China's Surging Trade Growth

BEIJING, Aug. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- China's trade surplus used to be the focus of global attention. But it is now the country's surging trade growth that is in the spotlight.

After a 3.1 percent fall in June, exports rose 5.1 percent year-on-year in July, while imports soared by 10.9 percent year-on-year compared with a 0.7 percent year-on-year drop in June.

The stronger-than-expected growth rates have overshadowed the contraction in the country's monthly trade surplus, which dropped to 17.8 billion U.S. dollars in July, down 29.6 percent on a year ago.

But while the strong growth in both exports and imports points to a mild improvement in both external and internal demand, with domestic activities strengthening in a reassuring manner -thanks to the country's targeted measures to stabilize economic growth - it is apparent that foreign demand remains weak and domestic economic activities are still at low levels.

However, the morale-boosting figures were released at a time when the global economy is struggling with a slow and volatile recovery - among the other major economies, only the US economy has been showing signs of solid growth - so it is no surprise the data have been welcomed as a possible prelude to an eagerly awaited economic recovery in the world's second-largest economy.

After dipping to as low as 7.5 percent in the second quarter, the figures have raised expectations that China's economic growth might have bottomed out, as the government's efforts to boost growth amid economic restructuring start to take effect.

The increasing manufacturing and services activities, signaled by the rising official Purchasing Managers' Index for July, also suggest a gradual improvement in economic fundamentals.

Yet it would be rash to anticipate any strong surge in China's economic indicators.

An alarm was rung by the HSBC manufacturing PMI, which mainly tracks small enterprises in the export sector, as it dropped to 47.7 in July from 48.2 in June, signaling possible trade volatility in the coming months.

In particular, the sub-indexes measuring new export orders in both the official and HSBC PMI revealed contraction in July.

Therefore, more data, including inflation, industrial output and retail sales, need to be monitored before it can be confidently asserted without fear of contradiction that the Chinese economy is solidly on the up again.

(Source: China Daily)

Asian economies Will Rule the World by 2050

A study showed that because of the region's rapid growth that boosts wealth creation, Asian countries Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea are projected to be the world's richest economies on a per capita basis by 2050. The survey was done by property giant Knight Frank and Citi Private Bank. The survey also showed multi-millionaires in Asia will continue to outnumber those in North America and Western Europe by 2050.

Singapore topped the list in 2010 and is expected to keep the top spot in 2050, when the city-state's gross domestic product (GDP) per capita would reach $137,710.

It will be trailed by Hong Kong ($116,639), Taiwan ($114,093) and South Korea ($107,752) with the United States coming in fifth place, falling from third place in 2010.

Singapore's 2010 GDP per capita stood at $56,532, while Hong Kong ($45,301) the only other Asian economy in the top 10 that year was in fourth place.
Taiwan and South Korea were not even in the top 10 in 2010.

"While rapid GDP growth does not in itself guarantee a sharp rise in high networth individuals, rapidly growing economies do provide key opportunities for large-scale wealth creation," Grainne Gilmore, head of UK Residential Research at Knight Frank, wrote in the study.

Gilmore said there are now around 18,000 "centa-millionaires" those with $100 million or more in assets in the region covering Southeast Asia, China and Japan, more than the 17,000 in North America and 14,000 in Western Europe.

By 2016, Southeast Asia, China and Japan are expected to have 26,000 centa-millionaires, compared with 21,000 in North America and 15,000 in Western Europe, she wrote, citing data from Ledbury Research.

On a country basis, the United States will lead in 2016 with 17,100 centa millionaires but China is expected to double its numbers to 14,000.

"Southeast Asian deca-millionaires, those with $10 million or more in assets, already outnumber those in Europe and are expected to overtake those in the US in the coming decade," she said.

source Yahoo news