• The young and the restless

    China is 10 years older India. It’s not a small age gap. It also means India will need to spend a lot more time creating jobs over the next decade. So will much of the Middle East. But that’s not going to be easy unless some of China’s labour-intensive factories are shipped offshore…

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  • China’s middle-class wants souvenirs

    It might be obvious that China has become steadily wealthier. But this People’s Daily article offers a nice anecdote. No longer happy with receiving basic goods as gifts, China’s middle-class are hungry for cultural souvenirs. Egypt’s papyrus, silver plates, and copper Aladdin lamps are high on the list…

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  • The Chinese navy returns to the Gulf

    Two Chinese naval warships are visiting the UAE. It’s the first time in modern history that the Chinese navy has visited the Gulf. The fact China cannot project its military power without an aircraft carrier argues against inflating the practical importance of the trip. But the visit certainly has symbolic importance…

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Recent Articles

Three-day weekends are good for the economy

August 8th, 2010

It’s holiday season. I’m off myself to Japan this week. But Saudi Arabia is apparently disappointed that the number of domestic tourists has fallen 35% this year, according to an Al Hayat report. The local tourism authorities are citing several factors, including the high cost of domestic travel. Some entertainment parks, for example, only open their facilities for part of summer, so they have to hike prices to cover costs during that short period.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a senior Japanese official a few weeks ago. He was touting the Japanese government’s new economic plan. 

One step forward. Two back.

August 2nd, 2010

One step forward. Two back. Egypt’s Masry AI Youm reports that China is asking for 40-year land rights to develop the North-West Suez Gulf Economic Zone. The request is resulting in a conflict between the Chinese investors and Egypt’s Ministry of Investment.

This is a project that has been under development for some time. And I have heard that only minimal progress has been made so far. A former advisor to the China-Egypt Business Council, Doctor Abdul Aziz Hamdi, is quoted in the article as warning that Chinese investors may even leave because of the zone’s bureaucracy and a lack of flexibility, even unpredictability, in decision-making.

Half-moon boats and soft power

July 30th, 2010

“I finally saw the $100 million dollar Saudi Arabian pavilion!” says Chinese-blogger Happy Wanderer. The pavilion is one of the largest at the Shanghai World Expo and apparently has the longest queues. Happy Wanderer says people are lined up for at least 4-hours. (And I’ve since had that confirmed). But she’s attached some pictures, and it’s apparently worth the wait.

The pavilion is shaped like a half-moon boat. Inside, I’m told, there is a huge IMAX theatre that whisks people across Saudi Arabia. I also read that a traditional Bedouin tent out the front, complete with palm trees, is catching attention.

Pakistan’s not so direct link has India worried

July 25th, 2010

It wasn’t much of a reply. But Qin Gang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, has stirred up India’s media. He was asked about plans to build a direct train link between China and Pakistan. He neither confirmed nor denied, instead talking about the strength of the relationship between the two countries. The question was asked after Pakistan’s President Zardari, currently visiting China, referenced the idea of a link.

Now, it’s too early to start booking tickets. This is an idea that has sat on the drawing board for a long time.

The royal court is not amused

July 20th, 2010

The Middle East is plastered with posters of the region’s Kings, Presidents, and Prime Ministers. They are everywhere, from shops to street corners. So, it seems like a nice business to be printing them. At least, that’s what two Chinese entrepreneurs must have thought until they ended up in a Moroccan court last week. They’ve been lucky to escape with a $650 fine, according to this report, rather than going to prison. Their crime? Printing pictures of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI in China, only to be caught bringing them into Morocco.

The Middle East braces itself for a flood of Chinese steel

July 18th, 2010

Always a favorite of mine — a simple statistic that tells a simple story. This graph shows China‘s exports to the Middle East surging mid-2008, before later collapsing. A result of the economic crisis? Perhaps not. Draw a straight line through the graph, as I have in red, and it shows that exports are in fact on a relatively steady trajectory. So how to explain the mid-2008 surge? There‘s only limited details, but exports of base metals to Saudi Arabia jumped around the same time. Most likely these exports were steel products.

Droughts and floods forge common bonds

July 14th, 2010

Droughts, floods and more droughts─all that’s missing is a biblical rain of frogs. China’s Hunan province was struck by droughts late last year, but it’s now suffering from floods that are affecting 8 million people. Syria’s Hasakah province is meanwhile suffering from drought, a problem given the province’s importance to the country’s corn crop.

There is a connection. The governor of Hasakah province visited Hunan province early last year (see “What’s Syria up to in China’s central provinces of Hubei and Hunan?”). He was there to study Hunan’s growth strategy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if natural disaster prevention was high on the agenda.

Qingdao’s mini Iran-Iraq war

July 11th, 2010

I was in Qingdao for a wedding last week. The Chinese coastal city is best-known for its Tsingtao Brewery built by the Germans in 1903. And Tsingtao beer is now China’s main exported beer. In the 1980s, the Tsingtao beer company attempted to acquire a local rival. It was a long fight, and I was told that locals jokingly referred to it as the city’s mini-version of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. Why? The Chinese media referred to the war as the “Yi-Yi” war, because the Chinese-words for Iran and Iraq both start with the character “Yi”.

Silk Road Gallery

Archive
Canton Trade Fair
August 12th, 2010

Editorials & Articles

“China cheat sheet helps investors survive”, Bloomberg, September 1, 2010

“No more silver bullets for Beijing”, Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2010

“China’s historic return to the Gulf”, Foreign Policy, April 2, 2010

Speaking Events

International Monetary Fund, Washington, October 10, 2010

SuperReturn Asia, Hong Kong, September 29, 2010

The Global Pricing Forum, Hong Kong, September 14, 2010