China has expressed “strong interest” in reinforcing its investments in the Philippines through the Aquino adminis-tration’s public-private partnership (PPP) initiative, signaling the improving economic ties between the two countries after a bungled telecommunications project and mishandling of a hostage-taking incident that killed eight Hong Kong tourists. Read the rest of this entry »

SHANGHAI – Many Chinese cities are raising minimum wages for workers, fanning inflationary pressures while also seeking to soothe frustrations over price hikes. Read the rest of this entry »

BEIJING — Reports about labor shortages, wage disputes, and wage increases for migrant workers in China have abounded of late. They naturally raised concerns, or expectations, that China’s labor-cost advantages may be disappearing. Read the rest of this entry »

BEIJING: China’s strong economic recovery is drawing much interest from economists, policymakers and media around the world as developed countries struggle to overcome the global downturn. Yet, common misunderstandings about China are increasing as more people unfamiliar with the country air their views. Inaccurate criticism of China’s exchange rate policy, investment environment and global warming negotiations has only increased the misconceptions about the country. Read the rest of this entry »

China says its economy expanded by 8.7% in 2009, exceeding even the government’s own initial expectations.

The pace of change increased as the year went on, with growth in the final quarter of 2009 increasing by 10.7% from the same period a year earlier. Read the rest of this entry »

ON JAN. 1, 2010, the China-Asean Free Trade Area (Cafta) went into effect. Touted as the world’s biggest Free Trade Area, CAFTA is billed as having 1.7 million consumers, with a combined gross domestic product of $ 2 trillion and total trade of $ 1.3 trillion. Read the rest of this entry »

I do not know if there were any last minute second thoughts but the schedule for making the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA) operational is Jan 1, 2010. I wrote a column last Dec. 14 that pointed out some of the dangers of this arrangement to Asean economies for so long as the Chinese yuan remains undervalued. Read the rest of this entry »

MANILA, Philippines – This is a reaction to the news article titled “Free trade bad for Asean, warns solon” last January 5. Aside from this the sectors that the China-Asean Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) will primarily hit will be the millions of farmers and fisher folk in the region. It will also worsen the impact of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO) on the Southeast Asian region particularly the Philippines. Read the rest of this entry »

FIFTY years ago, this was the time for monetizing the sugar quedans. It was the middle of the milling season and the planters knew, more or less, the total tonnage of the year’s sugar crop. Then, the big planters would go to the usual destination, the car showrooms to order the latest models. Then, to the month-long vacation in either North America or Europe. Hong Kong was for the small planters. Theirs was a life of plantation luxury. A US export quota propped up by the Laurel-Langley Agreement protected sugar prices from the swings and vagaries of the global market—and allowed the sugar planters to live lavish lifestyles and be the makers of presidents. If you wanted to be president then, you had to have the backing of the sugar barons. Read the rest of this entry »

China has said it is on track to hit its growth target of 8% this year, after the economy grew 8.9% from a year ago in the third quarter. Read the rest of this entry »