1 China’s
mind-boggling market size (Linda Yueh on BBC) We always knew that China's potential market is
huge, but the prospectus from giant e-commerce firm Alibaba is a reminder as to
how large it already is. According to CNNIC,
the Chinese Internet agency, there are 618 million Internet users. There's
another 700 million people in China so about half of the population is
currently online. Impressively, 500 million are mobile internet users. And, 302
million shop online which is 7.9% of total consumption in China.
So, there's another
one billion people who can shop online and thus a lot more scope for online
commerce. China's biggest e-commerce firm Alibaba says that it accounts for 76%
of the mobile merchandise market which works out to $37 billion last year.
With the push for
Chinese companies to become multinationals and competitive on the world stage,
plus the size of the Chinese market, it's unsurprising that the biggest IPOs on
record are Chinese. According to Dealogic, the biggest IPOs have been the
Chinese banks, Agricultural Bank of China and ICBC. This is followed by the
insurer AIA and then US company Visa. If Alibaba raises $20 billion from its
IPO, then it would be larger than Visa and rank as the fourth largest IPO of
all time.
It means that of the
top 5 biggest IPOs, three would be Chinese companies. Of course, there are
valuation issues around the Chinese state-owned commercial banks with their
state-funded deep pockets. But, Alibaba isn't state-controlled, so its sale of
shares would be a better reflection of what to expect from Chinese firms.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27310480
2 Half of UK Class 10 students net-addicted (Peter Walker in
The Guardian) Almost half of all 14- and
15-year-olds feel they are addicted to the internet, with more than
three-quarters of similarly aged pupils taking a web-enabled laptop, phone or
tablet to bed at night, according to a survey. Of those who take a device to
bed, the bulk are communicating with friends using social media or watching
videos or films, the study across England and Scotland found.
More than four out 10 girls felt
they used the internet on a compulsive basis for socialising, the survey found.
An advice guide has now been published for pupils and schools about internet
devices, advising they be switched off before bed and during study times, with
set times allocated for online activity. The study said fewer than a third of
students who used web devices in bed said this was connected to homework, with
those more likely to use a computer, phone or laptop in bed also more likely to
report feeling addicted to the internet.
There were some gender
distinctions, with 46% of girls saying they sometimes felt addicted to the
internet, as against 36% of boys, but significantly more boys saying they felt
a compulsion towards computer games. The peak age for feelings of addiction was
year 10. The issue of internet addiction is much
debated, with some researchers questioning whether it can be classified as a
formal addiction.
3 Fear of unemployment ‘tidal
wave’ in Australia (Bianca Hartge-Hazelman in Sydney Morning Herald) Fears that the economy may be facing a jobs vacuum next
year have got some investment experts questioning whether Australia will be
able to fill the growth gap left by the mining boom in the coming years. Housing,
retail spending and tourism are often touted as sectors likely to help fill the
national income gap as they're already benefiting from a surge in growth helped
by record low interest rates and a weaker Australian dollar compared to a year
ago.
But some experts say
growth in these sectors may not be sustainable longer term, which could make
the transition in growth harder to achieve. Baillieu Holst quant strategist
Mathan Somasundaram expects a "tidal wave" of unemployment to hit in
the next two years, as more jobs are lost because of an ever-shrinking mining
industry and substantial cuts across the car and airline industries, as well as
the telco sector, manufacturing and government departments.
"The rising cost of
living pressures in mortgage, food, energy, education and health are to hit
home," Mr Somasundaram said.
"Corporates are now
looking at mergers and acquisitions to reduce costs further, while enjoying
solid balance sheets and improving cash flow through multiple years of cost
cutting. Falling consumer sentiment will further delay corporate spending into
2015.
4
India’s Manmohan Singh years (Khaleej Times) Manmohan
Singh, the prime minister of India since 2004 had, during his last Press
conference as prime minister in January 2014, said that he believed “history
will be kinder to me than the contemporary media, or for that matter, the
opposition parties in parliament”. Unfortunately for Singh, he is certain to be
proven wrong.
Singh has been credited
with stewarding the liberalisation process — he was the finance minister in
1991 when the liberalisation process began. The effect of 20 years of such
reforms, according to the conventional wisdom, is that millions of Indians have
been either pulled out of poverty or that they have been prevented from sinking
into it. The achievements of Singh and his governments have been celebrated
internationally as a victory for neo-liberal macro-economics and as the
strongest evidence that ‘reforms’ deliver the goods.
This
is a contested argument. But there are other measures too. His authority was
seen as questionable as he had never won a popular vote and relied on the
political support given to Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress party. Over
the ruling years, as his own authority dwindled, the power accruing to the
Congress party president grew. The result was a prime minister unable to
contain the blizzard of scandals that engulfed the Congress and the UPA2,
whether concerning the allocation of coal blocks, of oil and gas pricing, of
acute and widespread agrarian distress, of the awarding of telecom spectrum.
That these were allowed to continue with impunity has made India poorer, and
these will be weighed first when history judges the Manmohan Singh years.
http://khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=/data/editorial/2014/May/editorial_May17.xml§ion=editorial
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