Chinese Economics Thread
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Goldwind USA Inc. closes financing for 55MW Penonome Wind Farm
55 MW wind farm is Panama's first wind project
CHICAGO, Aug. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Officials with Goldwind USA, Inc. announced today that the company has closed a USD $71 million project financing deal for the 55MW project, which represents the first phase of the Penonome wind farm, located in the Province of Cocle, Panama. This project represents the largest wind energy project utilizing Goldwind wind turbines financed by western lenders. Sponsors for the deal, Goldwind International Holdings (HK) Limited and Union Eolica Panamena S.A. (UEP), were represented by members of Goldwind Capital in Chicago and UEP in Panama, respectively.
Banco Internacional de Costa Rica, S.A. (BiCSA) and Banco Espirito Santo de Investimento, S.A. (BESI) led the financing as Mandated Lead Arrangers. The 10-year construction and term facility is financed through commitments from leading banks and a syndicate of local, regional and international lenders.
"This financing demonstrates the commitment by the Sponsors, the bank group and the Government of Panama to the realization of wind power in Panama," said Tim Rosenzweig, CEO of Goldwind USA, Inc. "Goldwind is excited to play a critical role in developing the nation's first wind farm."
Daniel Gonzalez, BICSA's General Manager in Panama, echoed Rosenzweig's comments: "The strong support from official sector, regional and international banks underscored the essential quality of this renewable energy project and the strength of the sponsor team, and we are proud to support the development of this new alternative energy source for Panama's growing economy."
The project will strengthen Panama's energy matrix, complementing the existing technologies and creating more balance and security for the national electrical system. The power generated from the facility will flow to utility Altenergy, S.A., a subsidiary of *** Suez, S.A.
The 55 MW first phase of the total planned 220 MW Penonome wind project will feature 22 of Goldwind's GW2.5MW Permanent Magnet Direct Drive (PMDD) wind turbines. Once complete in 2014, the 220 MW Penonome wind project will be the largest wind energy project in both Panama and Central America. Coupled with recent awards in Chile and Ecuador, this deal marks Goldwind's continued growth within the Latin American market and success of its revolutionary PMDD turbines. As of the end of 2012, Goldwind has deployed over 12 GW of PMDD turbines globally - by far and away, the world's leader.
Throughout the past several years, Goldwind has been widely recognized for its success in globalizing operations. The company has opened subsidiaries in the United States, South Africa, Chile and Australia; each region is staffed with experienced local wind professionals, representing Goldwind's ethos to globalize through localization.
About Goldwind
Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., Ltd., is the largest manufacturer of wind turbines in China, and among the largest in the world. With strong R&D capabilities, the Company is the world's largest manufacturer of permanent magnet direct-drive wind turbines, representing the industry's next generation technology. Goldwind is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (stock code 002202) and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (stock code 2208).
Chicago-based Goldwind USA serves as the headquarters for operations in North and South America. Established in early 2010, Goldwind USA leverages a global network of offices and partnerships to offer a variety of wind power solutions including sales and service platforms to customers and strategic partners throughout the Americas.
By the 31st December 2012 Goldwind's accumulated wind power installations exceeded 15,000MW, and it has installed more than 12,000 wind turbine units around the world. That wind power generation capacity is equivalent to 12 million tons of coal saved per year or 29.91 million tons of carbon emissions reduced per year or 16.4 million cubic meters of newly planted forest.
About Union Eolica Panamena S.A. (UEP)
Founded in 2008 as the Panamanian affiliate of Spain's Union Eolica Espanola, Union Eolica Panamena (UEP) is engaged in the development, construction and operation of wind projects in Panama. UEP's affiliate group has developed more than 1,200 MW of wind power in Spain. Between 2010 and 2012, the Government of Panama awarded UEP definitive concessions for several wind farms located in Panama's Cocle Province: La Rosa de los Vientos (102MW), Nuevo Chagres (169MW), Maranon (18MW) and Portobelo (48MW). These projects are in various s stages of development with the final phase planned to reach commercial operation by 2015.
this is a very good article, and it further confirms that china's central leadership do realize the need to transition to a more sustainable economic model. what is distressing is that they are already having a tough time imposing a real estate profit tax. (real estate development is what's been keeping local governments in the butter) this shows that enforcing reforms that will affect the wallet capacities of ccp members will not be an easy task given china's lack of transparent political procedure.
