East Asian Times » BRIC http://www.eastasiantimes.com Shayne Heffernan on ASEAN Sat, 19 Nov 2011 21:43:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Russia’s Putin holds talks with China’s Hu http://www.eastasiantimes.com/russias-putin-holds-talks-with-chinas-hu.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/russias-putin-holds-talks-with-chinas-hu.htm#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:35:20 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=18003

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held talks with China’s president on Wednesday, after saying negotiations to secure a huge gas deal with the world’s top energy consumer were progressing.

Putin, in Beijing on his first foreign visit since he announced plans to reclaim the Russian presidency, said after meeting China’s Premier Wen Jiabao Tuesday that talks on the long-delayed gas deal were nearing their final stage.

But his spokesman has downplayed the prospect of a final agreement during the two-day official visit, which has so far yielded $7 billion in trade deals in energy, finance and agriculture.

China became Russia’s top trading partner for the first time last year and the two countries want to increase trade from $70 billion this year to $100 billion by 2015 and $200 billion by 2020.

China’s President Hu Jintao said Putin’s visit had led to progress in the “Sino-Russian comprehensive strategic relationship”, but made no comment on a major agreement Russia signed in 2009 to pump gas to China for 30 years.

“We are close to the final stage of work on gas supplies to Chinese market,” Putin told journalists Tuesday of the agreement, which has for years been mired in disagreements over pricing.

“Those who sell always want to sell at a higher price, while those who buy, want to buy at a lower price. We need to reach a compromise which will satisfy both sides.”

The agreement was signed between Russian gas giant Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation, and could eventually see almost 70 billion cubic metres of Russian gas sent to China annually over a 30-year period.

China’s sovereign wealth fund also signed a deal to invest in a new Russian state-backed fund, to encourage foreign direct investment in Russia, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP.

The China Investment Corporation will put $1 billion into the Russian Direct Investment Fund, founded in June with backing from Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The two countries also agreed on a price for Russian oil exported to China through a cross-border pipeline that started operating at the beginning of the year, the official China Daily newspaper said.

Russia had accused China of underpaying it by tens of millions of dollars due to a tariff dispute, but Putin said the two sides had “agreed on crude oil prices”, the report said. — AFP

]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/russias-putin-holds-talks-with-chinas-hu.htm/feed 0 Putin arrives in China after $7 bln deals http://www.eastasiantimes.com/putin-arrives-in-china-after-7-bln-deals.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/putin-arrives-in-china-after-7-bln-deals.htm#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:56:57 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=17981

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for talks with Chinese leaders, a day after his gas-rich nation signed deals worth over $7 billion with the world’s top energy consumer.

Putin is due to meet his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao on his two-day visit — his first abroad since he announced plans last month to reclaim the Russian presidency.

China’s foreign ministry said Tuesday the two countries had already signed 16 economic and trade agreements worth more than $7 billion “in the fields of technology transfer, research and development and mineral development”.

It gave no further details of the deals, which were signed at a summit Monday, held ahead of Putin’s visit.

Observers say the Russian prime minister may lay out his foreign policy priorities for years to come during the trip.

Putin has paid frequent visits to China — where he is very well known — in his capacities as president and then prime minister since he took power in 1999.

Russia is the world’s largest energy producer and its plans to pump gas to China are expected to top discussions, although Chinese state media played down the prospect of any breakthrough on a long-delayed deal.

Russian gas giant Gazprom and China National Petroleum Company signed a framework agreement in 2009 that could eventually see almost 70 billion cubic metres of Russian gas sent to China annually for the next 30 years.

But talks have become bogged down in pricing disagreements, and Hu’s visit to Moscow in June delivered no breakthrough.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Monday that “new progress and achievements” had been made in energy talks, but did not specify whether he was referring to the gas agreement.

The Stockholm-based International Peace Research Institute says that China’s dependence on Russia for arms and energy imports has declined and Moscow’s position when dealing with Beijing has weakened as a result.

It pointed out in a report last week that China had found other partners in the oil and gas sectors in the Middle East, Africa or central Asia.

Russia and China set much store by their bilateral ties and are often viewed as partners in international diplomacy.

China became Russia’s top trading partner for the first time last year and the two countries want to nearly double trade to $100 billion by 2015 and then to $200 billion by 2020.

Both countries are veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council, and last week infuriated the West by blocking a UN resolution against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s deadly crackdown on protests.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow and Beijing were ready to propose a new UN resolution on Syria that would condemn violence carried out both by al-Assad’s regime and the rebel opposition.

But some experts say that in reality there is little trust between the two countries.

Russia’s security service the FSB revealed last week that it had been holding a Chinese national identified as Tong Shengyong for the past year on espionage charges linked to Russia’s S-300 surface-to-air missiles.

Neither the Kremlin nor Beijing, a major purchaser of Russian weapons, have issued any comment, in a possible attempt to suppress the issue ahead of Putin’s visit. — AFP

]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/putin-arrives-in-china-after-7-bln-deals.htm/feed 0 China counts down to space module launch http://www.eastasiantimes.com/china-counts-down-to-space-module-launch.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/china-counts-down-to-space-module-launch.htm#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 10:11:43 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=17625 China will take its first step towards building a space station on Thursday when it launches an experimental module ahead ofNational Day celebrations.

The Asian nation sees its ambitious space programme as a symbol of its global stature and state media said the launch of Tiangong-1, or “Heavenly Palace”, represented a “milestone” for the country.

Tiangong-1 is scheduled to take off between 1316 and 1331 GMT from the Gobi desert in China’s northwest, propelled by a Long March 2F rocket, ahead of China’s National Day on October 1.

Chinese newspapers and websites splashed the planned launch across their front pages, while state-run television began counting down to the take off from early Thursday and devoted much of its coverage to the event.

The unmanned 8.5-tonne module will test various space operations as a preliminary step towards building a space station by 2020.

As part of that goal, Tiangong-1 — which has a two-year lifespan in space — will receive the unmanned Shenzhou VIII spacecraft later this year in what would be the first Chinese docking in space.

If that succeeds, the module will then dock with two other spacecraft — Shenzhou IX and X — in 2012, both of which will have at least one astronaut on board.

The technology for docking in space is hard to master because the two vessels, placed in the same orbit and revolving around Earth at some 28,000 kilometres per hour (17,360 mph), must come together progressively to avoid destroying each other.

French researcher Isabelle Sourbes-Verger said that a correctly functioning docking system would put China “in a potential position to one day access the International Space Station (ISS).”

But she cautioned that this was not likely to happen in the next five years.

China, which has only been open to the world for some 30 years, is playing catch-up in the space arena.

Just like its first manned spaceflight in 2003, the planned space docking later this year will emulate what the Americans and Russians achieved in the 1960s.

China aims to finish its space station, where astronauts can live autonomously for several months like on the ISS or the former Russian Mir, by 2020.

Beijing began its manned spaceflight programme in 1990, after it bought Russian technology that enabled it to become the third country to send humans into space, after the former USSR and the United States.

On its national day last year, China launched its second lunar probe, Chang’e-2, and the first Chinese probe destined for Mars is due to be launched by a Russian rocket this autumn.

It is unclear whether China plans to send humans to the moon, particularly after the United States said it would not return there.

But the official China Daily newspaper quoted Wu Ping, a spokeswoman for China’s manned space programme, as saying that the Asian nation was doing “concept research and preliminary feasibility studies on manned moon landings.”

She added there was currently no set timetable for such a landing. — AFP

]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/china-counts-down-to-space-module-launch.htm/feed 0 The India-Vietnam Axis http://www.eastasiantimes.com/the-india-vietnam-axis.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/the-india-vietnam-axis.htm#comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:12:13 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=17294 New Delhi sees Hanoi as a counterweight to Beijing, in the same way as Beijing sees Islamabad.

 

India is the latest country to get drawn into the South China Sea dispute. Earlier this month, Beijing told New Delhi that its permission was needed for India’s state-owned oil and gas firm to explore for energy in two Vietnamese blocks in those waters. This follows reports of a Chinese vessel confronting an Indian Navy frigate off Vietnam in late July.

