Monday Newspaper Round-up

"David Cameron is planning to build on the huge popularity of the Royal Mail privatisation by prioritising retail investors for the sell-offs ahead of the general election in 2015. Attracting retail investors will be a key aim as the government prepares to complete the sales of Royal Mail and Lloyds Bank next year, according to people close to the situation, the Financial Times writes. 

Ministers are to subsidise a French company to build Britain's first nuclear power station in a generation, guaranteeing to pay twice the level of today's wholesale energy price. The decision, to be publicised today, will provoke a new row over rising energy bills, with gas and electricity suppliers expected to announce further price increases this week. Under a deal with French company EDF Energy, the Government will guarantee to pay £92.50 for each megawatt hour of electricity generated by the Hinkley Point plant for 35 years, according to The Times. 

The number of profit warnings issued by British companies in September has shot to its highest level since 2008, according to research released today by top accountant Ernst & Young (EY). The figure for September was a shock after a strong performance so far this year, in which the number of companies warning of lower-than-expected profits has fallen sharply, suggesting the economic recovery was well under way.
London's booming housing market is rising at an unsustainable rate, the UK's largest property website warned on Monday, with the average asking price of a home in the capital surging by more than £50,000 last month.
Rightmove said the average asking price in London rose to £544,232 in October from £493,748 the previous month - an increase of more than 10%, The Guardian explains". 

LiveCharts

European Union's fiscal rate deficit and public debt ratio 2012

Data from Eurostat, the European Union's (EU) official statistics office, showed that Spain closed 2012 with the EU's highest public sector deficit as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic production). 

It came in at 10.6% when international aid for the banking sector is included. 

Excluding international funds for the country's banks, the public deficit ratio was 6.9%, less than the 7% estimate seen in April but greater than the 6.5% target set out by the Spanish government.

Elsewhere in the EU, Germany registered a public surplus of 0.1% in 2012. The lowest deficits were those in Estonia, Sweden (0.2%), Luxembourg (0.6%), and Bulgaria (0.8%). 

As a whole the Eurozone's public sector deficit was 3.7% compared to 4.2% in the prior year. For the entire European Union, which includes countries that do not use the single currency, the public deficit was 4.4% in 2012, above the prior year's 3.9% mark.

Greece had the highest stock of debt, at 156.9%, followed by Italy (127%), Portugal (124.1%), and Ireland (117.4%). Spain's total debt increased to 86% in 2012 from 70.5% in 2011.

The Eurozone's public debt ratio was 90.6%. For the entire EU, public debt was 85.1%.

Source: LiveCharts

SHANGHAI AND TOKYO EQUITIES RISE ON POLICY-MAKERS' REMARKS

"Asian stocks were generally higher on Monday, benefiting from expectations for a less aggressive US Federal Reserve and supportive remarks from policy-makers in China and Japan. 

Shanghai's main equity benchmark rose 1.62% to the 2,229.24-point level after the government called for carrying out its economic plan in an "unrelenting" fashion. Beijing will seek to increase support for small businesses and look for new engines to drive consumption, the State Council announced on Sunday. 

Tokyo's Nikkei-225 ended the trading session 0.91% higher at 14,693.57 points. In its latest quarterly assessment of the economy the Bank of Japan (BOJ) upgraded its assessment of economic conditions in all of the country' nine regions - activity was described as "recovering" in eight of Japan's regions - referencing the improvements seen in employment, income and industrial production.

In parallel, the central bank's Governor, Haaruhiko Kuroda, stated that he still aims to achieve the monetary authority's 2% inflation target within two years.

US dollar/yen gained by 0.34% to 98.08 yen on the back of those remarks from Kuroda.

Japan's exports grew at an 11.5% clip year-on-year in September, coming in below the 15.6% median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Imports expanded at a 16.5% pace (consensus: 19.9%). 

The seasonally-adjusted trade deficit of 1,091.3bn Yen was smaller than forecast, but still the largest since statistics became available in October 2003, Nomura pointed out. 