if we focus on the broader picture instead of just real estate, think about all the beneficiaries in china's current export/investment financial structure with major influence to the top of the party ranks that will be affected by restructuring. (factory trusts, state banks, financial sector giants like ping an, etc)
these forces represent an obstacle to reform, and now that reform is impending they will use all their strength to preserve their privilages in the new framework. however their privilages are fundamentally incompatible with driving private sector/consumer growth, in which fiscal responsibility is crucial. (especially with rising expectations from the people)
certainly there are forces in the ccp that are not only committed to economic restructuring but want to do it right, as this is the only way to ensure china's prosperity in the foreseeable future. as chinese people, we should have a good grasp of the economic forces at play (even if it is hard to see the colors of the political forces at play) so we can support the good moves, and so the guys who want to do it right will have more to bargain with in the ccp's internal power brokering.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
I don't know why you keep harping on corruption and blaming local government. Again you are reading too much western propaganda.
As if the local government is the source of all evil and everything that go wrong in China can be blamed on corruption on local level. It might not be necessarily so, The local government need money to fund all those social service like health care and infrastructure development. What people doesn't know that the central government doesn't provide enough transfer money to fund all those infrastructure development and other cost associated with social service. The local have to carry all the burden by themselves
They cannot raise bond and there is no property tax in China. Their only income is from the sale or lease of the land to the developer and real estate transaction tax. a major cause of improper land expropriation
So what should be done is to levy property tax in China so that the local government have steady income to fund the social service and city service. which they will do it eventually .
Again you touted the Western model of democracy as Panacea to all the ill Western countries adopt democracy ove 200 years in relatively benign political environment and relative isolation. but China doesn't have the time and live in much more dangerous time beset by economic and ideology competition.
Efficient and responsive government doesn't necessarily identical to democracy. Singapore is one of the most Authoritarian government with democracy veneer but she is one of the most efficient, corruption free and responsive government. Off course China cannot copy Singapore style of government because of size, society and history
Read this excellent articlehttp://zzwave.com/plaboard/
Time to break the hegemony of western discourse
Reading the recent policy speeches of western leaders might create the impression that most of the content concerns the domestic economy, the management of which is indeed a current and pressing task. However, closer inspection reveals an ongoing insistence on promoting 'western values' to the world. What lies behind this is not the objective of promoting values, but the intention of controlling other countries and maximizing western interests.
U.S. President Obama announced in the January speech of his second term: "We will support all democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and conscience drive us to act for those who yearn for freedom." Note that he put "interests" ahead of "conscience".
The West regularly employs the tactic of paying "democracy activists", who show their "conscience", by creating waves of discontent in our processes, the objective being to realize the dream of "beating the enemy without fighting". Western think-tankers have concluded that the Soviet Union is now destabilized by such waves to a very great degree. We must therefore be vigilant about this strategy, and never become confused by what purports to be friendly advice. Of course this should not prevent us from opening ourselves up and learning from what is positive in the west.
The current situation can be beneficial from our point of view. It can be separated into what is real and what is virtual. In terms of the real, the United States has fought two terrible wars and is now embroiled in economic problems; Europe is still mired in its sovereign debt crisis.
In terms of the virtual, three decades ago concepts like "democracy", "human rights" and "freedom" carried a halo of sanctity, and the non-western world did indeed look up to them as it struggled with its economic problems; a few people even began to regard them as precepts. But more than 30 years have passed, the halo is fading, and people are increasingly driven to ask: How can the situation in the western countries be so bad if western democracy is so good? Why are things still such a mess after a variety of "color revolutions" in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan? Such questions provoke deep reflection.
The conditions now exist that allow us to challenge the hegemony of western discourse with our own independent systems of discourse. For many years there has been an ongoing refrain that China's political reform is failing. No matter how things have changed, no matter what successes have been achieved, China can never meet the demanding standards of the USA.
This is a typical example of western discourse hegemony, to which some of us are willing to enslave ourselves. China is China, and why should China need to turn into the United States? This is something that will never happen. China's chosen path, its theories, its system will be welcomed by and win the support of its people if they can bring about the great revival of the Chinese nation.
Lin Yifu worked for several years in the World Bank. He has told reporters that while he once hoped to gain expertise from the west to help China's economy to develop, eventually he came to realize that the west is far from perfect, and that many countries and regions have succeeded in achieving development without slavishly adopting the methods of the west. Clearly, economy and political structures share common features. Success will come to those who have a clear view, independence of thought, and the capacity to summarize learnings and achieve steady improvement. As with individuals, so with countries.
The time has come for China to demonstrate the worth of its own values. Let us go ahead and do it!
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Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Western critic carping on imbalance economy in China .too much capital investment bla bla .But does anyone calculate the cost of not developing infrastructure. somebody did here it is
Indonesia placed 59th out of 155 economies in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index for 2012, down from 43rd in 2007. Thailand fell to 38th from 31st. Malaysia placed 29th from 27th. The Philippines rose to 52nd from 65th. The index measures the perceptions of international freight forwarders.
The cost of transporting goods in Indonesia as a proportion of gross domestic product was 24.6 percent in 2011, more than double the 9.9 percent of GDP in the U.S., Indonesia’s Trade Ministry said in April.
Easy Cash Ebbs for $300 Billion Asean Port-to-Rail Cost: Freight
By Karl Lester M. Yap - Aug 6, 2013 11:01 AM CT
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Emerging Southeast Asian nations need to pour $300 billion into transport links to help ease freight bottlenecks. That just got harder as the prospect of reduced Federal Reserve monetary stimulus pushes up borrowing costs.
Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines require $128 billion of investment in roads, $119 billion for rail, $33 billion in ports and $16 billion for airports through 2020, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates. At the same time, their government bond yields have surged since May as concern the Fed could taper cash injections sparked outflows of foreign capital.
Enlarge image Easy Cash Ebbs for $300 Billion Asean Port-to-Rail Cost
A freight truck loaded with motorcycles waits for the ferry at the port in Merak, Banten Province, Indonesia. The cost of transporting goods in Indonesia as a proportion of gross domestic product was 24.6 percent in 2011, more than double the 9.9 percent of GDP in the U.S., Indonesia’s Trade Ministry said in April. Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg
Enlarge image Easy Cash Ebbs for $300 Billion Asean Port-to-Rail Cost
Laborers stand on scaffolding as they work during construction of the Penang Second Bridge in the town of Batu Maung on Penang Island, Malaysia. The nation’s goal is developed-nation status by 2020 through a 10-year, $444 billion development spending program. Photographer: Lam Yik Fei/Bloomberg
Enlarge image Easy Cash Ebbs for $300 Billion Asean Port-to-Rail Cost
A waste collector pushes a cart along an access road to the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) in Manila. The Philippines rose to 52nd from 65th out of 155 economies in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index for 2012. Photographer: Julian Abram Wainwright/Bloomberg
The four nations plan about $1 trillion in development spending, partly to improve goods transport performance that declined in all except the Philippines since 2007, based on World Bank rankings. The expenditure is needed to keep up a pace of expansion that averaged more than 6 percent in 2012, closing in on China and beating India for the first time in a decade.
“The region has to improve infrastructure, including transport links, to sustain higher growth rates,” Sanchita Basu Das, an economist and fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said in an interview. “It can’t rely on cheap funds from abroad as America looks to suck liquidity out of financial markets.”
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said May 22 $85 billion a month of debt purchases could be reduced if the country’s jobs market shows sustained improvement. Employment growth was the weakest in four months in July even as the U.S. jobless rate fell, underscoring uneven progress in America’s labor market.
Surging Yields
Indonesia’s 10-year bond yield has climbed 193 basis points, or 1.93 percentage points, to 7.63 percent since Bernanke’s comments, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The rate on the similar-maturity debt in Malaysia surged 91 basis points during the same period to 3.96 percent. Thailand’s increased 66 basis points to 3.97 percent and the Philippines’ 36 basis points to 3.74 percent.
Emerging-market debt funds suffered a 10th consecutive week of outflows in the period to July 31, as investors pulled out $741 million, according to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EPFR Global, which tracks money flows. Higher rates threaten to make it more difficult for governments to borrow to fund projects while sticking to fiscal goals.
Indonesia’s 2011-2025 development plan seeks $390 billion of investments. Malaysia’s goal is developed-nation status by 2020 through a 10-year, $444 billion program.
In Thailand, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra plans $64 billion of railway investments, partly to speed up freight traffic. Philippine President Benigno Aquino is aiming for more than $17 billion of projects from roads to airports.
Roads, Rail
The pool of domestic savings in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations was about $760 billion in 2012, concentrated in the group’s bigger economies, the Asian Development Bank estimates. Asean contains Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Brunei Darussalam.
