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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (96708)	11/24/2012 11:06:40 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217556

Oil and mining in Indonesia Foreigners beware Foreign investors are getting nervous Nov 24th 2012 \| JAKARTA \| from the print edition COMMERCIAL oil production began in Indonesia in the 1880s. Firms have been drilling for oil and gas there ever since, despite the occasional coup and financial crisis. Still, the country is finding new ways to make life hard for them. On November 13th Indonesia’s Constitutional Court said that parts of the country’s 2001 oil-and-gas law were unconstitutional, and the court dissolved BPMigas, the state regulator. The constitution says that Indonesia’s natural resources “shall be under the powers of the State and shall be used to the greatest benefit of the people”. The judges took this to mean that a government agency such as BPMigas does not have the authority to oversee reserves and sign production-sharing contracts, especially with foreign firms. Those firms are worried. The government says that all current contracts will be honoured; and it has quickly transferred regulatory powers temporarily to the energy ministry. Yet even if contracts are honoured, oil giants such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and CNOOC are wondering what will happen when they come up for renewal. The court recommended that all operations run by foreigners should be handed over to PT Pertamina, the creaky state energy giant, after contracts expire. Indeed Pertamina may again assume the role of regulator, with all the conflicts of interest that implies, unless the government can create a new body sufficiently different from BPMigas to satisfy the court. (Pertamina lost its role as regulator in 2001.) The immediate effects are unclear. Negotiations with BP, a British oil firm, about a $12 billion expansion of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Indonesia’s Papua region, have been halted. BP says it is not worried yet. It is working through an approval process that will not end until 2014 for a plant that will come on stream in 2018. Delays are usual in such a scheme. Pessimists fear that the ruling is part of a recent surge of economic nationalism. In March the government ruled that foreign miners must sell at least 51% of their Indonesian operations to locals after operating for ten years. Previously they were obliged to sell only 20%, albeit after five years. If history is any guide, mistreating foreign investors will backfire. Crude-oil production has fallen from 1.4m barrels a day in 2000 to 918,000 last year; Indonesia’s oilfields are old and running dry. Production of gas has risen only from 63 billion cubic metres to 76 billion over the same period, well short of its potential. Political uncertainty spooks investors. Indonesia’s remaining hydrocarbons are becoming harder to extract; they are in remote spots that require plenty of expensive new infrastructure and technology. Pertamina lacks the capital and expertise to do the job. In Mexico, where a constitutional clause like Indonesia’s has long been interpreted to exclude foreign investors from the oil-and-gas industry, investment has lagged and offshore reserves have remained largely untapped. Some Indonesians may not care. The tighter the state’s control over natural resources, the more opportunities will arise for rent-seeking. The country holds an election in 2014. Political parties are keen to fill their war chests. Whether any of this will be for “the greatest benefit of the people” remains to be seen. from the print edition \| Business

To: TobagoJack who wrote (96708)	11/24/2012 9:32:19 PM
From: ggersh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217556

bbc.co.uk Hong Kong and China: Growing apart? By John Simpson World Affairs Editor, BBC News Earlier this year students protested against the government's plans to implement Chinese patriotism classes in Hong Kong, forcing the authorities to back down Fifteen years after the handover of Hong Kong, the new Chinese leadership in Beijing is getting increasingly nervous about the former colony's independent-mindedness. A senior Chinese official in charge of Hong Kong affairs, Zhang Xiaoming, has accused "external powers" - presumably Britain and the US - of helping opposition parties in Hong Kong. Writing in Hong Kong's pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po, Mr Zhang insisted that new legislation was required to stop any such interference. This has caused fury among the politicians and activists known as "pan-democrats" in Hong Kong. Many believe that a crisis between Beijing and Hong Kong is building up. When outgoing Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Hong Kong in July, he was greeted by people demonstrating against what they saw as efforts to remake the territory in China's own image. Some of the demonstrators turned up with the old colonial flag, which had the Union Jack in the top left-hand corner. 'We are Hong Kongese' The people who brandished the flag were all were young Hong Kong Chinese. Few if any can have been in their teens when Hong Kong was handed over to China. They were not demanding a return to British rule - instead they were emphasising the separateness of Hong Kong. But they saw the flag as the symbol of their distinctive existence, and of the protection which the British authorities used to give them. In Victoria Park - all the old British-era names have been retained in Hong Kong - I met one of the organisers of the flag protest, Danny Chan. He is only 26. "We aren't British, and we aren't Chinese," he told me. "We are Hong Kongese, and we want to stay that way." Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Now there is a new fear: that China will feel it has to step in and do something about this growing sense of differentiation between Hong Kong and the mainland. ” In September there was a fresh cause for anger. The Chinese government wanted Hong Kong schools and universities to start teaching the Chinese version of history, in particular to give a favourable account of the Chinese Communist Party. The demonstrations, at which the colonial flag was again waved with great enthusiasm by some of the protesters, were so big and so intense that the local Hong Kong government caved in and agreed not to introduce the new lessons. Fifteen years ago, this kind of independent-mindedness on the part of Hong Kong's people seemed unthinkable. I reported for the BBC on the handover in June 1997, and at that stage it seemed fair to assume that Hong Kong would swiftly be submerged in a greater China. The people of Hong Kong had always gone along quietly enough with their colonial rulers, and it seemed only reasonable that they would now go along with their Communist ones. Growing apart? At midnight on 30 June 1997, after the final ceremony of the handover had taken place, the royal yacht Britannia sailed out of Victoria Harbour, brilliantly lit and taking the Prince of Wales and the last Hong Kong Governor, Chris Patten, with her. I was invited to a celebratory cocktail party given by the Chinese government. The windows of the Convention Centre, where it was held, looked out at Britannia as she made her way to the sea. But the Hong Kong businessmen at the party ostentatiously kept their backs turned to the historic sight below them. I felt at the time that it was a sign of the way things were going in Hong Kong. And yet, 15 years later, it has turned out very differently. Now there is a new fear - that China will feel it has to step in and do something about this growing sense of differentiation between Hong Kong and the mainland. In 2017, if things go according to plan, the chief executive in Hong Kong - in effect its prime minister - will be popularly elected. At the moment Beijing nominates a senior Hong Kong figure for the job. China is clearly worried that if the chief minister is elected, this will encourage a greater sense of independence among Hong Kong people. Many pan-democrats are afraid that China is looking for ways to postpone it, or even stop it altogether. Everything depends on the attitude of the new leadership which has taken over in Beijing. Zhang Xiaoming's article in the Hong Kong press, blaming it all on "outside powers", is not a good omen.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (96708)	11/26/2012 5:51:44 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217556

Good thought-provoking post TJ. Particularly: <those who benefited not from their own diligence but for the most part owe their status to a relatively short accident in history and rode the industrialization wave up and cresting on a tech froth, > I have been aware of that for a decade or two, but it is gathering pace as the world's economic centre of gravity shifts eastwards from mid Atlantic. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions: Message 28568878 Those "Coke and Pepsi" people, carried along, unknowingly, on the wave, are being dashed on the rocks of false expectation. Made in China industrious people are "stealing our jobs" and eating their lunch. I don't believe that Made in China industrious people will vote to keep hordes of Coke n Pepsi people in the manner to which they have become accustomed, just as the industrious Germans are disinclined to maintain the lifestyle of indolent Greek and Spanish siestas. Mqurice