Vietnam quickly cited the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to claim its sovereign rights over the two blocks in question. Hanoi has been sparring with Beijing over the South China Sea in the past year, so such a response was expected.

What’s new is New Delhi not taking Chinese aggression in that region sitting down. It immediately decided to support Hanoi’s claims. Last week, Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna visited Vietnam and made it clear that its state-owned firm would continue to explore in the South China Sea. The display of backbone helped India strengthen its relationship with Vietnam. If China wants to expand its presence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, New Delhi’s thinking goes, India can do the same thing in East Asia.

The linchpin of this eastward move would be Vietnam. Hanoi fought a brief war with Beijing in 1979 and has grown wary of the Middle Kingdom’s increasing economic and military weight. That’s why in some quarters of New Delhi, Vietnam is already seen as a counterweight in the same way Pakistan has been for China.

That’s not to say good India-Vietnam relations wouldn’t exist otherwise. Vietnamese have traditionally held Indians in high regard because of the latter’s support for Vietnamese independence from France and their opposition to U.S. involvement in the country. And New Delhi formulated a “Look East” policy as early as 1991, to capitalize on East Asia’s economic growth. But the rise of China has given this relationship a powerful strategic—not to mention urgent—dimension.

Both sides realize that a stronger bilateral relationship starts with economic ties. The two countries signed an agreement in 2003 in which they envisioned creating an “Arc of Advantage and Prosperity” in Southeast Asia. So they’ve been boosting trade, especially after New Delhi signed a free-trade agreement with the Association of South-East Asian Nations in 2009. The volume of bilateral trade now exceeds $2 billion.

Both sides could still do more to enhance economic cooperation. Bilateral trade is much below the potential, given that India and Vietnam are major emerging economies. The two countries also need to think creatively about expanding investment opportunities, especially in the energy, steel, and pharmaceutical sectors. This can be done by establishing stronger institutional mechanisms that review the economic relationship on a regular basis and take steps to enhance it.

New Delhi’s abiding interest in Vietnam, though, is in the defense realm. It wants to build relations with states like Vietnam that can act as pressure points against China. With this in mind, it has been helping Hanoi beef up its naval and air capabilities.

Given that Vietnam and India use similar Russian and erstwhile Soviet defense platforms, New Delhi could easily offer defense technologies to Hanoi. Talks are ongoing for India to sell the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, an Indo-Russian joint venture. Such arms could allow Vietnam to project regional power and improve deterrence against China.

The two nations also have stakes in ensuring sea-lane security, as well as shared concerns about Chinese access to the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Hence, India is helping Vietnam to build capacity for repair and maintenance of its defense platforms. At the same time, the armed forces of the two states have started cooperation in areas like IT and English-language training of Vietnamese Army personnel. The two are also sharing their experiences in mountainous and jungle warfare.

Naval cooperation, however, remains the focus. Here, Vietnam has given India the right to use its port of Nha Trang in the south; the Indian Navy has already made a port call. It is not entirely clear what the final arrangement would look like, but the symbolism of this is not lost on China.

The two countries potentially share a common friend—the U.S. New Delhi has steadily built relations with Washington in the past decade, while Vietnam has been courting America as the South China Sea becomes a flashpoint. As these three countries ponder how to manage China’s rise, they will be drawn closer together.

By lashing out against India for its dealings with Vietnam, China has shown it will try to deter strategic competitors from collaborating against it. But if both India and Vietnam stand firm, they could force Beijing to moderate its expansionist claims on the South China Sea and adopt a more conciliatory stance on other regional matters. — The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Pant is a professor of defense studies at King’s College, London.

]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/the-india-vietnam-axis.htm/feed 0 Deadly landslide in South Korea mountain resort http://www.eastasiantimes.com/deadly-landslide-in-south-korea-mountain-resort.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/deadly-landslide-in-south-korea-mountain-resort.htm#comments Wed, 27 Jul 2011 06:11:18 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=16507 At least 10 people are dead and several missing after heavy rain triggered a landslide in a mountain resort in northern South Korea.