The coverage provided by Southeast Asia’s infrastructure is a fraction of that in advanced economies and trails the Asian average, the lender said in May.
World Bank rankings underscore the need for improvements as Asean tries to create an integrated economic bloc by 2015.
Indonesia placed 59th out of 155 economies in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index for 2012, down from 43rd in 2007. Thailand fell to 38th from 31st. Malaysia placed 29th from 27th. The Philippines rose to 52nd from 65th. The index measures the perceptions of international freight forwarders.
The cost of transporting goods in Indonesia as a proportion of gross domestic product was 24.6 percent in 2011, more than double the 9.9 percent of GDP in the U.S., Indonesia’s Trade Ministry said in April.
Slow Trucks
Trucks hauling goods to the country’s main port in Jakarta provide an example of the bottlenecks. They take up to 18 hours to cover 10 kilometers on rainy days, according to Copenhagen-based A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S (MAERSKB), owner of the world’s biggest container line. That’s slower than walking pace.
Once at the port, loading times for a 200-meter cargo ship exceed the world’s most efficient berths at China’s Qingdao by about 25 percent, the company said.
“The road network is a huge challenge and there aren’t enough loading windows in the port,” Thomas Knudsen, Asia-Pacific Chief Executive Officer for Maersk Line, said in an interview. “These delays increase our costs.”
Better transport links will improve the region’s integration into the global economy, Goldman Sachs said in a May report.
Tapering Size?
While the region missed an opportunity in the past few years when funding costs were at record lows, “it’s by no means clear we’ll get an aggressive Fed tapering as markets feared back in May and June,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong.
The stimulus being provided by the Bank of Japan also means it’s still “somewhat early” to gauge the potential impact of Fed tapering on infrastructure financing in Southeast Asia, said Arjun Goswami, a regional ADB director in Manila.
BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on April 4 unleashed a two-year program designed to double Japan’s monetary base, in an effort to revive credibility on price stability and growth.
Indonesia’s 10-year yield dropped 67 basis points as of Aug. 6 from 8.3 percent reached on July 16, the highest level since March 2011. The rate on similar-maturity Philippine debt fell 79 basis points to 3.74 percent from 4.53 percent on July 5.
Era Ending
The rate in Thailand hit a two-year high of 4.02 percent on Aug. 2. In Malaysia, it was 4.13 percent on July 31, the most since January 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
While some emerging-market bonds have recovered in the past month, “make no mistake, global stimulus will end in the next few years and the era of cheap financing will come to an end,” HSBC’s Neumann said.
The efflux of capital from the Asean countries hurt their currencies. The Philippine peso and Malaysia’s ringgit have dropped about 5.8 percent against the dollar this year, followed by the Indonesian rupiah’s 4.8 percent slide, and a 2.7 percent fall in the Thai baht.
Of the four Southeast Asian nations, the Philippines is the only contender for a credit-rating upgrade that would help to restrain borrowing costs, after Moody’s Investors Service placed the country’s assessment on review on July 25. The $250 billion economy expanded 7.8 percent in the first quarter.
Fitch Ratings cut Malaysia’s credit outlook July 30 to negative from stable because of rising debt levels. Standard & Poor’s dashed Indonesia’s chances of escaping junk status by lowering the outlook to stable from positive May 2, citing stalling reform momentum and risks from a current-account gap.
Growth in Indonesia’s $878 billion economy fell below 6 percent year-on-year in the three months through June for the first time since 2010. Thailand and Malaysia have also slowed.
“Infrastructure is an economic enabler and all these plans are encouraging,” Maersk’s Knudsen said. “But what we normally have seen, especially in Southeast Asia, is that the time it takes them to actually finish these projects is too long.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Karl Lester M. Yap in Manila at
Indonesia placed 59th out of 155 economies in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index for 2012, down from 43rd in 2007. Thailand fell to 38th from 31st. Malaysia placed 29th from 27th. The Philippines rose to 52nd from 65th. The index measures the perceptions of international freight forwarders.
The cost of transporting goods in Indonesia as a proportion of gross domestic product was 24.6 percent in 2011, more than double the 9.9 percent of GDP in the U.S., Indonesia’s Trade Ministry said in April.