China Mobile, the world's largest phone company when measured by the number of users, on Monday unveiled an 9% drop in net income, to well below the analyst consensus, as it invests in rolling out a 4G network in a bid to forestall losing further market share. 

Huishang Bank, a lender based in eastern China, is preparing a $1.5bn initial public offering in Hong Kong.

Suzuki Motor climbed by 2.4% after the Nikkei newspaper reported the vehicle manufacturer may report interim operating profits of 90bn Yen.

The Thai SET index was easily the worst performer in the region, dropping by 2.44% to 1,448.54 points".

J.P. Morgan Reaches Tentative Deal to Pay $13 Billion in Mortgage Securities Cases

  According to an article published in the Wall Street Journal "J.P. Morgan Chase reached a tentative deal this weekend to pay $13 billion to end a number of civil investigations into its sale of mortgage securities before the 2008 financial crisis, but a separate and potentially more serious criminal probe into the bank and its executives will continue".

"The Justice Department, convinced it has strong evidence related to the bank's conduct and eager to send a message to Wall Street, rebuffed repeated attempts by J.P. Morgan to settle the criminal investigation without admitting wrongdoing and agreed only to resolve the civil investigations. It also threatened last Thursday to file its civil case this coming Wednesday if the two sides can't reach a final deal,said people close to the talks.   

he proposed pact includes $4 billion to settle claims by the Federal Housing Finance Agency that J.P. Morgan misled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about the quality of the mortgage securities it sold them, another $4 billion in consumer relief, and $5 billion in penalties paid by the bank, according to people familiar with the deal. But the two sides remain apart on several issues related to the civil settlement, including whether the bank should have to admit that it didn't follow its own due-diligence standards in packaging the mortgages into securities it could sell, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The talks come as the bank faces an uphill battle in Washington. Once a favorite in the capital, J.P. Morgan now is grappling with a bruised reputation and fractured relationship with regulators in the wake of the "London whale" trading fiasco out of the bank's U.K. headquarters. The trades, which lost the bank $6.5 billion, transformed J.P. Morgan from an institution that seemingly could do no wrong to one under heavy and unyielding scrutiny".

GTA Online: Rockstar promises $500,000 in-game cash to each player

Rockstar has just the thing for gamers frustrated by the stuttering debut of its Grand Theft Auto Online mode: $500,000 of in-game cash. The company announced on its Newswire blog on Friday that the 'special stimulus package' would be dropped into the world perhaps as early as this week.

The cash injection will be provided to any purchaser of Grand Theft Auto V who has attempted to play the Online mode during October. Launched at the beginning of the month, the service has been plagued by technical problems, including disappearing player-characters, and unreliable server access. Many gamers have lost thousands of in-game dollars, during the opening weeks.

"In order to keep the current worldwide in-game economy balanced, we will be providing this GTA$ to players via two deposits of $250,000," explained Rockstar on its website. "We will announce specific dates as soon as possible, but are currently hoping to be able to make the first deposit by the end of next week (after we've confirmed that issues causing game progress loss have been fixed) with the second installment to happen by the end of the month. 

"There has been controversy over Rockstar's decision to include microtransactions in the Online mode, allowing participants to pay real money for packages of in-game cash. The company insists it has balanced the experience to allow players to quickly earn money through in-game activities such as missions and car thefts. This stimulus package will at least allow microtransaction-adverse players to quickly access some of the upper end purchases, such as apartments and multi-car garages (although players will still have to rank up to unlock fancy-pants guns and vehicle upgrades)".

Source: theguardian

Russia doing more Energy Deals with Asia. Big deal with China.

  The Wall Street Journal reports that "Russia and China's largest energy companies on Friday announced a "breakthrough" deal paving the way for joint development of massive energy reserves in eastern Siberia, in a sign that Moscow is overcoming its fear of Chinese encroachment on Russia's Far East". 

"Their preliminary agreement illustrates how Moscow is increasingly looking to Asia for customers for its abundant energy reserves, and for funding to develop them. Russia's needs tie in with expected long-term demand growth in oil and gas-deficient China and elsewhere in East and South Asia, and slowing energy consumption in many industrialized nations.

