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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (16140)	11/17/2004 11:10:31 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

China expected to attract over 62 bln usd in FDI this yr - report Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:01:28 AM afxpress.com BEIJING (AFX) - China's actual foreign direct investment is expected to climb to 62 bln usd this year, compared to the 53.5 bln it recorded last year, the China Economic Times reported, citing an official with the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) Deng Zhan, vice director of the MoC's foreign investment section, did not provide any reason for the expected rise in the full-year FDI Deng said China was also expected to import more than 500 bln usd of goods this year China became the world's third largest import market in 2003, with imports totaling 412.8 bln usd and Deng said he expects the country to become the world's second largest market in 2020, with imports of about 1 trln usd China's actual FDI rose 21.01 pct year-on-year to 48.69 bln usd in the nine months to September, while contracted FDI was up 35.62 pct at 107.42 bln usd, the MoC said in a brief statement last month The increase in actual investment was 9.16 percentage points higher than the 11.85 pct growth seen in the first nine months last year, and continued to accelerate from the 18.77 pct year-on-year growth reported for the first eight months of this year, it said

To: RealMuLan who wrote (16140)	11/17/2004 11:14:54 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

Bank of Japan leaves monetary policy unchanged Thursday, November 18, 2004 3:30:50 AM afxpress.com TOKYO (AFX) - The Bank of Japan said its policy board voted unanimously at a two-day meeting which ended today to leave its super-loose credit policy unchanged The decision, which was expected, means the BoJ board will leave in place its policy aimed at keeping short-term interest rates around zero by flooding the short-term money market with excess cash. The policy is aimed at ending Japan's six-year battle with deflation The nine-member board has now voted unanimously at 14 consecutive meetings to maintain its so-called quantitative easing policy The BoJ said it would maintain its target for the outstanding balance of current account deposits held by private financial institutions at the central bank in a range of 30-35 trln yen. This is the bank's primary tool for keeping lending rates near zero No change was expected as the core consumer price index (CPI), the central bank's primary gauge of price trends, is still declining, and economic growth slowed to a virtual standstill last quarter, raising fear the world's second-largest economy could slip back into recession The economy grew just 0.1 pct in the July-September quarter, or at an annualized rate of 0.3 pct, the government reported last Friday The much weaker-than-expected growth was due to a slowdown in export growth and a drop in corporate capital spending, the two driving forces behind economic growth that exceeded 6 pct over the final quarter of 2003 and this year's first quarter Exports last quarter rose just 0.4 pct. Non-residential investment spending, a close equivalent of corporate investment spending, fell 0.2 pct On Tuesday, in its economic report for November, the Cabinet Office downgraded its assessment of the economy for the first time since June 2003 It said exports were "weakening" and industrial production was "leveling off" The dollar's sharp decline against the yen recently puts even greater pressure on Japanese exports and industrial output to fall. Overnight, the dollar plunged to a seven and a half month low of 103.79 yen, sparking concern the BoJ may resume intervening in the currency market to prevent the yen from appreciating further and jeopardizing Japan's export-led recovery Maintaining its ultra-easy credit policy, however, puts the BoJ at odds with interest rate trends in other major countries around the world In the US, the Federal Reserve has lifted the trend-setting Federal Funds rate four times this year, doubling it to 2 pct. Many economists expect another rate hike in December. And the People's Bank of China late last month lifted the benchmark one-year lending rate by 0.27 percentage point to 5.58 pct, the first such hike in China in more than nine years But BoJ governor Toshihiko Fukui has repeatedly vowed that Japan's central bank will not abandon its super-loose credit stance until the year-on-year change in the monthly core CPI, which strips out volatile food prices, remains at or above zero for a prolonged period The nationwide core CPI was unchanged in September, after falling 0.2 pct in each of the two previous months At 3.00 pm (0600 GMT), the BoJ will release its monthly assessment of the economy and financial market trends, and Fukui will hold a news conference beginning at 3.30 pm. Late last month the BoJ, in a twice-yearly outlook on price trends and economic growth prospects, said the core CPI should "increase slightly" in the year to March 2006. In its semi-annual Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices, the central bank said it now expects the core CPI to rise 0.1 pct in fiscal 2005, which starts next April. It maintained its forecast for a 0.2 pct decline in the current year to next March Fukui said later that day that the central bank would not necessarily abandon its super-loose credit policy even if prices stop falling and start rising next year "The prospect of a possible rise of the CPI in fiscal 2005 does not (alone) meet conditions for changing the current monetary easing," Fukui said The central bank chief reiterated there are three conditions that must be met before the BoJ ends its super-loose credit policy. In addition to the oft-cited first condition, Fukui said there must be no sign that deflation could reemerge and the overall economy must be sufficiently robust to permit a change of policy. In its twice-year outlook issued last month, the BoJ raised its forecast for economic growth for the current year to March 2005 to a real 3.6 pct, from 3.1 pct forecast last April It forecast growth would slow to 2.5 pct in the 2005 fiscal year

To: RealMuLan who wrote (16140)	11/17/2004 11:37:13 PM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

China Jan-Oct avg property prices up 11.7 pct, slows from Jan-Sept - NBS [Strange way to put it since values declined 1.3% from sept to Oct mish] Thursday, November 18, 2004 4:26:10 AM afxpress.com BEIJING (AFX) - Average property prices in China's main cities rose 11.7 pct year-on-year in the first ten months to 2,758 yuan per square meter, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on its website The NBS said the growth rate slowed 1.3 percentage points from the January-September period, but did not provide any reason The average price of residential property rose 10.2 pct to 2,566 yuan between January and October Chinese investors invested a total of 952.6 bln yuan in real estate development in the first ten months, up 28.9 pct from a year earlier, with the growth accelerating 0.6 percentage points from the Jan-Sept period, the NBS said Investment in residential property rose 27.9 pct year-on-year to 646.1 bln yuan, with investment in office buildings increasing 33.8 pct and investment in commercial property up 34.7 pct According to the NBS, China's vacant property fell 3.7 pct year-on-year to 97.77 mln sq m at the end of September, with a total of 134 mln sq m of land developed, up 9 pct In the first nine months, China's property prices rose 13 pct year-on-year to an average of 2,777 yuan per sq m, and the average residential property price increased 10.9 pct to 2,566 yuan per sq m