Easy Cash Ebbs for $300 Billion Asean Port-to-Rail Cost: Freight
By Karl Lester M. Yap - Aug 6, 2013 11:01 AM CT
Facebook Share
Tweet
Google +1
COMMENTS
QUEUE
Emerging Southeast Asian nations need to pour $300 billion into transport links to help ease freight bottlenecks. That just got harder as the prospect of reduced Federal Reserve monetary stimulus pushes up borrowing costs.
Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines require $128 billion of investment in roads, $119 billion for rail, $33 billion in ports and $16 billion for airports through 2020, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates. At the same time, their government bond yields have surged since May as concern the Fed could taper cash injections sparked outflows of foreign capital.
Enlarge image Easy Cash Ebbs for $300 Billion Asean Port-to-Rail Cost
A freight truck loaded with motorcycles waits for the ferry at the port in Merak, Banten Province, Indonesia. The cost of transporting goods in Indonesia as a proportion of gross domestic product was 24.6 percent in 2011, more than double the 9.9 percent of GDP in the U.S., Indonesia’s Trade Ministry said in April. Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg
Enlarge image Easy Cash Ebbs for $300 Billion Asean Port-to-Rail Cost
Laborers stand on scaffolding as they work during construction of the Penang Second Bridge in the town of Batu Maung on Penang Island, Malaysia. The nation’s goal is developed-nation status by 2020 through a 10-year, $444 billion development spending program. Photographer: Lam Yik Fei/Bloomberg
Enlarge image Easy Cash Ebbs for $300 Billion Asean Port-to-Rail Cost
A waste collector pushes a cart along an access road to the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) in Manila. The Philippines rose to 52nd from 65th out of 155 economies in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index for 2012. Photographer: Julian Abram Wainwright/Bloomberg
The four nations plan about $1 trillion in development spending, partly to improve goods transport performance that declined in all except the Philippines since 2007, based on World Bank rankings. The expenditure is needed to keep up a pace of expansion that averaged more than 6 percent in 2012, closing in on China and beating India for the first time in a decade.
“The region has to improve infrastructure, including transport links, to sustain higher growth rates,” Sanchita Basu Das, an economist and fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said in an interview. “It can’t rely on cheap funds from abroad as America looks to suck liquidity out of financial markets.”
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said May 22 $85 billion a month of debt purchases could be reduced if the country’s jobs market shows sustained improvement. Employment growth was the weakest in four months in July even as the U.S. jobless rate fell, underscoring uneven progress in America’s labor market.
Surging Yields
Indonesia’s 10-year bond yield has climbed 193 basis points, or 1.93 percentage points, to 7.63 percent since Bernanke’s comments, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The rate on the similar-maturity debt in Malaysia surged 91 basis points during the same period to 3.96 percent. Thailand’s increased 66 basis points to 3.97 percent and the Philippines’ 36 basis points to 3.74 percent.
Emerging-market debt funds suffered a 10th consecutive week of outflows in the period to July 31, as investors pulled out $741 million, according to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EPFR Global, which tracks money flows. Higher rates threaten to make it more difficult for governments to borrow to fund projects while sticking to fiscal goals.
Indonesia’s 2011-2025 development plan seeks $390 billion of investments. Malaysia’s goal is developed-nation status by 2020 through a 10-year, $444 billion program.
In Thailand, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra plans $64 billion of railway investments, partly to speed up freight traffic. Philippine President Benigno Aquino is aiming for more than $17 billion of projects from roads to airports.
Roads, Rail
The pool of domestic savings in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations was about $760 billion in 2012, concentrated in the group’s bigger economies, the Asian Development Bank estimates. Asean contains Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Brunei Darussalam.
The coverage provided by Southeast Asia’s infrastructure is a fraction of that in advanced economies and trails the Asian average, the lender said in May.
World Bank rankings underscore the need for improvements as Asean tries to create an integrated economic bloc by 2015.
Indonesia placed 59th out of 155 economies in the World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index for 2012, down from 43rd in 2007. Thailand fell to 38th from 31st. Malaysia placed 29th from 27th. The Philippines rose to 52nd from 65th. The index measures the perceptions of international freight forwarders.
The cost of transporting goods in Indonesia as a proportion of gross domestic product was 24.6 percent in 2011, more than double the 9.9 percent of GDP in the U.S., Indonesia’s Trade Ministry said in April.
