China’s Billionaire Boom Goes Bust

It has been a rough year for China’s superwealthy, according to Forbes latest annual ranking of the country’s richest:
The combined net worth of the 400 richest {Chinese} dropped to $173 billion from $288 billion. The top 40 lost $68 billion, or 57%. The minimum net worth slipped $20 million to $180 million. We found 24 [...]

Hong Kong Finds More Melamine-Tainted Eggs

The melamine-tainted eggs are getting to be like the melamine-tainted baby formula.
First there was one manufacturer whose products were found to be contaminated. Then there were many. Tests in Hong Kong have found three more brands of Chinese eggs containing high levels of the chemical. This all suggests the problems with food safety still run [...]

Aluminum, Copper Smelters Facing Same Slump As Steelmakers

Aluminum smelters and copper refiners are facing the same problems as China’s steelmakers. Slowing economic growth in their domestic and export markets is cutting demand for their products, lowering prices and squeezing profits.
The biggest aluminum smelters met commerce and finance ministry officials today to ask for tax breaks and purchases by the state reserve. Bloomberg [...]

Dollar-Bound

Even with a slowing economy and export markets slowing faster, China has a lot of trade surplus dollars to recycle. Its foreign-exchange reserves are in excess of $1 trillion and they sit mostly in U.S. dollar-denominated assets.
The American currency depreciated steadily for the past four years, though it has rallied recently. This may be a [...]

HK Extends Melamine Testing After Finding Chemical In Chinese Eggs

The melamine-tainted food scare just keeps on spreading. Hong Kong said tody that it is expanding its testing to include meat products imported from China after discovering excessive levels of the chemical in eggs yesterday.
The eggs, from Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group, contained 4.7 parts per million of melamine, almost double the permitted maximum of 2.5 [...]

The Fictitious Economy

Not to poke fun at a touch of underpolishing by Xinhua’s editors, but this Bystander is wryly amused by the state news agency’s English language report of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s press conference following the Asia-Europe summit:
“Lessons should be learned from the financial crisis, and the responsibilities should be clarified for governments, companies and supervision, [...]

Wen Supports Europe’s Call For Global Financial Regulation

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has thrown China’s weight behind European calls for a new global financial regulatory regime. Speaking after the two-day summit of European and Asian leaders in Beijing, Wen said he would back the French-led initiative at the summit of 15 world leaders that U.S. President George W. Bush has called for next [...]

Flat Output Will Help Steelmakers Strike Better Iron Ore Deals

Confirmation of the problems in the steel industry comes from Shan Shanghua, secretary general of the China Iron and Steel Association (here via People’s Daily).
He says production will be flat this year at 500 million tonnes, revising the association’s previous forecast of 5%-10% growth. Nor does he expect output to grow next year. The world [...]

Two More Chinese Firms Reveal Forex Losses

Misery loves company. China Railway and China Railway Construction have joined Citic Pacific in revealing disastrous bets on foreign-exchange.
China Railway booked a $285 million loss and China Railway Construction booked a $45 million loss on forex operations in the first nine months of the year and in the third quarter respectively, Bloomberg reports. That combined [...]

More Melamine Problems Pop Up

The melamine-tainted food scandal has taken a couple of bizarre twists.
First,  Britain’s Food Standards Agency said late last week that a Chinese-made novelty food product sold in U.K. sex shops has been taken off the shelves after being found to be contaminated with melamine. A FSA spokesperson said: “This is a first. We’ve never had [...]