Posted by: Manjeet Kripalani on May 16
Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime ministser and finance minister of Malaysia, was in Bombay today. It's his second visit to India in six months. He is friends with Dr. Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister and former finance minister, and says he has other friends here he has come to visit.
But he's scored his points. Ibrahim, whose party won six of 13 Malaysian states in the March 8 elections, has been wooing the Indian community, a 9% minority in Malaysia that has been widely neglected and discriminated against by the current conservative ruling party. The state imprisoned a Hindu community leader, who is still in jail, angering the Indians, comprising mostly Hindus from Tamil Nadu who migrated to Malaysia decades ago. Ibrahim says his is the only multi-racial party in Malaysia - and he's determined to win on the secular, liberal ticket.
So he's here in India, in the homeland of his minority community. His aides say he likes India and its democratic values, and loves Indian food, which is served in his home. Ibrahim says this trip is not particularly special, that he makes similar trips to Singapore and Hong Kong and Indonesia and Davos, and always speaks to the press, because Malaysia does not have a free press, and people don't get other opionions. This way, something is picked up by the Malaysian media, and on the internet, so Malays get another view about Ibrahim and Malaysia.
By portraying himself as an global, Asian leader, Ibrahim increases his stature within his own country. He says he is confident of taking over the government in Malaysia - internal regime change - in the fall.
Posted by: Ian Rowley on May 16
Given Japan's car market has been shrinking for years, reaching a 25-year low in 2007 million, execs at Japan's car makers must be reasonably pleased that sales in 2008 have risen in three out of the first four months of the year. In April, for instance, sales excluding Japan's 660cc mini-cars, rose 6.9% to 232,993 vehicles.
Still, a report in today's Nikkei, a business paper, suggests even the mildest celebrations would be premature. For the first time since data was collected in 1963, the total number of vehicles on Japan's roads has fallen over a three-month period. Between December and February, the total number of buses, cars and motorbikes on the country's roads fell 0.2% to 79.43 million. The Nikkei reports that comparable data has been available only since 1963, but this is likely the first three-month drop since World War II in any developed car market. That's bad news not just for carmakers, but also insurers, gas stations, and car repair shops. It also puts the government in a bind. Its plans to spend $567 billion on road building are based on the assumption that traffic volume will peak in 2010, the paper reports.
What gives? One explanation is almost certainly Japan's falling population. Another is the simple fact that young people, less well off than their parents' generation, have less cash to spend on cars. In central Tokyo, a parking space--a necessity given you're not allowed to park on the road--costs upwards of $400 a month (I'm thinking of renting mine out!). It could even be that more Japanese are switching to the next best thing: electric-motor-assisted bicycles. While auto sales have plunged, the Japan Bicycle Promotion Institute reckons 282,600 electro-bicycles, which aren't included in the numbers, were sold last year. That's up 40% from five years ago. Cash-conscious mothers, regularly seen around town with at least one child in tow, are the biggest customers.
Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on May 16
For a tiny country that has very little contact with the rest of the world, Bhutan seems to be in the news a lot these days. Today India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, is visiting the Bhutanese capital of Thimphu, the first visit by an Indian leader in ten years. This summit comes after the Himalayan kingdom had its first-ever parliamentary elections in March, attracting all sorts of coverage from reporters keen for an excuse to go to the country. And who wouldn't? I went there on vacation a week after the elections and it's an amazing place. (Here's a story and a slide show about Bhutan from the recent BW Asian travel special.)
Bhutan is especially interesting for anybody like me who follows the complex relationship between India and China. The country is sandwiched between the two, and although culturally the Bhutanese are much closer to the Tibetans – the languages are similar, the versions of Buddhism are similar – Bhutan has thrown in its lot with India and has very little to do with China. According to this Bloomberg story, India accounts for 98% of the country’s exports and provides 90% of its imports. When I was in Bhutan, I could easily see India’s influence. The gas stations are Indian, the cars are Indian, the products in the stores come from India, the signs are in English to make things easier for Indian visitors. The Tata group has just opened a five-star Taj hotel in the capital. (It’s a swank six-storey building that is probably one of the first in the whole country to have an elevator.) Meanwhile, Bhutan has no relations with China and the border with Tibet is closed, although that doesn’t stop smugglers from going back and forth.
According to Bloomberg, the Indians are keen to ensure that newly-democratic Bhutan stays safely in New Delhi’s orbit. "'After the democratic changes in Bhutan, the Indian prime minister can assure them things are on track with India,' Sreeradha Datta, research fellow at the New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses said by telephone. 'India is wary of China having a control over Bhutan.'"
