.1 trillion yuan by the end of 2013, according to Hu.

He said earlier last year, one research organization estimated that China' pension shortfalls would reach 13 trillion yuan, which caused public worries, but the latest financial sheets on pension revenues and expenditures proved that such predictions were "groundless".

Future estimation on pension liability should take the economic growth trend and demographic change into consideration, he said when responding to a question about whether China's pension deficit will be 6.8 trillion yuan in 2033 as another research institution predicted.

However, he said because the Chinese population is rapidly aging, authorities will have to make a balance forecast for pension funds in the future and this requires more comprehensive analyses and precise calculations to help with policymaking.

"The purpose of such anticipations is to find out what we should do now rather than waiting until the year 2033 or 2032 to take measures," he stressed, adding that such forecasts should not be manipulated as a tool to frighten the public.

Guo Ping, a researcher at the China Research Center on Aging, said more than 400 million of China's population will be older than 60 as of 2030. If the current pension arrangements remain unchanged, in two decades, one person in the working-age labor pool will need to support each retiree, he said.

"Our current surplus is thanks to that fact that we have more contributors than retirees nationwide, but some provinces have already been troubled by pension deficits," he said.

About 14 provinces and regions saw pension shortfalls of more than 70 billion yuan in 2011, according to Zheng Binwen, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' World Social Security Research Center.

Although there are uncertainties in economic development and challenges in reforming the current pension system, Guo said he feels confident about the government's ability to offer sufficient pensions for the elderly in the future.

China has established a reserve pension fund to cope with possible expenditure difficulties and the fund pool has accumulated more than 1 trillion yuan as of last year, he said.

It also announced it will gradually suspend the retirement age under a decision made by the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC in November. Many experts have regarded the move as an effective way to relieve the financial burden caused by pension liability.

Hu from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said his agency is doing preliminary work on lifting the retirement age and promised the government plans to solicit public opinions on its future draft plan.

The legal retirement age is 60 for male employees and 55 for female civil servants and those in technical and professional positions.

Source: ChinaDaily

U.S. oil output surged to highest level in 25 yrs in 2013-EIA

 U.S. oil production surged in 2013 to the highest level in 25 years as a boom in shale drilling boosted output, the Energy Information Administration

(EIA) said on Thursday.

Oil production for the year rose by nearly 1 million barrels per day (bpd), its largest-ever annual increase, to hit an annual output level of 7.46 million bpd, the highest since 1989, the EIA said in its monthly petroleum supply report.

The data also marked a number of other milestones reflecting the transformation of the U.S. oil industry.

Exports of refined petroleum products rose to a record high of 3.3 million bpd. Meanwhile, net imports of crude and fuels fell to 5.1 million bpd in December, the lowest level of net imports since 1987, the data showed.

U.S. propane exports remained near a record high at 402,000 bpd in December.

Source: Reuters

Reuters. Metals: China demand concerns send copper to near three-month low

Copper slipped to its lowest in nearly three months on Thursday, weighed down by concerns over demand from top consumer China while growing political turmoil in Ukraine also sapped appetite for risky assets such as metals.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange hit its lowest level since Dec. 4 at $6,993.50 a tonne before recovering to close down $1 or 0.01 percent at $7,025.

The metal used in power and construction is down more than 4 percent this year and has been trapped in a range between $7,000 and $7,220 for most of February.

Losses in base metals mirrored falls across other risk-sensitive assets, such as equities, as traders unwound positions in the face of growing political turmoil in Ukraine.

Shares in Europe and Asia came under pressure while the dollar held near a two-week high against a basket of currencies. A strong U.S. currency makes commodities priced in dollars more expensive for holders of other currencies.

Also curbing enthusiasm for base metals was a lack of signs that Chinese industry is ramping up after the Lunar New Year. China accounts for 40 percent of global demand for refined copper.

"There are some real concerns about China's financial sector reform and what the growth trajectory is going to be," Barclays analyst Gayle Berry said. "The fact that copper has broken(below) the $7,000 level illustrates that those concerns are still very much a feature of the market."

Preventing further falls for copper, however, were signs of tight short-term supplies in LME-registered warehouses, where stocks have fallen steadily since September to hit 14-month lows. 

Reflecting the tightness in the market, cash LME prices climbed on Wednesday to a premium of $78.50 over the benchmark three-month contract - its highest since mid-May 2012 - before easing slightly to $74.25 on Thursday. 


LEAD/ZINC SPREAD NARROWS

The lead/zinc spread narrowed to $63 during the day, the lowest in 17 months as investors continued to favour zinc over sister metal lead.

Lead closed 0.14 percent firmer at $2,138 a tonne and zinc added 0.4 percent to $2,063.

The spread has contracted from $247 in November as investors piled into zinc, counting on the closure of major mines would tighten supply and push the market into deficit.

"Fundamentally we still favour lead over zinc on a 12-month view," said Walter de Wet at Standard Bank, although he said the spread could reverse.

"Between $50–$0, we would expect renewed interest to initiate long the spread again. But for now, the market seems still to like zinc."

Tin ended the day unchanged at $23,575 a tonne.

Tin sellers on Indonesia's physical trading platform for the metal have put in place a "suggested opening bid", the commodities trading regulator said, which gives guidance but does not act as a floor price for the solder metal.

Aluminium finished down 0.34 percent at $1,768 while nickel was the biggest gainer, rising 1.7 percent to $14,445.

China's users of primary aluminium are set to cut imports of spot metal in the April-June quarter in response to record premiums demanded by sellers and may turn to domestically sourced metal, prices of which have fallen.

WSJ: The euro-zone government bond market just keps on rallying.

        The Wall Street Journal reports, "Italian and Spanish 10-year yields have both fallen by more than 0.6 percentage point this year, to just under 3.5%, and are now at levels not seen since early 2006. In Portugal, the rally has been even sharper: 10-year yields have fallen more than a percentage point and five-year yields by about two points. That is generating strong returns. Italian bonds are up 3.5% year-to-date, according to Barclays indexes, while Spain is up 4% and Portugal 7.7%".

Importantly, the investor base for euro-zone government bonds is deepening. At the peak of the euro-zone crisis, domestic banks took the strain and massively increased their home-sovereign bondholdings. But while Italian banks marginally reduced their holdings of Italian government bonds in January, according to European Central Bank data, yields still fell sharply, indicating interest from other buyers. Spanish banks did add €18.1 billion ($24.77 billion) of domestic government bonds, but holdings are still well below their 2013 peak. Encouragingly, French banks, which dumped non-French government bonds as the crisis ramped up in 2011, added €14.6 billion of non-French bonds in January. Greater cross-border flows would be a sign of healing in Europe's bond markets.

So far, bond investors don't seem worried about low inflation, which stands at just 0.8% in the euro zone. Low inflation or deflation would normally be a bond investors' friend—but it makes the process of economic adjustment harder, and may yet lead to concerns re-emerging about the sustainability of some European governments' debt loads. The ultralow inflation levels in southern Europe also mean that governments are still paying relatively high real debt yields.

But the broadening of investor demand, along with Europe's gradual recovery, means that euro-zone government bonds could yet offer further gains. In Italy, there is hope that new Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will succeed in introducing reforms; in Spain and Portugal, there are signs that structural reform is paying dividends in growth. Credit ratings have started to move higher again after several years of steep downgrades.

Ultimately, too, euro-zone bond investors are sheltered from the debate about monetary policy tightening that is under way elsewhere. Those hoping for radical easing from the ECB may yet be disappointed, as none of the central bank's options come without drawbacks. But investors can be sure the ECB won't be tightening policy for a long time yet.

Italy's Funding Costs Remain Low at Bond Auction after Renzi Takes the Helm

         The Wall Street Journal reports, "Italy's funding costs were near decade lows at a debt auction Thursday, a clear sign of investor confidence in the country after Matteo Renzi's new coalition government won the backing of the Senate earlier this week, promising radical reform of the Italian economy".

The Italian Treasury sold €9 billion ($12.32 billion) of debt, the maximum amount it had targeted, in 2019- and 2024-dated conventional fixed-rate bonds, or BTPs, and two series of floating rate notes, or CCTeus. Demand was strong for all lines.

The key feature of Thursday's auction was a new 10-year government bond, a September 2024-dated BTP, the yield for which was 3.42%, a level last seen at 10-year Italian debt auctions in 2005, and below grey-market levels at the close of bidding.

The funding cost of 2.14% on the May 2019-dated BTP was a fresh euro-era low, further evidence that funding conditions remain favorable for the country.

BTP prices have strengthened in the past few days as the country's new prime minister, Matteo Renzi, has cleared confidence votes in parliament. Bond prices often fall before an auction because of the prospect of fresh supply. When bond prices rise, yields fall.

"In the past week or so Italian spreads have cozied up to Spanish spreads, as Italy outperformed in the wake of the positive gloss put on political change, together with the removal of a negative outlook by one of the credit-rating firms," said ING's rates strategist Padhraic Garvey. On Feb. 14, Moody's lifted its outlook on Italy to stable from negative, keeping its Baa 2 rating.

Chinese companies are flocking to US for IPOS

About 15 to 20 companies from China are expected to go public in the United States this year amid restored investor confidence in the nation's companies, a senior executive of the stock exchange in New York said on Wednesday.
The new listings from China will mainly be in the health, high-technology and retail sectors.

"China has become the third-largest country by the number of companies listed on NYSE Euronext, following the United States and Canada," said David Ethridge, senior vice-president and head of capital markets at NYSE Euronext Inc, which operates equity exchanges around the world.

As of Nov 30, 2013, there were 74 Chinese companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange and nine on a smaller subsidiary exchange established specifically for small-capitalization companies. These companies' total market capitalization stood at $1.04 trillion on that date.

Ethridge said that China will remain in the top three because of Chinese companies' desire to list on the exchange as well as renewed investor confidence in such listings.

Starting in late 2010, the shares of US-listed Chinese companies were targeted by short-sellers. The situation became so serious in the fourth quarter of 2011 that 58 Chinese companies faced the prospect of being delisted in the US.

Their share prices recovered slightly in the first half of 2013. In the second half, conditions improved greatly, with the prices of 50 percent of those companies up more than 50 percent year-on-year. Discount online seller Vipshop Holdings Ltd even saw its price increase 369 percent last year.

Source: ChinaDaily

China Designates Two New National Days, aimed at highlighting Japanese aggression during World War II.

China's top legislative body Thursday designated two new national days aimed at highlighting Japanese aggression during World War II.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress approved proposals designating Sept. 3 as "War Against Japanese Aggression Victory Day" and Dec. 13 as a day of remembrance for victims of the Nanjing Massacre, according to state media.

Japanese troops captured Nanjing on Dec. 13, 1937, and spent the next six weeks torturing and killing civilians in the city. Japan officially surrendered to the Allied Powers on Sept. 2, 1945, in a ceremony aboard the USS Missouri that marked the end of the war.

Tensions between Japan and China have been on the rise, stoked by a territorial dispute in the East China Sea and a recent visit by Japan's prime minister to a shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals. The conflict has stoked nationalist sentiment on both sides.

A commentary in the overseas edition of the Communist Party's flagship newspaper People's Daily made it clear that the decision was intended in part to send a message to Japan.

"Victory Day is a time for celebration, but also for alertness," the commentary said. "The specter of Japanese militarism still haunts us.

China has other days dedicated to remembrance of its long conflict with Japan. They include Sept. 18, which marks the day Japanese troops invaded the city of Shenyang, beginning a wider takeover of northeast China.

National days in China aren't public holidays, though some Chinese have clamored online for a day off to mark the victory over Japan. Typically, national days are a time for commemoration marked by essays and speeches.

"The approval of the national days has great historical significance and is a necessity in current circumstances," the state-run Xinhua News Agency quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying.

TestFlight Owner Burstly Acquired By Apple

Burstly, the makers of an in-app ad management platform called SkyRocket and the parent company of popular mobile app testing platform TestFlight, has been acquired, we’re hearing. Though we’re working to get more information on this now, including deal terms, our understanding is that Apple is the acquirer here.

We’ve been pointed in Apple’s direction by a few of sources, and it makes sense as several odd things have been going on with TestFlight in recent days.

On Wednesday, TestFlight announced it would be terminating Android support as of March 21, for example, while also announcing that it was discontinuing its TestFlight SDK. According to support documentation, only existing teams will be able to continue to upload builds with the SDK. New users and those who have never uploaded the SDK are now being asked to remove it from their builds.

The company also shut down FlightPath, its mobile analytics solution that entered into beta last year, following the Burstly/TestFlight tie-up. Links to FlightPath now redirect to the TestFlight homepage, and this seems to be a recent change.

lightPath, which replaced the company’s “TestFlight Live” solution announced at the time of the original acquisition, was part of the two companies’ bigger vision to “change the app ecosystem” by combining forces. The mobile analytics market is still young enough to make room for new players like what they had in store with FlightPath, so seeing it close up shop in under a year is very odd. And definitely not the kind of product change that should have flown under the radar.