Russian state oil giant OAO Rosneft and China National Petroleum Corp. said that under a Memorandum of Understanding signed during Rosneft President Igor Sechin's trip to Beijing on Thursday they would explore for, and produce oil and gas in eastern Siberia".

Rosneft and CNPC would form a joint venture, the companies said Friday in separate statements, with Rosneft taking 51% and CNPC holding the rest.

They plan to develop an oil field that Rosneft gained full control of this week by consolidating 100% of the Taas-Yuryakh oil firm, Rosneft said. CNPC said that the two would also collaborate closely to develop several large-scale oil and gas fields.

"The oil produced will be used to meet the energy demand in eastern Russia and then exported to China and other Asia-Pacific countries through the Russia-China crude pipeline," CNPC said

Japan to down intruding foreign drones if warnings ignored

Japan plans to shoot down foreign drones that intrude into Japanese airspace if warnings for them to leave are ignored, a source close to the government said Sunday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued his approval on Oct. 11 when Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera briefed him on the plan, the source said.The Defense Ministry has drawn up the plan as a Chinese military drone intruded into Japan's air defense identification zone on Sept. 9, approaching the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

Source: NewsOnJapan

Abe: Cabinet upholds historic view of predecessors

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says his cabinet upholds a view of history passed on from past cabinets.

Abe was referring to the view that Japan in the past caused tremendous damage and suffering particularly to people of other Asian nations.He was responding to a question by the leader of a junior coalition party in the Upper House on Friday.
In 1995, then-prime minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a statement expressing deep remorse and heartfelt apology for Japan's colonial rule and aggression in Asia. The statement has been upheld by successive cabinets

Watch Japan's debt growth

We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the world is not going to come to an end as a result of a default by the US government. Well, for now, anyway. But this does not mean that debt problems have gone away. Indeed, across the Pacific a serious debt problem is still building in Japan.

Whereas the US debt crisis has been triggered by a disagreement between Democrats and Republicans over the role of the state in the economy and society, and specifically over "Obamacare", Japan's debt problem is a slow burner.

As a share of GDP, government debt has been growing since the early 1990s. This is the result of the long-running weakness of economic growth, repeated fiscal stimulus packages and a long period in which the overall price level has stagnated or fallen. Japan has managed to muddle through, but it now looks as though it is close to a tipping point. The scale of the problem is staggering. Japan's net government debt is about 140pc of GDP. This is way ahead of the US, which is on 87pc, and not that far below Greece. What's more, it is easy to see the ratio increasing further. The IMF expects net debt to rise to 148pc of GDP over the next five years. In fact, if the economy performs badly, inflation remains low or borrowing costs rise, debt could easily follow an explosive path, with the ratio quickly rising towards 300pc of GDP.

Source:Telegraph.co.uk

            NewsOnJapan

Japan: 1st copyright case against foreign web company

Court proceedings between 7 Japanese firms and the US-based web-hosting company FC2 began at the Tokyo District Court earlier this month.

It is the first court case over intellectual property rights against a foreign web-hosting company since the relevant Japanese law was revised last year.Under an amendment to the Japanese Code of Civil Procedure, anyone in Japan can now sue foreign-based firms if those entities show films or TV footage on Internet sites in Japan without authorization from the Japanese copyright holders.
The Japanese firms, including film production companies, said they did not grant FC2 approval to post their footage on its website. They are seeking about 65 million yen, or 670,000 dollars, in compensation for the 35 videos posted by FC2.

Source: NewsOnJapan

760 million yen stolen via online transfers in Japan this year

The amount of money stolen from Internet banking accounts in Japan totaled some 760 million yen from the beginning of the year through Tuesday, the National Police Agency said Friday.

The amount is already more than twice the full-year record high of 308 million yen marked in 2011.

The money was secretly transferred after login credentials were stolen from customers' personal computers infected with viruses, according to the police.

