October 04, 2010
China Saves Greece
Chinese PM Wen Jiabao is touring the EU on feel good missions to assure China's support for the region's economies and currency. Wen will attend an East-West Summit in Brussels and meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Over the weekend in Greece Wen announced that Beijing would buy Greece's debt in a confidence bid on Greek turnaround. One commentator sees opportunity with recent Greek programs to push solar power. As regular readers know China is developing container terminals and greatly expanding the port at Piraeus in a larger shipping and logistics strategy. You can read my 2008 report on it here....
Labels: euro, foreign investment, foreign relations, shipping
September 28, 2010
China Buys a Slice of Hollywood
Orange Sky Golden Harvest Entertainment Holdings, the year old merger of famed Hong Kong movie studio Golden Harvest and Orange Sky Holdings of Beijing, will buy a 3.3% stake of Legendary Pictures of Burbank, California. Legendary will get $25 million and the Chinese will get to appoint a Board member. Legendary Pictures has a "strategic partnership" with famous American movie studio Warner Brothers and co-produced this year's summer smash "Inception" and previous hits such as "The Dark Knight."
The two companies will work on Chinese language films, online games, and film distribution in China. American movies are hugely popular in China and last year's WTO ruling may help pry open the door to a big market for a uniquely American product....
Labels: foreign investment, free trade
September 24, 2010
Will China Takeover Gwadar Port?
According to Reuters Pakistan admiral Noman Bashir, head of Pakistan's Navy, told reporters at a televised news briefing that Pakistan should review the multi-decade contract for Gwadar Port's operations awarded to state-owned PSA International of Singapore. The report says Pakistan is frustrated that the port is largely unused but makes no mention of Gwadar's security problem. Between nativist demands that the port be handed over to Baluchistan tribal leaders, attacks from insurgents perhaps backed by India or even the USA, and the withdrawal of Chinese investment cash it is not a surprise that Gwadar has failed to take off as a new Karachi. If China is put in direct control of the port expect plenty of opposition from Indian and American interests....
Labels: foreign investment, foreign relations, pakistan, shipping
September 22, 2010
China to Invest over $1 billion in Ghana Mining
Bosai Minerals Group, a privately held mining conglomerate out of Chongqing will jointly invest $1.2 billion (US dollars) to build a power plant and upgrade bauxite mines at Awaso bought last year from Rio-Tinto-Alcan. The investment will come from Bosai, the China-Africa Fund, and the government of Ghana. Bosai will control 80% and aims to produce 2 million tons of bauxite per year by 2014...
Labels: africa, foreign investment, foreign relations, free trade
September 20, 2010
China to Build Car Plants in Philippines
Chinese vehicle makers JAC Motors, Chongqing Astronautic Bashan, and Great Wall Motors Company are planning separate investments in the Philippines to build assembly plants for Chinese trucks and passenger cars. JAC Motors based in Anhui has been exporting vehicles since 1990 and is China's number 1 exporter of light trucks. JAC has an extensive dealership network around the world but so far is kept out of first world markets. This year may be a record for car sales in the Philippines where local production is dominated by Japanese carmakers particularly Toyota. Chinese firms are hoping to carve out market share despite the Philippines's relatively high labor costs and notoriously fickle energy grid...
Labels: chinese autos, exports, foreign investment, foreign trade
September 17, 2010
Swiss Watchmaker Sees No Limit to Luxury Sales in China
Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of luxury Swiss watchmaker Hublot Geneve, says he sees "no limit" to the growth of luxury brands in China. Unlike in America and to a lesser extent Europe where the wealthy might wear "rubbish" on their wrists, Biver said in China expensive watches are sought after status symbols.
Hublot plans to open 15 new stores in Asia most of them in China where the company first opened a store in Shanghai last year. According to a report the average wealthy Chinese owns more than 4 luxury watches....
Hublot plans to open 15 new stores in Asia most of them in China where the company first opened a store in Shanghai last year. According to a report the average wealthy Chinese owns more than 4 luxury watches....
