Numbers: (44,7)

India China trade seems to me to be soaring like a kite tied to the ground.

While both countries celebrate having achieved a trade target of US$40billion set for 2010 in 2008, there are still only 120 companies of Indian origin registered wth the Indian embassy in Beijing, and even fewer companies of Chinese origin registered with the Chinese embassy in New Delhi.

While businessmen in both countries express a desire to do business in the other, barriers - social, political and financial seem to be keeping them at bay. Of the difficulties that Chinese firms face while doing business in India, Reuters reported - Chinese firms have found profits in India hard to come by. Tax barriers are everywhere, eroding their cost advantages. Corruption is rampant, adding another layer of difficulty. And Chinese goods have a low-quality image that is very hard to shake.

The challenges are not unique to India. Most are exactly what western companies encountered when they first arrived in China some 20 years ago. But Chinese companies, whose success so far has been largely built on their home-court advantage and low costs, are much less prepared to tackle those issues. 

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Asia has been rocked by 10 natural disasters since the tsunami killed millions in thirteen Indian Ocean countries four years ago. Massive populations, poverty and a lack of warning have recently resulted in the death of millions.

Still reeling from the earthquake that shook Sichuan in South west China, killing atleast 10,000 people yesterday, Reuters helps 2point6billion list the natural disasters that shook Asia in the last few years.

* May 3/4 2008 - Cyclone Nargis and storm surge tore through Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta killing at least 15,000 people and left 30,000 missing, officials said, warning the toll could rise in low-lying, remote villages.

* November 15, 2007 - Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh killing around 3,500 people.

* June-July, 2007 - INDIAN SUBCONTINENT - Monsoon storms kill around 1,750 people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, and Pakistan. India is hardest hit with at least 750 people killed.

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Jet Airways finally publically announced their special introductory Mumbai-Shanghai fares on Friday. They will fly between the two commecial capitals for RMB 3680 (US$527) + tax only if you buy the ticket between 16th-31st May and fly between 15th June- 15th July.  The introductory ticket has a one month validity.

Not to be outdone, Air India, India’s little Maharaja, has reacted to its new competition. Air India promptly cut Mumbai-Shanghai fares to RMB 3230 (US$462) + tax. The offer is valid for a fortnight, from June 15th - 30th.

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Numbers: (7,1.7)

In addition to competing for natural resources in Africa, India and China have now set their sights on mobile phone subscribers. Leading mobile companies in both China and India - China Mobile and  Bharti Airtel are fiercely trying to acquire Africa’s MTN Group Ltd, the continent’s biggest mobile-phone operator, China Knowledge reported.

China and India have often been compared as the rest of the world adjusts to the presence of new economic powers, but rarely have representatives of the two nations competed head to head on a deal. China’s government-controlled entities have invested and lent billions of dollars to African countries in recent years, while private companies in India have concentrated more on shopping outside the nation’s borders.

According to MTN’s statement to its shareholders, it has started to negotiate with Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile-phone carrier, on the acquisition. But analysts believed China Mobile as well as China Telecom will probably become the two strongest competitors against Bharti Airtel. “There are many phone operators in Africa,” Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile’s president told reporters in Hong Kong. The Beijing-based parent company of China Mobile Ltd. “hasn’t participated in the bidding” for MTN Group Ltd., Wang added, who didn’t say whether the Chinese company is interested in making an offer later, reported Bloomberg.

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Even as millions in developing countries in Asia and Africa are expected to die of starvation due to inflationary grain prices, president Bush asked Congress to authorize US$770 million to ease the global food crisis.

The United States is feeling the pressure of their empasis on biofuels even as energy and food demand rises. While grain supply is dwindling, experts around the world say that the American focus on biofuel subsidies which has given farmers incentives to grow biofuels in place of grain is only compounding the problem. As a result of the biofuels subsidies and a high demand for energy, farmers are more keen to plant acres of corn and sugarcane, the raw material for energy instead of rice and wheat human staples. This has led to the head on collosion of of a world food crisis partly fueled by record fuel costs.

Speaking on Monday at the European Parliament, Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at New York’s Columbia University and a special UN adviser said that while a third of the US maize crop will go to a gas tank, “it is a huge blow to the world food supply.” “We should cut back significantly on our biofuels programmes, which were understandable at a time of much lower food prices and much lower food stocks but do not make sense now at a time of global food scarcity condition,” he added, reported Reuters.

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Numbers: (25,28)

A benchmark variety of Thai rice, a food stable across much of Asia, is at about US$1,000 a tonne, up threefold from last year. Meat prices have risen by 60 percent in Bangladesh in the year ending in March, and by 45 percent in Cambodia and 30 percent in the Philippines. The rise in global food prices has sparked riots last month in Egypt and Haiti, protests in other countries and restrictions on food exports in Brazil, Vietnam, India and Egypt.

In the first months of 2008, food price inflation has hit double digits in Bangladesh; People’s Republic of China (PRC); Hong Kong, China; