China’s rebalancing act puts consumer to the fore
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, now has 189 stories in China, according to its website. Soon it will have many more. The U.S. chain has announced plans to open a series of “compact hypermarkets”, using a bare-bones model developed in Latin America, the Financial Times said.
Wal-Mart stores are a bit different than the one’s you might find in, say, Little Rock Arkansas. They sell live toads and turtles for one thing, The Economist reported. But they also sell the appliances, gadgets, and housewares that Wal-Mart stores merchandise everywhere.
APEC leaders set to back free trade plans
YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – Asia-Pacific leaders were set on Sunday to embrace plans for balanced growth and free trade in the world’s fastest growing economic region, but signs of discord resurfaced over how best to ensure global recovery.
A vague agreement two days earlier among G20 advanced and emerging countries gave little sense of a united approach to preventing further economic crises, the threat of which was underscored by the likelihood that Ireland will have to seek emergency funding because of debt concerns.
APEC leaders set to back growth, free trade plans
YOKOHAMA, Japan, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Asia-Pacific leaders were
set on Sunday to embrace plans for balanced growth and free trade
in the world’s fastest growing economic region, but signs of
discord resurfaced over how best to ensure global recovery.
A vague agreement two days earlier among G20 advanced and
emerging countries gave little sense of a united approach to
preventing further economic crises, the threat of which was
underscored by the likelihood that Ireland will have to seek
emergency funding because of debt concerns.
IMF’s Strauss-Kahn says Ireland can manage well
YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Saturday that Ireland can manage its fiscal affairs well, and the Fund has had no request for aid.
“I have not been in contact with Ireland,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Yokohama, Japan. “So far I have not had a request, and I think Ireland can manage well…”
APEC’s robots stealing the show
A guide at the “Japanese Experience” exhibition talks to Miim, the Karaoke pal robot, on the sidelines of the APEC meetings in Yokohama, Japan on Nov. 10. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao
Miim is one of the more popular delegates at the APEC meetings in Yokohama Japan. She sings. She dances. She tosses her shoulder length hair. She may not be able to spout an alphabet soup of APEC acronyms like the other Asia-Pacific delegates. But she’s still pretty lively. For a robot.
Asia-Pacific ministers extend freeze on trade barriers
YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – Asia-Pacific ministers on Thursday agreed to extend a freeze on trade barriers and pledged to work toward creating a vast free trade area in the world’s fastest growing region.
But a Group of 20 (G20) summit of major economies in neighboring South Korea — beset by deep divisions over currencies, monetary policy and global trade imbalances — is towering over the meeting of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Yokohama, south of Tokyo.
APEC pondering vast FTA, while pounding protectionism
YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – Free trade is the big issue in Yokohama this week, 150 years after U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry’s “black ships” arrived in the port city and forced Japan to open up to the rest of the world.
Foreign and trade ministers from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum begin talks on Wednesday about taking steps toward creating a vast, and even legally binding, free trade area.
APEC’S always in fashion
One of the most closely guarded secrets at the APEC summit in Japan’s port city of Yokohama this weekend is not what the Asia-Pacific leaders might say about currencies and global imbalances. No, that’s all going to be thrashed out at the G20 meeting Thursday and Friday in Seoul. The big topic of speculation here at the Pacifico Yokohama Convention Center is what the leaders will wear when they gather for the annual class photo that concludes the meetings.
U.S. President George W. Bush (L) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin wear Chilean ponchos at APEC meeting in Santiago in 2004. REUTERS
Inside the Pirates’ Web
Reuters trade correspondent in Washington Doug Palmer had an unusual assignment: buy a fake Louis Vuitton handbag on the Internet, and take it to a LVMH store for a comparison test, before handing it over to U.S. authorities.
What was startling was how easy it was to find websites selling a dazzling array of stuff online. This is the new face of
piracy and its costing businesses billions. No need to skulk around back alleys or some pirate’s rental van to browse through footwear, watches, DVDs and whatnot. Just pick out your LV shoulder tote from a virtual catalog on a website based in China. It looks and feels like the real thing at a fraction of the price.
Mongolia’s El Dorado stirs shareholder battle
In Mongolia’s South Gobi desert lies Oyu Tolgoi, touted as having the world’s largest untapped copper and gold deposits. Little wonder then that this “El Dorado” has become a boardroom battleground between the relatively unknown Ivanhoe Mines and its biggest shareholder, the giant Australian mining company, Rio Tinto.
Our attempts to get near this mine or elicit any comment from Ivanhoe were about as fruitless as the Spanish conquistadors attempts to find the legendary “El Dorado”, or “Lost City of Gold” in the 16th century. Twice Ivanhoe stopped our reporters from visiting the mine with delegations from the investment community, saying reporters were not allowed to mingle with bankers on visits to the mine. We don’t know why that would be. We mingle with them pretty often in other contexts and usually find each other’s company amusing and mutually informative.
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