China’s Water Needs Create Opportunities

The Qinghe Wastewater Plant in Beijing. China’s water shortage, especially in the northern part of the country, is driving a need for wastewater recycling.

A diplomatic victory for China

As tensions in the South China Sea rise, Beijing appears to have scored a quiet diplomatic victory by ensuring the Asean grouping is unlikely to get involved in territorial disputes any time soon.

Police will jail every gang boss in the country, top officer promises

Law enforcement agencies across the country would launch all-out raids on triads, dismantle their strongholds and put every gang boss into prison, the mainland’s top policeman promised yesterday.

Nasdaq-style board opens with a bang

All 28 firms on ChiNext in Shenzhen close way above IPO prices

ChiNext, which opened yesterday, is expected to give small- and medium-sized companies access to financing and encourage private firms and venture capitalists to back start-ups.

Analysts unfazed by stock market sell down

Share price corrections are normal in bull markets, they say

China’s crime-buster gets a second wind

Once front-runner for presidency, Bo Xilai wins praise for anti-triad drive

Chinese culture a hard sell

New plan to rejuvenate culture industry doesn’t tackle tight govt control

Decentralised offices in Shanghai may cut costs by up to 50pc

Corporate tenants in Shanghai could save up to 50 per cent of their occupancy costs next year if they were to move to grade A offices in the city’s emerging business areas.

Behind Lujiazui building boom is a promising future

New office towers continue to mushroom from construction sites all over Shanghai’s Lujiazui financial district and to the casual observer it would seem an oversupply disaster looms, with 450,000 square metres of new grade A office space expected to come on to the market in each of the next two years.

China’s $treet fashion

How two U.S. entrepreneurs are selling Chinese fashion to the post-Tiananmen generation.

This Pullback is Buy Opportunity – Not Correction: Strategists

Bold said there’s still $4 trillion on the sidelines and there’s still “a lot of opportunity” going forward.

“Every time the market goes down a little bit, people think it’s going to go down a lot. But at some point, we’re going to get to the greed factor where people are going to think they’re going to miss out on the next run of the market and instead of buying at 6,500, they’re going to buy at 11,000 or 12,000,” said Bold.

Aussie case puts heat on directors

The name Centro Properties would probably not be readily recognisable to most readers, regulators and company directors here but if the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) wins a legal case it initiated last week, you can be sure Singapore-listed companies’ office bearers and anyone with an interest in directors’ responsibilities would surely sit up, take notice and very quickly familiarise themselves with all things Centro.

Galleon wiretap rattles hedge fund industry

First came the biggest bear market since the 1930s, then Bernard Madoff’s US$65 billion Ponzi scheme and the threat of increased regulation. Now hedge funds have a new concern: getting caught on tape as the government expands its use of wiretaps to ferret out insider trading.

S-chips pay attention to lure of Taiwan

After reports that some Singapore-listed Chinese companies or S-chips were seeking secondary listings in Hong Kong and the United States, it has emerged that some of them have pinned their hopes on Taiwan.

Dual-listings can be a double-edged sword

They can unlock value in some cases, but can add to costs and regulatory hassles

China Needs ‘Unexpected’ One-Off Yuan Appreciation

China should allow an immediate one- off appreciation in the yuan’s value and widen the currency’s trading band to stem inflows of speculative capital that may fuel inflation, said UBS AG economist Wang Tao.

Central Banks, Arsonists and Playing with Fire - Andy Xie

Money supply growth has sparked an asset market boom that supports the economy, not the other way around. Don’t get burned.

Raffles, MM Lee and the rule of law

Mr. Lee’s stamp is clear, but he knew what rule of law entailed, says CJ

CJ on judicial independence and judicial review

Addressing an often-raised accusation of executive interference in the judiciary here, he told his audience of lawyers: ‘It is not an oath to protect and defend the President, the legislature or the executive; it is an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.’

Taiwan’s TDR push in Singapore gathers pace

Interest in Taiwan as a secondary listing venue is rising among Chinese companies listed in Singapore and Hong Kong as China-concept stocks gain favour there, said an official from a Taiwanese brokerage.

Japan stands up to US on military base

The standoff between Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government and the Obama administration over the relocation of a US Marine Corps military base in Okinawa is being watched with keen interest throughout the Asia Pacific region - and for good reason. Much more is at stake than simply the logistics of where a military base is located.

Singapore: The future global arbitration hub for Asia

Its convenient location, judicial support and transparent system make it attractive to firms

More distributors eyeing used car business

More authorised car distributors are going into the used car business, and they are doing it mainly to tap growing demand for used cars and supplement the drop in new car sales.

Oceanus proposes to issue TDRs in Taiwan

Abalone company Oceanus Group has proposed to offer and list Taiwan Depository Receipts (TDRs) representing up to 200 million shares of the company on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE).