Hundreds of rescuers have been sifting through rubble and mud to find survivors in Chuncheon, about 100km (60 miles) east of Seoul.

Hotels, restaurants and coffee shops were wrecked when the slide occurred just after midnight (1500 GMT Tuesday).

More than 250mm (10in) of rain have fallen on Chuncheon in two days.

The ten victims were reportedly college students doing volunteer work in the area, who had all been staying in the same hotel.

“We were asleep and suddenly heard a big sound, and then the ceiling fell down,” said fellow student Lee Beon-seok, who was also in the hotel.

BBC map

“I heard a weird sound like a train,” the student was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

“I felt weird for hearing that train sound, but heard someone shouting ‘Help me’. So I went out to see, and I saw it was swept by landslide all over.”

More heavy rain was forecast for Wednesday.

Source: BCC NEWS

]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/deadly-landslide-in-south-korea-mountain-resort.htm/feed 0 India closer to opening up $450 bln retail sector http://www.eastasiantimes.com/india-closer-to-opening-up-450-bln-retail-sector.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/india-closer-to-opening-up-450-bln-retail-sector.htm#comments Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:34:00 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=16230

A top Indian government panel has approved a plan to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country’s vast retail market in what would be one of the country’s biggest economic reforms.

But it said investors would have to put in at least $100 million to set up multibrand retail stores and would only be allowed to operate in cities with at least one million people, the Press Trust of India said late Friday.

The proposal to more fully open up the Indian retail market, whose annual sales are estimated at around $450 billion, now must go to the federal cabinet for approval and then overcome widespread political opposition.

The move would mark one of the biggest reforms by India’s Congress-led government. But analysts say it could be difficult for the embattled government to push through the major changes as it fends off a slew of corruption charges.

Multi-brand foreign groups such as US-based Walmart currently operate as wholesalers but cannot sell directly to the public, amid fears that big international retail chains could swamp small family-run stores.

India’s tight foreign investment rules are aimed at protecting small “mom-and-pop” stores in the sector where less than 10 percent of consumers shop in bigger, well-known department stores.

The policy change would mean foreign retailers could start selling to Indian shoppers through partnerships with Indian retailers and be allowed to hold up to a 51 percent stake in local joint ventures.

India has already allowed 51 percent foreign investment in single-brand retail operations such as Nokia or Reebok and 100 percent in wholesale cash-and-carry operations.

“Step by step, we’re moving closer to opening multi-brand retail in India to FDI. This will invite a lot of interest from retailers the world over,” said Kishore Biyani, chief executive of leading Indian retailer Future Group.

Large retailers such as Walmart and France’s Carrefour have been lobbying India’s government aggressively to open the consumer market to foreign chains as they seek to grow outside saturated Western markets.

India’s top economic adviser Kaushik Basu said in May opening up the retail sector to foreign investors would cut supply bottlenecks and ease stubbornly high inflation, now nearly 10 percent.

Basu said international retail chains would modernise India’s storage and transport methods, reducing spoilage and creating greater competition at the supply level — all of which could help cut inflation.

Some 40 percent of India?s fruit and vegetables rot before they reach the market due to lack of cold storage and poor transport.

The issue of fully liberalising India’s retail sector has been under debate for years.

The changes would not mean complete liberalisation of the tightly regulated retail sector but could open a major new market for US and European companies.

“Business confidence will grow. It will definitely benefit the farmers as well as consumers, besides attracting more investments,” D.S. Rawat, secretary general of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. — AFP

]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/india-closer-to-opening-up-450-bln-retail-sector.htm/feed 0 Bank of Moscow is To Be Provided With State Aid http://www.eastasiantimes.com/bank-of-moscow-is-to-be-provided-with-state-aid.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/bank-of-moscow-is-to-be-provided-with-state-aid.htm#comments Tue, 05 Jul 2011 03:53:34 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=15807 Bank of Moscow will be provided with state aid at lucrative conditions for the current shareholders: the bank will receive a 10 year loan at only 0.51% interest rate. However, according to the data provided, more than a half of the bank’s gross loans are to be treated as bad loans, which cast a shadow not only on the Bank of Moscow and VTB, but on the entire Russian banking system.