Source: NewsOnJapan

Afghanistan marks 12th anniversary of U.S.-led military offensive against Taliban

Exactly 12 years ago on Oct. 7, 2001, the U.S.-led military coalition forces invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime that harbored Osama Bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the deadly 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Branding the Taliban and al-Qaida network as terrorist groups, the U.S.-led military offensive, using massive air, land and sea assets, easily drove the Taliban from Kabul and other cities that they controlled.

Because of its brutal rule, most Afghans welcomed the collapse of the Taliban and the emergence of an American-backed regime. 

With the ouster of the Taliban regime, the decades-long isolation of the country was over and there was a feeling of hope among Afghans for a brighter future.

But this feeling of exuberance was short-lived as the Taliban and other insurgents have resurfaced and threatened the peace and stability of the country with stepped-up suicide bombings and frontal attacks against government facilities killing security forces and civilians alike.

In a strange twist of events, the United States, instead of pressing for a military solution to the continued violence caused by the Taliban, is now urging the Kabul government to negotiate with the armed group.

On its own, the Karzai government created a 70-member peace body called the High Peace Council in 2010 to initiate contacts with the Taliban and other anti-government forces to convince them to give up fighting and give the peace process a chance to succeed.

But the Taliban has vowed not to talk with the Karzai government as long as there are foreign troops in the country.

China's Navy begins West Pacific exercise

 The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has started a combat drill in the open sea of the West Pacific Ocean, according to the Saturday edition of the PLA Daily.

The exercise, which began Friday and will last until the beginning of November, is expected to improve high sea combat abilities and hone strategies for utilizing information technologies, the newspaper reported.

The country's three fleets -- North China Sea Fleet, East China Sea Fleet and South China Sea Fleet - will join the drill.

It will drive training for the armed forces of China's fleets, submarines, planes and shore missiles.

The PLA Navy said the drill is in line with international laws and practices.

China urges implementation of reform, restructuring measures

"According to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang on Friday.

Facing complicated economic situations, the State Council has introduced various measures, such as to streamline administration and delegate powers to lower levels, to facilitate trade and investment and to free interest rates, while not expanding deficits, not loosening or tightening money supply, said the statement.

The meeting studied problems in the implementation of the policies, saying that the foundation for economic rebound is not stable yet, deep conflicts are still outstanding and more risks and challenges will exist in future development.

More work should be done to promote reforms and restructuring, and the measures that have been mapped out should be carried out fully, so as to constantly release reform dividends and lay a solid foundation for the economy to stabilize and grow, the statement said.

The statement asked local governments and various departments to map out accessory measures directed against vulnerable links in carrying out the policies,check the implementation of the reform and restructuring policies, while the State Council will organize inspections".

"China's overall economy is running well, but the foundation is instable, especially its endogenous economic growth capacity is weak", said Zhang Liqun, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council.

"The economic rebound in the third quarter is closely related with a series of policies introduced by the government this year, including stabilizing growth, restructuring and promoting reforms", said Wang Jinbin, a professor of economics at Renmin University.

"But investment, not consumption, still served as the top drive for economic growth, and thus tasks will be daunting for future restructuring and reforms", said Lian Ping, chief economist at the Bank of Communications.

Source: Xinhua

Nuclear power station at Hinkley gets go-ahead as coalition signs off EDF deal

Britain is to embark on building its first nuclear power station for two decades on Monday as the coalition hands a multibillion subsidy to France's EDF with help from a state-owned Chinese firm.

The new reactors, which will cost £14bn, are due to start operating in 2023 if constructed on time and will run for 35 years. They will be capable of producing 7% of the UK's electricity – equivalent to the amount used by 7m homes.

After months of delay, the news came as the coalition has come under intense pressure over rising electricity bills. British Gas and SSE have both announced price rises for customers of close to 10% and Ed Miliband's promise to freeze energy bills has struck a chord with voters. There are expected to be further rises announced by the big six energy companies this week.

