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Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard's picture

Et tu, Zuckerberg? A Complex “Friending” Story

In July, news reports revealed Facebook, blocked in China, was working to expand its presence in China with the signing of a multi-year office lease in Beijing. Since then, media have reported Facebook staff appearing at major conferences in China, meeting with Chinese Internet regulators, and intensifying efforts to provide services to Chinese companies.

Dr. Amitendu Palit's picture

Chinese Investments in India

Chinese investments into India are becoming increasingly varied with investors of various provinces from mainland China expressing interest in investment opportunities in different Indian states. Investments from Zhejiang and Shandong provinces should soon materialize in India giving a boost to India’s efforts to grow into a regional manufacturing hub through the ‘Made in India’ initiative.

Mr. Naoyuki Haraoka's picture

The Tokyo Olympics & Paralympics in 2020: A Stepping Stone to “Amazing Japan”?

The Japanese economy is struggling hard to escape deflation. This coupled with a shrinking domestic market resulting from depopulation is pushing many Japanese firms to move their facilities overseas, mostly East Asia, in order to gain additional market opportunities. To replace the capital lost to other East Asian countries, Japan needs to attract more inward foreign direct investment (IFDI).

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard's picture

The WTO and China: Still of Relevance for Foreign Investors?

China has been a World Trade Organization (WTO) member for almost thirteen years. The titanic battles over its admission to the globe’s leading international economic organization have long passed. While some were anxious about China’s WTO accession, many were exuberant. They foresaw new markets for the goods they manufactured outside and inside China, new opportunities to invest in China’s automobile, banking, insurance, telecommunications, and wholesaling sectors, and better protection of their intellectual property (IP).

Dr. Scott MacDonald's picture

The Global Rollercoaster and Chinese Business

Chinese business has come a long distance. Throughout the first seven decades of the 20th century China was largely inward looking and disrupted by political fragmentation, famine and foreign invasion. Although Mao Zedong reunified China, it was Deng Xiaoping’s rise in 1978 that made the economy a central priority, perceived as a useful vehicle to pull millions of Chinese out of poverty and restore China as a serious international power. Two short decades after Deng, Chinese business, both state-owned and privately held, began to stride in significant numbers on to the international stage.

Dr. Amitendu Palit's picture

New OECD-Emerging Markets Dynamics in regards to Investor-State Dispute Settlement Provisions

Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions are increasingly becoming the bane of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Wary at the prospect of being sued by foreign investors in special tribunals, governments are reacting against such provisions in mega-regionals like the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact and the European Union-Canada FTA.

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard's picture

Shanghai Free Trade Zone Still Nowhere Near “The Zone”

The launching of the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (SFTZ) approximately one year ago generated considerable excitement. Months before its launch, Chinese media began to talk of an area that would be “grander and bolder than anything that has ever been conceived.” As far as foreign investors were concerned, the SFTZ’s marquee idea was a “negative list,” which essentially let in foreign investors automatically unless otherwise prohibited.

Dr. Toshiya Ozaki's picture

Micro-level Challenges to Abenomics

Poor macroeconomic policies over the last two decades have been highlighted as the main cause of Japan’s economic difficulties. Following the bursting of the economic bubble in the early 1990s, Japan failed to act decisively to boost money supply and lower interest rates to prevent the economy from falling into deflation. In a deflationary environment, consumers stopped spending and firms stopped investing which exacerbated deflationary pressures.

Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard's picture

Trying to Turn Gold into Lead: Mislabeling Chinese-American FDI in Africa

The first US-Africa summit took place in August. It afforded the US an opportunity to show it was not completely distracted by events in Gaza and Ukraine. It also gave US businesses, encouraged by US President Barack Obama, a chance to strike deals with giants like Coca-Cola, General Electric, and IBM and investors like Blackstone pouring $14 billion into Africa. Not surprisingly, Western media seized upon the summit to raise the issue about the US-China competition in Africa (even Chinese media jumped on this bandwagon) and whether or not the summit showed the US was catching up.

Dr. Amitendu Palit's picture

Adani Coal Project in Australia and benefits for India

India's Adani Group got approval for its US$16 billion coal mining project in Queensland of Australia. The Carmichael coal project is India's biggest private investment till date in the Asia-Pacific. With six open cut pits and around five mines, the project, spread over around 30,000 hectares of land area will be the biggest in Australia. Being located close to the ecologically fragile Great Barrier Reef, the project invited the ire of environmentalists for obvious reasons. It has eventually been sanctioned with a large number of strict environmental compliance conditions.

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