On July 1, the CBR, Ministry of Finance and Deposit Insurance Agency agreed to bailout the Bank of Moscow. The bank will be provided with a collateralized loan for RUB 295 bn (USD 10.5 bn) at 0.51%. The non-market terms of the loan will allow the bank to receive extra income, which will allow for the creation of additional provisions. According to the CBR authorities, the Bank of Moscow has RUB 368 bn of bad loans.

We think that providing money with a large loan on non-market conditions is lucrative for current shareholders of Bank of Moscow. The bank receives money to create additional reserves from the state. It is expected that due to non-market conditions of the loan the bank will get extra income of RUB 150 bn, which will be used to create additional provisions. We also point out that the loan provided by the state will cover 80% of bad loans. However, in our opinion, the true scale of the problem in Bank of Moscow could not be precisely assessed. According to the data provided, 55% of gross loans at September 30, 2011 have been treated as bad loans, which casts a shadow not only on the Bank of Moscow and VTB, but on the entire banking system of Russia.

source : http://www.finamrus.com


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]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/bank-of-moscow-is-to-be-provided-with-state-aid.htm/feed 0 Carrefour, Casino Fight It Out Over Brazil Deal http://www.eastasiantimes.com/carrefour-casino-fight-it-out-over-brazil-deal.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/carrefour-casino-fight-it-out-over-brazil-deal.htm#comments Tue, 05 Jul 2011 03:15:12 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=15803 French supermarket giants Carrefour and Casino traded further blows Monday over their operations in Brazil, a key market where both are claiming a tie-up with the same huge local company.

Casino is fighting to keep its alliance with longtime Brazilian partner CBD Pao de Acucar, which Carrefour has courted in a bid to build up its business.

Casino said it had lodged a second request for arbitration from the International Chamber of Commerce aimed at compelling the Diniz family — CBD’s main shareholder — to respect a partnership agreement under which Casino would obtain majority control of the Brazilian group this year.

Earlier on Monday, Carrefour’s board approved its plan to partner with CBD.

Initiated by investment fund Gama and financed in part by BNDES, the Brazilian development bank, the move would merge the French giant’s Brazil interests with CBD into a new company that would in turn own 11 percent of Carrefour.

The board deemed the project “fully in line with Carrefour’s strategy to strengthen its footprint in its principal growth markets and would create value” for the company, a statement said.

The board noted, however, that the “transaction remains subject to certain conditions, including approval by CBD and final approval by BNDES’s board of directors.”

BNDES stressed that its support would depend on any merger being friendly, with all parties involved — including Casino — reaching agreement on all issues, a source close to the negotiations told AFP in Brazil.

Carrefour said the deal, in the booming and lucrative Brazilian market, would produce synergies worth between 600 and 800 million euros ($872 million – $1.16 billion) a year, with projected sales of 30 billion euros in 2011. The BNDES potentially could pour as much as two billion euros into the tie-up.

Casino increased its longtime stake in CBD to 43.1 percent last week as it battles to head off the Carrefour arrangement.

Press reports said BNDES is looking for consensus on the deal in an effort to defuse tensions between the parties.

Other reports said Casino chief executive Jean-Charles Naouri was in Brazil and set to meet the BNDES chief later Monday.

source : http://au.finance.yahoo.com


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]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/carrefour-casino-fight-it-out-over-brazil-deal.htm/feed 0 Gold Headed to $1618 http://www.eastasiantimes.com/gold-headed-to-1618.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/gold-headed-to-1618.htm#comments Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:38:57 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=15692 While equities and cyclical commodities have tumbled in recent months, the price of gold remains within 2% of its all-time record high. Although the ongoing sovereign debt crisis in Greece has served as a catalyst for the gold price in recent days, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting is likely to take center stage on Wednesday. The FOMC will conclude its two-day meeting with its usual monetary policy statement, followed by Chairman Bernanke’s second-ever post-FOMC press conference.