Source: theguardian

Germany: Social Democrats (SPD) won a green light to start coalition talks with Angela Merkel

" Leaders of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) won a green light from their party to start coalition talks with Angela Merkel on Sunday, after promising to wring concessions from the chancellor on a minimum wage, equal pay and infrastructure investment".

"Discussions between Merkel and the centre-left SPD on forming a new government can now begin on Wednesday, a month after an election saw her conservatives emerge as the biggest political force but needing a partner to form a majority.

The SPD's willingness to enter talks comes at a price. The party listed 10 demands it called "non-negotiable", including a minimum wage of 8.50 euros per hour, equal pay for men and women, greater investment in infrastructure and education, and a common strategy to boost euro zone growth.

Germany's leading economic institutes warned on Thursday that the introduction of a minimum wage could lead to significant job losses in eastern Germany, where a quarter of workers earn less than the proposed new amount".

Source: Reuters

Brazil:Governo já venceu 18 ações que tentavam impedir leilão do pré-sal

O monitoramento feito pelo governo sobre ações judiciais para impedir o leilão do campo de petróleo de Libra identificou duas novas decisões favoráveis à realização da concorrência, levando a 18 o número total.

De acordo com a AGU (Advocacia-Geral da União), até o início da noite deste domingo, ainda aguardam julgamento seis ações na Justiça, todas apresentadas por entidades que pedem a suspensão do leilão.

Como ações foram apresentadas no Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Distrito Federal, Pernambuco, Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul e na Bahia, a AGU computa como decisão favorável não só aquela em que o juiz nega o pedido de suspensão do leilão, mas também nos casos em que a decisão é de se remeter os autos para o Rio, onde o primeiro processo contra a concorrência foi apresentado e negado pela Justiça.

Neste domingo (20), o ministro de Minas e Energia, Edison Lobão, reafirmou mais uma vez que o leilão acontecerá mesmo que tenha apenas um consórcio.

Lobão chegou por volta das 17h30 no Hotel Windsor Barra, onde será realizada a disputa amanhã. Estava acompanhado do secretário executivo de petróleo gás do ministério, Marco Antônio Almeida, e foi recebido pela diretora-geral da ANP (Agência Nacional de Petróleo), Magda Chambriard.

Fohla de São Paulo

China: Official Data Undestimates its Consumption rate (Will continue)

 China's transition to consumption-led growth maybe more advanced than previously thought,because
some analysts are already saying that China miscalculates its consumption data.
 We can find often coverage in western press of the building of ghost cities,redundant investments in
certain industries,building of roads well in advance of present needs,etc
 China's high savings rate is the other side of the equation,for the high investment rate that this economy
has.
   It is widely believed that China's consumption rate is too low,and that the country's rapid growth has been led by investments and exports.
  Jun Zhang and Tian Zhu* argue that official data underestimates China's household consumption. The true consumption rate is 10% higher than the official.
 First, housing consumption is grossly underestimated due to the construction cost-based method.
   Second, a lot of private consumption is paid for by companies but can’t be accounted for in
official statistics. Third, and most important,high-income households are significantly
underrepresented  in the household surveys upon which household consumption statistics are based. Our re-estimation suggests that the rate of China’s consumption is more than 60% of GDP, considerably higher than the official 48-49% of GDP.

"Before proceeding, we first distinguish between two types of household consumption expenditure in China.
The first one ,which we will call the explicit expenditures are the value of goods and services that are either bought,or in the case of  rural households,produced by households,or provided by employers(in-kind consumption). The second type,which maybe called implicit expenditure,includes imputed rents(for owner  occupied housing),costs of financial services and health insurance and public and employer-paid healthcare expenditure.
  China's household consumption is estimated primarily from urban and rural household income/expenditure survey data,which as formerly mentioned,only measures explicit expenditures".

*Re-estimating China's Underestimated Consumption    Jung Zhang and Tian Zhu
  David Pilling. Asia Editor of the Financial  Times
 

U.K. Interest rates could go up to a certain point,before hitting borrowers

The Bank of England has some leeway to raise record low interest rates without hitting borrowers buying homes with the help of government lending schemes, BoE policymaker Ben Broadbent said on Sunday.