Labels: foreign investment, foreign trade
September 14, 2010
Lawson to Open Nearly 100 Stores in Chongqing
Japan's second biggest convenience store operator Lawson plans to open another 130 stores in China by end 2011 - 97 of them in Chongqing alone (the remainder in Shanghai). Lawson is a poster child of multinationalism starting as an outlet for an Ohio dairy farmer, being known for decades as Dairy Mart, Circle K, and owned by American, Canadian, and Japanese conglomerates. Lawson is making a big push into Chongqing municipality -- China's fastest growing big urban market...
Labels: foreign investment, foreign trade, japan, spending
April 12, 2010
China Wants Canada's Oil Sands
Reuters reports that Chinese oil major Sinopec will buy ConocoPhillips's stake in Syncrude Canada, the world's largest oil sands project located in Manitoba. The deal is worth just under $5 billion (US dollars) and would give Sinopec nearly 10% of the project that currently produces 350,000 barrels per day. Sinopec already owns a 10% stake in French major Total's Canadian oil sands venture Northern Lights....
Labels: energy security, foreign investment, oil, peak oil
April 08, 2010
China Wants Canada's Nickel
Chinese mining and metallurgical conglomerate Jinchuan Group Ltd. wants to acquire Crowflight Minerals Mining Company of western Canada. Jinchuan is offering just under $150 million (US dollars) for Crowflight, a hefty premium on its Toronto listed shares. Crowflight operates nickel mines in Manitoba. Nickel is at two year highs over $24,000 per ton mostly on Chinese demand. Two thirds of nickel demand is driven by the stainless steel industries. Jinchuan Group began in 1958 with the development of nickel mining at a huge deposit in the Hexi corridor of Gansu Province in western China. Some observors believe Jinchuan's acquistion may signal a new push by China to acquire more of Canada's mineral resources....
Labels: foreign investment, foreign relations
April 06, 2010
Boao Forum 2010 Signals Alternative Energy Push
The Boao Forum for Asia begins this week and lasts through the weekend at a luxury hotel on the coast of tropical Hainan Island. The annual gathering of business and political elites is often called the "Chinese Davos" which is odd since there is already a Chinese meeting of the World Economic Forum called the Annual Meeting of the New Champions held the past 3 years in Dalian or Tianjin.
This year's Boao focuses on "Green Recovery" with confabs on sustainability, low carbon objectives, all clues to where investment focus is going. Former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson will be on a capital markets panel. There will be discussions on protectionism, consumption in Asia, hot real estate prices with SOHO Chairman Pan Shiyi, China-India Cooperation, the China-Taiwan Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, and "unleashing the power of the private sector."
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping will deliver a keynote address and be joined by current politicos Robert Hormats, US Under Secretary of State, Singapore Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong, the Prime Minister of Denmark, Taiwan government officials, and many others.
Business leaders include executives from many American firms including PepsiCo, Harbinger Capital, Goldman Sachs, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley (of course), the Chicago Board Options Exchange, Nielsen, Prudential, and so on. The activities of the Boao Forum challenges the line of mainstream media that China is "closing for business...."
Labels: alternative energy, foreign investment, foreign relations, morgan stanley, reunification, taiwan
March 26, 2010
Maryland Biofuels Gets Chinese Investment
Milestone Biofuels will be the name of a new venture between New Generation Biofuels (NASDAQ:NGBF) of Columbia, Maryland, and Chinese partner Regent Trend Investment (formerly Great Full Group Holdings) who will supply $20 million (US dollars) for the joint venture to produce 250 million gallons of biofuels a year in the USA....
Labels: alternative energy, clean tech, foreign investment, foreign relations
Dell Computer Plans Billion$ in China Investment
Dell Computer says it expects to reach $5 billion (US dollars) in Chinese sales this year and plans to invest $25 billion in China. Dell's sales in China are growing at high double digits and China is the company's largest market after the USA. Dell has a partnership with the Postal Saving Bank of China that allows Chinese customers to wire payments to Dell for free via 45,000 postal offices around China thereby serving markets in lower tier cities and even rural areas....
Labels: foreign investment, foreign trade, free trade
March 24, 2010
Much Ado About Google
Ten flower bouquets were pretentiously laid outside Google's headquarters in Beijing one per each million or so residents of the Chinese capital. The flowers are an apt metaphor for Google's market share in China. At the insistence of co-founder Sergey Brin Google is quitting China and wants a messy exit to hide its inability to build successful brand and business in the world's number 1 Internet and cell phone market. This move will mark the end of Google's seemingly unstoppable trajectory. Like Yahoo!, Ebay, and other web businesses before it Google will discover that while the USA may have created the Internet and still runs much of it (backbone, ICANN, etc.) it does not control it nor have a monopoly on its commercial applications.