The Fed is expected to stay the course, which includes holding the fed funds rate near zero and announcing that its second round of quantitative easing is set to end on June 30. The Fed is not expected to make any mention of a possible QE3. In a Bloomberg survey of 58 economists, 46 forecasted that the Fed’s balance sheet will remain at its current size of $2.8 trillion. Ninety percent of respondents predicted the Fed will not remove the “extended period” language with respect to keeping interest rates near zero until the fourth quarter of this year.

While expectations are for Bernanke and the Fed to keep its current monetary policies on hold, a recent wave of disappointing U.S. economic data may prompt the central bank to make the tone of its statement more dovish. Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies & Co., wrote in a note to clients that the Fed will “have to acknowledge that the recovery has decelerated, but want to avoid fanning the fires of QE3 expectations.”

Over the longer-term, however, McCarthy did not rule out the possibility of QE3. “If, some months down the road, it looked like the economy was headed into a nose dive they’d probably pull a QE3 off the shelf.”

Given the continued strength in the gold price, the market is likely signaling that the road ahead for the economy may indeed be quite bumpy. In such an environment, the Fed could be expected to reignite the printing presses, fueling further gains in the price of gold.

Trend: ST Range; MT Bullish
Levels Comment
1755.0 Fib projection
1618.0 Fib projection
1565.0 Fib projection
1544 Last
1410.0 Pivot point
1308.0 Horizontal support
1240.0 Horizontal support

Shayne Heffernan

Shayne Heffernan oversees the management of funds for institutions and high net worth individuals.

Shayne Heffernan holds a Ph.D. in Economics and brings with him over 25 years of trading experience in Asia and hands on experience in Venture Capital, he has been involved in several start ups that have seen market capitalization over $500m and 1 that reach a peak market cap of $15b. He has managed and overseen start ups in Mining, Shipping, Technology and Financial Services.


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]]> http://www.eastasiantimes.com/gold-headed-to-1618.htm/feed 0 Hong Kong GDP Improves http://www.eastasiantimes.com/hong-kong-gdp-improves.htm http://www.eastasiantimes.com/hong-kong-gdp-improves.htm#comments Tue, 21 Jun 2011 16:36:49 +0000 admin http://www.eastasiantimes.com/?p=15606 Hong Kong’s GDP up 7.2% in Q-1

Hong Kong’s gross domestic product (GDP) went up 7.2% in real terms in Q-1 of Y 2011 from a year earlier, compared with the 6.4% increase in Q-4 of Y 2010, the city’s Census and Statistics Department announced Monday.

According to the department, analyzed by constituent sector and on a year-on-year comparison, net output in all the service activities taken together increased by 7.0% in real terms in Q-1 of Y 2011 from a year earlier, compared with the 6.4% growth in Q-4 of Y 2010.

Net output in the import and export, wholesale and retail trades sector increased significantly by 14.0% in real terms in Q-1 of Y 2011 from a year earlier, faster than the 9.1% increase in Q-4 of Y 2010. The accelerated growth was attributable to the strong growth momentum of external trade regained in Q-1, the department said.

Net output in the transportation, storage, postal and courier services sector increased further by 9.3 in real terms in Q-1 of Y 2011 from a year earlier, after the 6.6% growth in Q-4 of Y 2010. The strong growth in this sector was in tandem with the thriving trading activities, it said.

Net output in the financing and insurance sector grew by 12.6% in real terms in Q-1 of Y 2011 from a year earlier, following the growth of 13.8% in Q-4 of Y 2010. This reflected the continued buoyancy in financial activities, according to the department.

Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr.


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Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. writes and publishes The Red Roadmaster’s Technical Report on the US Major Market Indices, a weekly, highly-regarded financial market letter, read by opinion makers, business leaders and organizations around the world.

Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr has studied the global financial and stock markets since 1984, following a successful business career that included investment banking, and market and business analysis. He is a specialist in equities/commodities, and an accomplished chart reader who advises technicians with regard to Major Indices Resistance/Support Levels.

www.livetradingnews.com

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