The government launched a flagship loan guarantee plan earlier this month to help people buy houses, prompting criticism it could fuel a property bubble and burden buyers with unsustainable debt once rates return to normal levels.

Asked on Sky News whether he worried how borrowers will cope with higher rates, Broadbent said: "The numbers entering the scheme are relatively low. And although interest rates will at some point start to rise, you've got to remember quite how low a level we are starting from.

"I think there is a fair amount they could go up before borrowers got into great difficulties."

The central bank has kept interest rates at a record low of 0.5 percent since 2009 and has pumped 375 billion pounds ($600 billion) of new money into the economy since the financial crisis.

A cross-party committee of lawmakers has warned that the government housing schemes risk raising prices rather than supply.

In August the central bank committed to keeping rates on hold until unemployment falls to 7 percent - something it forecast would take at least three years - unless inflation threatens to get out of control.

Broadbent said that guidance could be reconsidered if inflation becomes a problem, although the central bank would only raise rates once the economy is on a secure footing.

Source: Reuters

Brasil: Um avanço pífio em ranking global de incentivo a negócios

"O Brasil apresentou, nos últimos oito anos, um avanço pífio em direção ao que o Banco Mundial classifica como a fronteira de excelência para a realização de negócios.

Evoluiu apenas 0,5 ponto percentual, para 47,5 (em uma escala de 0 a 100) em direção ao patamar regulatório e institucional considerado o melhor existente, segundo indicadores que usam dados de 174 nações, desde 2005".

"O país patina entre as 20 nações com menor avanço nessa medida, chamada de "distância até a fronteira". Ela passou a ser calculada pelo Banco Mundial como complemento ao ranking do relatório "Doing Business".

Os países que mais têm se destacado são chamados de "top reformers" (principais reformadores). A Geórgia, que teve o maior progresso de 2005 a 2012, evoluiu 31,5 pontos percentuais; a Colômbia, melhor entre os latino-americanos, avançou 15,3 pontos.

O desempenho dos "top reformers" é creditado a reformas para tornar o ambiente de negócios mais rápido, prático e previsível.

O forte aumento da renda per capita da Coreia é, por exemplo, creditado em grande parte a um salto educacional. No início da década de 50, o PIB per capita da Coreia era 12% menor do que o do Brasil. Em 2010, já era aproximadamente o triplo (as medidas são ponderadas pelo poder de compra).

"O queda em o ranking é creditado a desaceleração da economia do Brasil nos últimos anos é relacionada à falta de reformas para reduzir a burocracia e melhorar a educação e a infraestrutura.

O Banco Mundial registrou progressos recentes feitos pelo país, como a maior sincronização eletrônica entre as autoridades tributárias federais e estaduais e a criação do cadastro de crédito positivo. Mas outras nações têm avançado em ritmo mais rápido".

Fohla de São Paulo

China's Growth rate of Q3 suggests annual target growth of 7.5% will be met

China's Q3 GDP growth was 7.8% Y/Y. The number was in line with expectations and didn’t impact markets. Industrial output rose 10.2% compared with a year ago, while retail sales grew 13.3%; both measures were in line with analysts’ expectations.

The result suggests the economy is on target to meet the government’s annual growth target of 7.5%, and ease concerns about a hard landing, but economists are watching for progress in Beijing’s efforts to rebalance the economy,to making it a consumer-led growth economy. And there, the signs are not encouraging. Growth was driven last quarter by government investment in infrastructure , the delayed effects of a lending surge to non-residential accounts at the start of the year, and a small improvement in exports. National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Sheng Laiyun said consumption in the first nine months of the year made up 45.9% of growth while investment contributed 55.8%. (Exports were a 1.7% drag.) The investment ratio is still very high and the rebalancing will take time.