Google cannot remain viable just delivering ads to eyeballs based on an outdated Internet business model. The future is in smartphones and new devices linking people directly to video, music, texts, independent of search engines. Even websites (god forbid!) are endangered.
Sergey Brin is a hypocrite. Google censors all over the world at the pleasure of governments from Germany to the USA targeting sex offenders, neo-Nazis, wannabe terrorists or "dissidents" that want to overthrow their own governments.
Mainstream media genuflects for Google with story after story about Google's brave stand not once revealing the fact that Google has three current executive employees in White House positions or that Google was the Obama campaign's number 3 contributer. The editiorial line shared by Anglo-American newspaper and media giants (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, London tabloids, etc.) says China is becoming "isolationist" and that the business world is abandoning China. This is deliberate misinformation and complete nonsense.
Just this week the Chairmans, Presidents, or senior executives of the following companies were all in Beijing: Caterpillar, Morgan Stanley, Bosch, Nomura, Nokia, Unilever, Bombardier, JP Morgan/Chase, Novartis, Sybase, Ford, ADB, McKinsey & Co., Michelin, Toshiba, Royal Dutch/Shell, Danone, Dupont, Amway, Total, Rio Tinto, BP, Dow Chemical. And that was at just one meeting....
See my earlier post "Google Hijacks US China Policy."
[Disclaimer: the author owns shares of Google via a mutual fund.]
Labels: business news, foreign investment, hypocrisy, hypocrite
March 23, 2010
Chinese Mega Resort May Transform Bahamas
Boosters in the Bahamas say a multi-billion (US) dollar deal between Armenian tycoon Sarkis Izmirlian and the Export-Import Bank of China to build the Baha Mar resort complex is moving forward and will revive Bahamian tourism. Hopes are Baha Mar will lure Chinese tourists and bring new focus to Nassau. An agreement was signed earlier this month in Beijing with China State Construction Engineering Corp. to begin building on Cable Beach. Baha Mar will feature a Jack Nicklaus golf course, casinos, and hotels, condos, and spas under brands W, St. Regis, Westin, among others....
Labels: foreign investment, foreign relations, tourism
March 15, 2010
Chinese Firm Funds Botswana Energy Complex
The Mmamabula Energy Complex at the Mmamabula Coal Field in southeastern Botswana is an important independent power project for southern Africa. Development is led by CIC Energy Corp., a Toronto exchange listed company with headquarters in the Bahamas and operations in South Africa. Today it was announced that Golden Concord Holdings Ltd., a Chinese conglomerate, will take a 70% stake in the Mmamabula project and build and run a 300 MW power plant. Golden Concord Chairman Zhu Gong Shan said the investment was an excellent way to establish his company's opportunities in southern Africa. Zhu mentioned that the Botswana government was aware of the deal. A contract for the power plant was originally signed by CIC Energy last year with Shanghai Electric Group....
Labels: africa, energy security, foreign investment, foreign relations
March 11, 2010
China Offshores Wind Turbine Jobs to Nevada
Anti-China blowhard Senator (D-NY) Chuck Schumer's gambit may have paid off for Nevada. Schumer was close to derailing a giant wind farm in Texas planned by US Renewable Energy Group (US REG) and A-Power Energy Generation of China by thwarting currently available federal subsidies (tax credits) because the wind turbines would be manufactured at A-Power's plant in Shenyang, Liaoning Province. Today US Reg announced the joint venture will build a manufacturing plant in Nevada potentially employing 1,000 Americans to build and assemble the wind turbines. The location and details of the plant are not revealed at this time. A-Power shares (NASDAQ:APWR) are up over 8% today. US-REG is a private equity venture.
Schumer's opposition to the original deal was purely political grandstanding in an election year. Fact is American multinational GE will supply the massive gearboxes to A-Power and eventually build a manufacturing center to supply not only A-Power but China and all of Asia. A-Power's wind turbines are built under license from Fhurlander AG of Germany, a leader in wind energy technology. The Texas wind farm demonstrates the benefits and complexity of globalization. You can read my post on the original deal here....