Odder still is how these product announcements – which greatly impact the company’s mobile developer user base – have been handled so far. There’s been no mention of them on the TestFlight changelog, for example, no company blog post, no emails, and no mention of them on social media channels – that is, unless you count the replies to confused developers from @testflightapp, the company’s main Twitter account. Developers are being asked to reach out directly to the company via an email form instead of being given a more useful public reply.

Burstly has a history of keeping its deals quiet, though. The company had actually acquired TestFlight in Q4 2011, but kept the news under wraps until former TechCrunch writer MG Siegler broke the story on PandoDaily in March 2012.

Before buying TestFlight, Burstly raised $7.3 million from Upfront Ventures, Rincon Venture Partners, Softbank Capital and others in seed and Series A funding.

What’s interesting now is what Apple may have planned for the company and its engineers, who are already at Apple, we hear. By nature of Apple’s closed platform, where apps have to go through stringent reviews before being published to the App Store, the company has allowed for an ecosystem of third-party mobile app-testing platforms like TestFlight andHockeyApp to thrive.

Some developers have worked around Apple’s limitations by utilizing Apple’s enterprise app deployment platform to work with a larger base of testers. And more recently, Apple tried to address the testing problem by expanding the number of app promo codes from 50 to 100. The benefit here is that promo codes can be distributed to testers, like press and reviewers, before the app goes on sale for the general population.

Source: TechCrunch

GLOBAL MARKETS-Stocks climb; Yellen helps offset Ukraine worry Thursday, 27 February.

Stocks on world markets advanced on Thursday, reversing early declines as comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen offset concerns over tension in Ukraine and Russia.

Yellen signaled the central bank was likely to stay the course in its current plan to scale back its stimulus measures and said the Fed would be on alert to make sure recent signs of weakness in the U.S. economy are due to cold weather and storms, not signals of a more fundamental slowdown.

But advances were muted as a result of increased saber-rattling in the Ukraine, as armed men seized the parliament in Ukraine's Crimea region and raised the Russian flag, alarming Kiev's new rulers, who urged Moscow not to abuse its navy base rights on the peninsula by moving troops around. 

The White House warned Russia to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and told Moscow to avoid

"provocative" actions with regard to the crisis-hit country. 

The Russian ruble touched a five-year low against the dollar , while Ukraine's hryvnia fell to a record low after its central bank abandoned its managed exchange rate policy.

The geopolitical uncertainty caused investors to seek the safety of U.S. Treasuries , driving yields to two-week lows. The 10-year note was yielding 2.655 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> rose 72.41 points, or 0.45 percent, at 16,270.82. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.SPX> was up 8.49 points, or 0.46 percent, at 1,853.65. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 29.32 points, or 0.68 percent, at 4,321.39.

The MSCI world equity index <.MIWD00000PUS>, which tracks shares in 45 nations, gained 1.20 points, or 0.29 percent, to 407.16.

Yellen's testimony curbed declines in Europe, with the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.FTEU3>, closing down 0.2 percent after an earlier fall of 1 percent and the eurogained 0.2 percent to $1.371 after it dropped to a two-week low of $1.3641.

Aside from tensions in Ukraine, declines in Europe were stemmed by a downward revision to Spain's fourth-quarter gross domestic product and ECB data that showed little improvement in the amount of credit reaching euro-zone firms.

German inflation figures suggested there would be scant pick-up in euro-zone inflation, due on Friday.

The ECB meets next week and is under pressure to cut interest rates again and dip back into its unconventional policy cupboard to ensure the euro zone does not become mired in deflation.

In bond markets, the possibility that more moves are coming from the ECB and a strong debt auction in Italy helped lower-rated Italian and Spanish debt keep pace with safe-haven German Bunds.

Copper dropped to a three-month low below $7,000 a tonne, extending its losses over the past week on recent concerns about slower growth in China.

Gold prices edged up due to a steady dollar but remained well below the previous day's four-month high as buyers of coins, bars and jewelry in Asian markets held off in expectation of a further price drop. Spot gold advanced 0.1 percent $1,333.10 an ounce , off Wednesday's high of $1,345.35.

After recent falls, the yuan steadied for a second day, trading at 6.1279 per dollar , just off Wednesday's low of 6.1351. A bounce in Chinese shares helped Asian shares  gain 0.3 percent.

Dealers suspect the People's Bank of China has engineered the recent decline in the country's currency to inject more two-way volatility into the market and offset speculators who had bet on its continued rise.