Source: WSJ

Alibaba moves to Finance, making alliances with China Minsheng Bank and buying 51% Tianhong Asset Management

When Jack Ma, founder and chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, vowed in 2008 to change the banking industry, the public was just beginning to understand his idea of a Net-based financial ecosystem.

Now the firm is offering small loans, securities investments and payment services. It has also ventured into insurance by co-founding a company to sell policies and settle claims online.

Few would argue that even the large banks have felt pressure to broaden and improve their services. Privately, many bankers and analysts say that the only barrier to Alibaba becoming a real bank is a license.

The alternative that Alibaba is developing allows customers to prepay sellers for their purchases at a discount, sparing the latter the need to borrow from banks and hold inventories for a long time, the executive said. The customer-to-business (C2B) mechanism has gained ground on Alibaba's popular e-commerce websites Taobao.com and Tmall.com.

As in other services available on Alibaba's platform, data mining is all that matters in terms of discovering business opportunities and controlling risks, the executive said.

The emphasis on data has also played an important role in Alibaba's recently announced cooperation with China Minsheng Bank. The two signed a cooperation agreement in September, saying that they will jointly explore areas including wealth management, direct banking and credit card services.

A report by Haitong Securities says Alibaba is easing into the banking sector through such cooperative deals in which it provides the partner financial institution customers and distribution channels in return for financing and risk management expertise.

Some bankers argue that the threat from Alibaba to the banking industry has been overplayed. Their confidence stems partly from the belief that cooperation alone does not teach banking. More importantly, many doubt that what made Alibaba's financial services successful online work equally effectively in the real world.

"Both of the company's strength and weakness lies in its platform," an investment analyst familiar with Alibaba said. However extensive the company's financial services can be, they are limited to the e-commerce platform because outside the system it has gathered little data to help evaluate borrowers' creditworthiness and make lending decisions.

Minsheng's Lin said he is not worried about Alibaba getting a banking license either because with the license it will have to comply with tougher requirements on capital and liquidity that will make expansion in the real world much harder than online. Cooperating with Minsheng, on the other hand, will benefit both sides because they can jointly provide better services to more people, he said.

Some critics have wondered whether Alibaba is strong enough to compete against banks even online. Its investment service, Yu E Bao, may have rapidly soared to fame thanks to Alibaba's huge client base – in less than two months after it was launched in June, users have put more than 20 billion yuan in their accounts – but there are reasons to doubt the success will last.

One of them is Alibaba's inability as a non-financial institution to borrow funds from the central bank and the interbank market to smooth out liquidity fluctuations in Yu E Bao investments.

The ease with which people can transfer money between their Yu E Bao and bank accounts has also been criticized. Some say it misleads investors by not warning them enough about investment risk.

Some have suggested that Alibaba's success in financial business owes in part to regulatory gaps. For example, unlike financial institutions including banks, the securities regulator does not send inspectors to Alibaba for on-site assessment regarding its operations related to securities investment.

But this is about to change. Alibaba's domestically incorporated subsidiary, Zhejiang Alibaba E-commerce Co., has proposed spending 1.18 billion yuan acquiring 51 percent of Yu E Bao's manager Tianhong Asset Management. If the deal succeeds, as the majority shareholder of a fund company, Alibaba will face the same requirements as applied to financial institutions.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has never allowed a non-financial institution to hold the majority stake in a fund management company. But the new Securities Investment Funds Law, effective June 1, says a controlling shareholder can be any company with good financial operations record.

Source: Caijing

China:"Long-lasting Housing Mechanism" to Surface in Nov.’s Third Plenum

The Chinese government is expected to announce a "long-lasting housing mechanism" due in November at a key gathering of party members, according to media reports.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rual Development has already finalized opinions ready to submit to the central policy-decision organ, the official said.

Property magnates were also included in the round of opinion-solicitation, according to the 21st Century Business Economic Herald. Ren Zhiqiang, chairman of Hua Yuan Real Estate Group, reportedly said big changes had been made several times before the final draft came out. 