Slow Trucks
Trucks hauling goods to the country’s main port in Jakarta provide an example of the bottlenecks. They take up to 18 hours to cover 10 kilometers on rainy days, according to Copenhagen-based A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S (MAERSKB), owner of the world’s biggest container line. That’s slower than walking pace.
Once at the port, loading times for a 200-meter cargo ship exceed the world’s most efficient berths at China’s Qingdao by about 25 percent, the company said.
“The road network is a huge challenge and there aren’t enough loading windows in the port,” Thomas Knudsen, Asia-Pacific Chief Executive Officer for Maersk Line, said in an interview. “These delays increase our costs.”
Better transport links will improve the region’s integration into the global economy, Goldman Sachs said in a May report.
Tapering Size?
While the region missed an opportunity in the past few years when funding costs were at record lows, “it’s by no means clear we’ll get an aggressive Fed tapering as markets feared back in May and June,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economics research at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong.
The stimulus being provided by the Bank of Japan also means it’s still “somewhat early” to gauge the potential impact of Fed tapering on infrastructure financing in Southeast Asia, said Arjun Goswami, a regional ADB director in Manila.
BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on April 4 unleashed a two-year program designed to double Japan’s monetary base, in an effort to revive credibility on price stability and growth.
Indonesia’s 10-year yield dropped 67 basis points as of Aug. 6 from 8.3 percent reached on July 16, the highest level since March 2011. The rate on similar-maturity Philippine debt fell 79 basis points to 3.74 percent from 4.53 percent on July 5.
Era Ending
The rate in Thailand hit a two-year high of 4.02 percent on Aug. 2. In Malaysia, it was 4.13 percent on July 31, the most since January 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
While some emerging-market bonds have recovered in the past month, “make no mistake, global stimulus will end in the next few years and the era of cheap financing will come to an end,” HSBC’s Neumann said.
The efflux of capital from the Asean countries hurt their currencies. The Philippine peso and Malaysia’s ringgit have dropped about 5.8 percent against the dollar this year, followed by the Indonesian rupiah’s 4.8 percent slide, and a 2.7 percent fall in the Thai baht.
Of the four Southeast Asian nations, the Philippines is the only contender for a credit-rating upgrade that would help to restrain borrowing costs, after Moody’s Investors Service placed the country’s assessment on review on July 25. The $250 billion economy expanded 7.8 percent in the first quarter.
Fitch Ratings cut Malaysia’s credit outlook July 30 to negative from stable because of rising debt levels. Standard & Poor’s dashed Indonesia’s chances of escaping junk status by lowering the outlook to stable from positive May 2, citing stalling reform momentum and risks from a current-account gap.
Growth in Indonesia’s $878 billion economy fell below 6 percent year-on-year in the three months through June for the first time since 2010. Thailand and Malaysia have also slowed.
“Infrastructure is an economic enabler and all these plans are encouraging,” Maersk’s Knudsen said. “But what we normally have seen, especially in Southeast Asia, is that the time it takes them to actually finish these projects is too long.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Karl Lester M. Yap in Manila at
when did i EVER say china needed to turn into the u.s.? in fact i warned against the very mistakes the u.s. made in liberalizing their financial sector. why do you have to turn everything critical about china into something pro-western? why can't you see past the china vs. west dichotomy and try to actually learn something?
i don't know what you're arguing against but you are not arguing against my position. never in my statements did i ever "sanctify western democracy" or anything of the sort. NOWHERE did i ever say that "democracy is a panacea" to social problems, this is you again making up a position to argue against. in fact, i've been trying to maintain an objective stance by evaluating china and the u.s. on purely economic terms without any political slant. however if you just want to straw-man me and ignore facts then i'm afraid i cannot reason with someone who refuses to listen to the argument at hand.
i also never implied that "local government was the source of all corruption," corruption in china like anywhere else is the result of a lack of accountability. it can't be denied that china's political structure does not have adequate accountability measures built in, there are no checks on power and its as simple as that. america has the same type of corruption where power is not checked or where accountability mechanisms are not adequate. why do you connect accountable and responsible government to something western? how does that make any sense at all?
i counter that honesty and legitimacy are UNIVERSAL values, YOU'RE the one that implies that there's some sort of "american standard" that china needs to measure up to. maybe the american political system was better at measuring up to these UNIVERSAL values of honesty in government for a long time, but i believe that it has now betrayed many of these values in its suspension of due process and its corporatization of the state. are you going to say that chinese people don't have these values? i don't believe you can, because you would be lying through your teeth if you did.
