1 Japan exports tumble most in three years (Straits
Times) Japan's exports fell the most in more than three years in December from
a year earlier, stoking fears of economic contraction in the final quarter of
2015 as a slowdown in China and emerging markets takes its toll on the
export-reliant economy.
Ministry of Finance data showed exports fell 8.0 per
cent in the year to December, down for the third straight month, marking the
biggest drop since September 2012. An annual decline of 6.8 per cent was
expected by economists in a Reuters poll.
Such weak data should keep the Bank of Japan under
pressure to act as early as at its Jan 28-29 review, as the collapse in oil
prices weighs on inflation expectations while worries over a China-led global
slowdown and a stock market rout sap business morale.
Exports to China, Japan's biggest trading partner,
fell 8.6 per cent in December from a year earlier, down for a fifth straight
month, dragged down by shipments of chemicals and electronics parts. Shipments
to Asia, which accounts for more than half of Japan's exports, declined 10.3
per cent in the year to December.
Exports to the US, another key market for Japanese
goods, fell 3.4 per cent year-on-year in December, led by shipments of mining
machines and steel and metal processing machinery. EU-bound shipments grew 3.1
per cent. Imports fell 18.0 per cent in the year to December, versus the median
forecast for a 16.4 per cent annual decline, bringing the trade balance to a
surplus of 140.2 billion yen.
Japan's economy narrowly dodged a recession in
July-September, and analysts have flagged the risk of a contraction due to
weakness in private consumption and capital expenditure. The International
Monetary Fund cut its global growth forecasts for the third time in less than a
year last week, as Beijing estimated China's 2015 growth at the slowest in 25
years.
2 Oil ‘a blessing and curse for Russia’ (Gulf News) Abundant
oil and gas deposits have been a blessing for Russia, but they now feel like a
curse as low prices propel the country into a deep economic crisis that shows
no signs of abating.
The rouble fell to a record dollar low this past
week as global crude prices slumped to 12-year lows, highlighting at once
Russia’s vulnerability to changing oil prices and the fact President Vladimir
Putin’s government has squandered opportunities to diversify the economy.
Calls to develop long-neglected sectors of the
economy come as the government faces increasing pressure to react to a
crippling economic crisis that has seen inflation soar and Russians’ purchasing
power shrink dramatically. Booming oil prices in the 2000s when Putin came to
power helped fill state coffers and ushered in an era of prosperity.
But for the past decade, the International Monetary
Fund has urged Russia use its oil revenues to support revamping the economic
sectors that have been overlooked since the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Oil
is both a blessing and a curse,” IMF mission chief to Russia Antonio
Spilimbergo warned in 2012, urging Russia to improve its business climate and
fight corruption to attract foreign investment.
High oil prices in fact enabled the authorities to
adopt a wait-and-see policy and prop up the rouble, which in turn made Russian
companies less competitive on the international stage. The financial crisis of
2008 and 2009, accompanied by an oil price slump, had sounded alarm bells among
Russian authorities.
Russia pumped a record 534 million tonnes of crude
oil in 2015, even as it reeled from a fall in oil prices. The state has
reinforced its presence in the sector, turning state oil company giant Rosneft
into a global goliath and developing ambitious plans for the Arctic. But this
time, authorities expect no quick rebound in oil prices, finance minister Anton
Siluanov said.
3 Plastic now pollutes every corner of earth (Robin
McKie in The Guardian) Humans have made enough plastic since the second world
war to coat the Earth entirely in clingfilm, an international study has
revealed.
The research, published in the journal Anthropocene,
shows that no part of the planet is free of the scourge of plastic waste.
Everywhere is polluted with the remains of water containers, supermarket bags,
polystyrene lumps, compact discs, cigarette filter tips, nylons and other
plastics. Some are in the form of microscopic grains, others in lumps. The
impact is often highly damaging.
“The results came as a real surprise,” said the
study’s lead author, Professor Jan Zalasiewicz, of Leicester University. “We
were aware that humans have been making increasing amounts of different kinds
of plastic – from Bakelite to polyethylene bags to PVC – over the last 70
years, but we had no idea how far it had travelled round the planet. It turns
out not just to have floated across the oceans, but has sunk to the deepest
parts of the sea floor. This is not a sign that our planet is in a healthy
condition either.”
The crucial point about the study’s findings is that
the appearance of plastic should now be considered as a marker for a new epoch.
Zalasiewicz is the chairman of a group of geologists assessing whether or not
humanity’s activities have tipped the planet into a new geological epoch,
called the Anthropocene, which ended the Holocene that began around 12,000
years ago.
Most members of Zalasiewicz’s committee believe the
Anthropocene has begun and this month published a paper in Science in which
they argued that several postwar human activities show our species is altering
geology. In particular, radioactive isotopes released by atom bombs left a
powerful signal in the ground that will tell future civilisations that something
strange was going on.
Zalasiewicz argues that the humble plastic bag and
plastic drink container play a far greater role in changing the planet than has
been realised. “Just consider the fish in the sea,” he said. “A vast proportion
of them now have plastic in them. They think it is food and eat it, just as
seabirds feed plastic to their chicks. Then some of it is released as excrement
and ends up sinking on to the seabed. The planet is slowly being covered in
plastic.” In total, more than 300 million tonnes of plastic is manufactured
every year, states the paper.
“In 1950, we virtually made none at all. It is an
incredible rise,” added Zalasiewicz. “That annual total of 300 million tonnes
is close to the weight of the entire human population of the planet. The total
amount of plastic produced since the second world war is around 5 billion
tonnes and is very likely to reach 30 billion by the end of the century. The
impact will be colossal.”
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