At 40, internet an erratic but amazing teen

Leonard Kleinrock never imagined Facebook, Twitter or YouTube that day 40 years ago when his team gave birth to what is now taken for granted as the internet.

China economy seen slowing next year

China may face an economic slowdown in the middle of next year because the nation’s growth model is unsustainable, said Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.

Currencies: A Front Line for Global Balance

Fluctuating currency values can make or break foreign exchange traders. On a far wider scale, they affect global economic balance.

Seven-month stock market rally is starting to show signs of wear

Corporate profits in the third quarter are doing what they are supposed to do to support lofty stock market valuations - beating expectations on the bottom line, and showing improvement in sales and revenues. But despite that, the seven-month-long stock market rally appears to be wearing thin.

Placements: name-dropping for lift-off

Share placements this year have confirmed a slight variation of the trite adage - it is not what you know, but rather who you know is buying into the company.

Placements knock out rights issues in 2009

The 2 cash-call methods have been given very different market treatments

Trading curbs: the curious case of Transcu

The recent circumstances surrounding UOB-Kay Hian’s imposition of trading curbs on the shares of life sciences firm Transcu Group, which precipitated a collapse of those shares, raises a few important regulatory issues for the authorities to ponder.

Transcu shares plunge again as trading resumes

Shares in life sciences company Transcu Group took another plunge yesterday. The stock’s erratic price movements of late, which saw it jumping to over 20 cents apiece before it nosedived, has prompted market talk of whether the counter was a subject of speculative play or whether it was suffering from the impact of the conversion of $5 million worth of structured notes and the freshly concluded private share placement.

Shanghai smoking ban moves step closer

Authorities in Shanghai have taken a further step towards implementing strict smoking restrictions in the city by the end of the year, local media reported yesterday.

Lustful cadres warned to exercise caution

Communist Party cadres need to guard against lust in the face of temptation, a top-level official has warned.

Cut Ties that Bind China to Special Interests

Too many selfish special interest groups are squeezing common people, perverting law and hurting the government.

China risks property bubbles for economy

China is risking property-market ‘bubbles’ to encourage growth in the world’s third-largest economy, according to former Morgan Stanley Asian economist Andy Xie.

China ‘developing cyber warfare capability’

China is building its cyber warfare capabilities and appears to be using the growing technical abilities to collect US intelligence through a sophisticated and long-term computer attack campaign, according to an independent report.

Companies rush to place out shares

Most taking placement route instead of rights issues to raise capital

Lifting lid on murky world of info-sharing

Galleon case: US regulator should be lauded for zeal in enforcing insider trading laws

There’s a cost to mainland overinvestment

In the euphoria over the surge in China’s investment-driven growth announced last week, many forget that there is a real economic cost to excessive infrastructure investment.

Little Hong Kong can do to slow inflows of hot money

In recent months, an unprecedented influx of cash has flooded Hong Kong’s financial system, doubling the city’s monetary base to more than HK$800 billion, driving the stock market up 100 per cent and lifting property prices by almost 30 per cent.

Fast trains closing the gap on air travel for short trips

With high-speed train services posing a rising threat to mainland airlines, carriers will have to do more than cut prices to stay in business.

China high-speed rail to take global lead by 2012

China’s high-speed rail network will overtake Europe as the world’s biggest by 2012, posing a threat to the country’s troubled airline industry.

A Moment Too Soon After the Financial Crisis

Examining the recovery paths of major industrial powers in the 1930s tells us that thoughts of reversion to normal policies -- whether monetary, exchange rate, fiscal or banking -- need to be delayed until global recovery to normal is nearly completed.

Tough boss, brilliant investor, family man, and now under probe

On the outside, Raj Rajaratnam was rock hard: a driven, demanding hedge fund boss who called his talented employees ‘idiots’ and worse.

Regulator goes after erring IPO underwriters

The mainland’s securities regulator is cracking down on investment bank underwriting ahead of the launch of Shenzhen’s Nasdaq-style second board, revoking the licences of two bankers who falsified their resumes.

Time to update governance practices

Singapore is long overdue for an update to its Code of Corporate Governance - and one key area that needs to be re-examined is its section on independent directors (IDs).

Thin Line Separates Insider Trading and Research

The most precious commodity on Wall Street is information, and savvy players will do almost anything for it.

Tax cheating vs avoiding - the difference is jail

History’s colourful tax dodgers have a way of ending up in prison

The quiet, contrary king of stock pickers

“I think a multi-year bull market has started, of which we are in the first stage. That’s a global thing,” he says.

Bolton reckons that because the US and other Western economies are on their knees, a return to worldwide inflation is far away and interest rates will stay low for years. He surmises this is good news for all stock markets because investors will buy shares instead of relying on measly interest payments on cash savings.

Where gambling cheats go to buy their gadgets

Gambling is such a popular pastime in the Pearl River Delta that shops selling casino equipment and various punting aids have opened up on some of Guangzhou’s busiest streets.