Schumer's opposition to the original deal was purely political grandstanding in an election year. Fact is American multinational GE will supply the massive gearboxes to A-Power and eventually build a manufacturing center to supply not only A-Power but China and all of Asia. A-Power's wind turbines are built under license from Fhurlander AG of Germany, a leader in wind energy technology. The Texas wind farm demonstrates the benefits and complexity of globalization. You can read my post on the original deal here....
Labels: alternative energy, foreign investment
Will Geely Offshore Volvo?
According to Paul Tan's Automotive News Geely has secured over $2 billion (US dollars) financing to complete its acquisition of Volvo from Ford Motor Company. Billionaire Chairman Li Shufu of Geely, China's biggest privately owned automaker, says the company has regulatory approvals to move forward with the deal. It was lack of Beijing approval that killed the Hummer deal for Sichuan Tengzhong.
At issue now is whether Geely will move Volvo production to China from Sweden. Plans are to double production to 300,000 vehicles per year. It seems highly unlikely Geely would mass produce Volvos in a country with one of the highest labor costs in the world, higher even than the US auto industry....
At issue now is whether Geely will move Volvo production to China from Sweden. Plans are to double production to 300,000 vehicles per year. It seems highly unlikely Geely would mass produce Volvos in a country with one of the highest labor costs in the world, higher even than the US auto industry....
Labels: automobiles, chinese autos, foreign investment, foreign trade, free trade
March 04, 2010
China to Build Big SEZ in Pakistan
Pakistan papers say that a delegation from a Chinese entity called Asia International Development signed an agreement with the Punjab Industrial Estates Development & Management Company to build a giant industrial city of 100,000 acres or more outside Lahore, capital of Punjab in Pakistan.
Exactly where the special economic zone (SEZ) will be located is unknown but word is it will be near important transport corridors such as the Lahore Ring Road begun five years ago. From there it is not far to connect with the Karakoram Highway and railway projects currently planned or under construction by Chinese business and government interests or connect to the port at Karachi or perhaps in the future Gwadar. China builds industrial zones with an eye to finished processing and as a form of export substitution. A developed deep water port at Gwadar may some day ship containers filled with China origin goods finished in Pakistan....
Exactly where the special economic zone (SEZ) will be located is unknown but word is it will be near important transport corridors such as the Lahore Ring Road begun five years ago. From there it is not far to connect with the Karakoram Highway and railway projects currently planned or under construction by Chinese business and government interests or connect to the port at Karachi or perhaps in the future Gwadar. China builds industrial zones with an eye to finished processing and as a form of export substitution. A developed deep water port at Gwadar may some day ship containers filled with China origin goods finished in Pakistan....
Labels: foreign investment, foreign relations, pakistan
March 02, 2010
Iraq Oil Minister Says China Oil Contract Coming
Iraq's government will soon approve a contract with China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) (NYSE:CEO) to develop the Maysan oil field in southern Iraq according to Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani. An estimated 2.5 billion barrels of oil await under the sands at Maysan....
Labels: energy security, foreign investment, foreign relations, oil, peak oil
China Bid for Azerbaijan Oil
Late last week the head of investment at the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Vagif Aliyev revealed that Devon Energy of Oklahoma was to sell its 5.6% stake in the big Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli offshore oilfield. The Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli field is controlled by a consortium of oil majors led by British Petroleum. Vagif Aliyev said negotiations were underway between Devon and Chinese oil companies - CNCP, CNOOC, and Sinopec have all been named as interested parties - and the other consortium members. If the consortium agrees not to buy Devon's share they could be joined by the Chinese.
The field lies offshore in the Caspian Sea in waters claimed as national by Azerbaijan. It is estimated to have 5.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Oil production is exported by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline for delivery onto tankers plying the Mediterranean Sea. Over the weekend SOCAR said that Kazakhstan had stopped exporting oil through the BTC pipeline.
China was quick to recognize Azerbaijan as an independent nation in 1992. Chinese companies have been at work onshore since at least 2004. Devon Energy may be a takeover target according to some analysts. Rumours are Devon wants to focus on developing its domestic assets....
Labels: energy security, foreign investment, oil, peak oil
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