obviously china should not do the same thing as america, because like you said, china is not america, but there are parts of the american system that work, and parts that don't work. china needs to adapt the parts that work for its own purposes (just like it adapted to capitalism with market reforms in 1978) and the parts that don't work it can leave. if you study law, you will notice that there are certain prescriptions that make for a just and accountable judiciary. america's judicial system does not quite live up to that standard, but china's is WAY off, and it SHOWS! (中国法庭荒唐的很！没关系没钱根本没公道。） -and don't just bring up a couple examples of bad rulings in american courts, china's judicial bias is beyond despicable: ever heard of 朱令?
what a functioning judiciary tries to achieve is government accountability, and in the midst of china's current wave of fiscal reform, there is NOTHING more important than accountability. because i can't see china's leaders be willing to make such groundbreaking legal reform at this time, i am simply calling for chinese people, as concerned individuals, to be vigilant about how they do this series of economic reforms. -so they don't just write up rules to make themselves rich at the cost of everyone else like they did in the 1990s and like the americans did in the 1980s.
how you keep equating this with "western propaganda" i have no idea. i think they must have really got to your head or something...
Last edited:
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Here is what you say
n china, a comparable restructuring has to occur, but china does not have the advantages america had in the 80s. (an already strong domestic consumer base, accountability measures in the form of open political procedure) this is why the potential for abuse during china's current economic restructuring is so high, while the consequences would be alot more dire. it is hard to say that the ccp would be more accountable to the people this time around, (than in the '90s) this is why i think they can use all the public scrutiny and pressure needed to make sure they do it right.
Now isn't that advocating the adoption of western democracy?. You are the one that heel over head worshiping and slavishly believing the right way is the western way.
What you mean by open political procedure? Free press, Election, freedom to riot on the street?. What gotten into your head is nothing but poison western democrazy propaganda
See what happened when people not ready for democrazy given the right to riot Eqypt, Syria where they burn themselves and destroy what it take for generations to built.Irak. Afghanistan,
China long accustomed to authoritarian government has no viable opposition to run the country Democracy demand give and take which I doubt will exists in China .If tomorrow china miraculously become democracy it will be free for all brawl like you never see it
I don't know if you ever read news . Corrupt official got punished in China and every year. Thousands are send to jail. Compare to some of the south east asia countries Chinese corruption is still manageable. Train,subway and bus still run on time .Teacher still come punctually to school . Bribing police is not common. You don;t need to bribe to get your business or driving license. road are smooth and no pothole. traffic light,water,electricity all work.Wages and standard of living goes up every year. infrastructure is getting better by the day
Apparently the Chinese public agree and poll after poll show that they support the slow and steady reform Read Pew poll
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what are you even talking about here? i said that EVEN with a system of open political procedures and a strong consumer base, america STILL managed to mess up their financial restructuring because they DID NOT ACHIEVE FISCAL REFORM IN AN ACCOUNTABLE WAY.
STOP STRAW MANNING MY ARGUMENT! it was never about whether authoritarianism or representative democracy, it was about ACCOUNTABILITY IN FISCAL REFORM. please learn how to read!
it seems like from the very beginning you were not even slightly interested in talking about issues related to china's economic reform. from the very beginning you dismissed my argument with irrelevant "china is strong" and "western propaganda" statements. do you know why i still have not called you a 五毛? because it is NOT CONSTRUCTIVE TO A DISCUSSION ABOUT CHINA'S ECONOMIC REFORM!
quite frankly, i don't give a damn if they call their system democratic or autocratic, as long as there can be justice and as long as the government can be accountable to the people and their own words, then the system works. but in the meantime, pointing fingers at other countries' failings does not erase china's own injustice. (and just for the record: you DO need a bribe in china to get a driver's license/business license. hell some places in china you even need a bribe to get on welfare!)
when you quoted me above, you basically cut away my entire argument to focus on what you want to attack, which has NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT I AM SAYING. i am done debating with you on this topic because you've shown me that you don't know how. have a good day sir.
PS. i apologize if the above post is a bit harsh; if you want to have a discussion about politics and political structures, i will gladly oblige you in another thread becaues that is an area of interest to me; but PLEASE do not cut in with a non-sequitur defense of china's political system in the economics thread while i am trying to participate in an economics discussion about china's current fiscal dilemma.
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