Despite the absence of official leak-out, Hu Jinghui, Vice President of BACIC-515 Property Agency, told AAstock that there was a basic market standing about where the polices would go. The "long-lasting mechanism" will mainly involve rural lands coming to market, legal moves in social security homes and the extension of a property tax, among others, Hu said.

A second source close to the MHURD said that new property moves would be related to policies in direct property financing, land supply system, and the construction of social security houses.

The extension of the property tax, which has been enacted only in Shanghai and Chongqing so far, is expected to be at the center of policy discussions, the report said.

Chances are "very big" for the expansion of the tax, said Zhao Luxing, a director of the policy research center of the MUHRD, said in an earlier interview with AASTOCKS.

According to Hu, the property will be extended in both "width and depth". The expansion of the tax to more cities seems inevitable, he said; but the possibility of a "dilatation" of the tax is great.

Hu expected that the current rise of housing prices could be somehow curbed under the new mechanism. The government may also change its perception in housing controls, like a shift from dampening demand to increasing housing supplies, he added.

China has put in places many measures to control the sizzling sector in recent years, but they don't seem to have delivered much effect. Chinese home prices rose for the 16th consecutive month in September, with a monthly increase of 1.07 percent in 100 cities, according to data from the China Index of Academy. In the same month,land salEs in ten of China's major cities hit a 33-month high, statistics from real estate company E-House showed.

Source: Caijing

An Unthankful US Deal

Instead of defusing the time bomb of a historic debt default, the United States has come up with a last-gasp deal to only fund its government until Jan 15 and raise the debt ceiling until Feb 7.

This might be the best what US politicians could provide at the moment. But it is certainly not what is aspired for by millions of Americans who have suffered because of the political debacle and many foreign debt-holders who are worried about the safety of their US investment

US President Barack Obama was right to say that US leaders needed to "earn back" the trust of the American people in the aftermath of the crisis. Yet no less urgent is the task of the world's largest economy to restore its reputation as an economic safe haven.

If concerns that crisis-driven politics has become the "new normal" in Washington cannot be immediately addressed, there is little chance for the US economy to emerge out of the great financial crisis that the Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy triggered five years ago.

The Congress deal on Wednesday offers a temporary fix to pull the US economy from the brink of a catastrophic debt default that could have devastated the global economy. The deal, in all fairness, fails to address the root cause of the US' long-term fiscal troubles.

Washington's political dysfunction is the apparent reason why international investors doubt its ability to honor its signature. It is the fast-growing debt that has been eroding global confidence in the US government's capability and commitment to do so. Even its unprecedented, massive monetary stimulus program has pressed down borrowing costs for long.

The stopgap plan has also set up a forum of US politicians to negotiate a more permanent budget deal while leaving open the possibility of another bitter budget fight and another government shutdown early next year.

Source: Caijing

Beijing to Unveil New Policies to Shore up Foreign Trade

The Ministry of Foreign Trade remains optimist about this year's foreign trade outkook despite the negative growth reported in exports last month, the spokesperson said Thursday at a press conference.

The Chinese government is going to introduce more supportive policies to shore up the country's foreign trade which is slowing down amid depressing demands from emerging markets.

China has unveiled a couple of favorable policies since July to help Chinese trade companies ease pressures of rising costs and improving efficiency, said Shen Danyang, spokesperson with the Ministry of Commerce.

A plan to promote cross-border e-commerce has just been released, he said.

More supporting efforts are on the way, according to Shen, including a comprehensive supporting package as well as measures to upgrade the industry's growth momentum.

The ministry remained upbeat about this year's foreign trade outlook despite the negative growth reported in exports last month, the spokesperson said Thursday at a press conference.

Shen was confident in completing 2013's target of an 8 percent year-on-year growth as well as a trade "transformation".

China's exports fell 0.3 percent in September from a year ago, compared with a 7.2 percent year-on-year growth in August. Imports, by contrast, grew by 7.4 percent.

He expected imports to continue growing strongly in the following months.

China still faces challenges in as international environment stays complicated with growths of emerging markets slowing down, currencies plunging and inflations climbing. 

Source: Caijing