Not that the Indians have much reason to worry. Bhutan is almost completely reliant on its giant neighbor to the south. And given what's been going on in Tibet, the Buddhists of Bhutan are hardly likely to turn to China. Just a theory, but I think Bhutan's willingness to live under India's shadow might help to explain why Beijing is so determined to maintain its control over Tibet. Yes, the Chinese argue that Tibet has been part of China for centuries, and no, all you Chinese nationalists out there, I'm not taking any sides on that argument. What I am saying, though, is that regardless of those arguments, the Chinese government probably sees Bhutan and the extensive Indian influence there and thinks that the same thing would happen in Tibet if the People’s Liberation Army were to leave. It's one thing for China to tolerate a little Swiss-sized country on its periphery dominated by one of its two biggest Asian rivals. It would be quite another for Beijing to surrender control of the giant Tibetan plateau and allow India to be within spitting distance of some of China's heartland.
Posted by: Manjeet Kripalani on May 15
On May 23, Bangalore's new international airport will be open for business. It'll be swish and modern, for sure. Built by a consortium that also built the Zurich airport, plus Siemens and India's best infrastructure project company Larsen & Toubro. Cost $625 million.
Flights from all over the world will no longer land at the crowded, shabby old HAL airport, in Bangalore city. They'll come into this swanky new facility on the outskirts of the city.
Those who are rejoicing should take pause.
For the commuter's pain is about to be exacerbated, not relieved.
First, the drive into Bangalore from the new airport will be 35-km long and last over an hour. That's nothing compared to cities like Bombay, where it could take an hour and a half. But Bangalore's existing airport is five minutes from the city and that helps enormously in alleviating the pain of investors and businessmen already fed up with Bangalore's infrastructure constraints and maddening traffic jams. An extra commuting hour is extreme torture. Add that high-priced ride to your high-priced hotel room.
Second, the road from the airport to the city isn't a good one. The politicians were so busy making money buying the land around the new airport they all forgot to build a proper road. So may be the commute in will take two hours instead of one, once the traffic and chaos get under way.
Third, it'll cost you more to land at the new airport - about $17 more for domestic passengers, and $25 more for international. That's priced into your ticket. It's not much, you'll say. But for Indians - and most of the traffic in Bangalore comes from within India - $17 is a lot. Especially because air traffic has increased due to the emergence of low-cost airlines. Lots of young entrepreneurs and their families flying those airlines into Bangalore, will chaff at the $17 - especially if their air ticket cost $62. And that taxi ride into Bangalore - that'll cost upwards of $25. Some new buses are being introduced with cheaper fares - but it'll take two hours to Bangalore.
Fourth, let's talk about congestion. When the airport was planned several years ago, it was to accomodate the 12 million passengers who will fly into Bangalore by 2012.
Chuck that number out. Bangalore already has 12 million passengers flying into its local HAL airport. And it's growing by 42% a year. By 2012, it'll be 22 million.
Okay, you're saying, that's 12 mil for the new airport and 10 mil for HAL airport. Great, it'll be comfy.
Nope. Because HAL airport is being shut down.
The investors will want their money back.
Even if it's at the cost of other foreign investors and ordinary Bangaloreans.
Continue reading "Bangalore's new airport: help or hindrance?"
Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on May 15
At first blush, a delay in South Korea’s resumption of U.S. beef imports in the face of vociferous public protests may appear yet another instance of emotional nationalism in the way of a deal, which makes business sense. But although it certainly displays Korean interest groups’ tendency to take to the streets to push for their demands, President Lee Myung Bak’s administration is not free from blame for the mess it created.
Controversies and protests have raged in Korea since last month when Seoul struck a deal with Washington to lift restrictions on U.S. beef imports, shortly before Lee was scheduled to have his first summit with President George W. Bush. Surely, Lee was under pressure to conclude a beef deal as U.S. lawmakers had made it clear that Congress would not approve a sweeping free trade deal with Korea unless Seoul fully opened its market to U.S. beef. It’s also understandable that the pro-U.S. Korean leader wanted to have some tangible results from his talks with Bush. (Click here for some facts about the Korean beef market prepared by Reuters)
The problem was the lack of efforts on Lee’s part to communicate with his own people. His negotiating team left an impression among many Koreans that the issue of the safety of the product was not properly addressed although U.S. had a record of an outbreak of mad cow disease in 2003. One Korean official says the probability of a human being catching a mad cow disease by eating U.S. beef is like the one of a golf player scoring a hole-in-one and then being killed by lightning.
Maybe. But Lee’s government didn’t try to convince Koreans about the safety of U.S. beef. The mad cow disease is particularly sensitive in Korea as dishes using cow bones and intestines—potentially more hazardous parts -- are regarded as delicacies. Now Lee, nicknamed the “bulldozer”, may be wise to reconsider his style of railroading through his agenda. Lee’s popularity rate has fallen to mid-20s in May from almost 60% early March. His hurried approach to better ties with the U.S. is backfiring, particularly among Korean teenagers, who are actively taking part in street protests these days.
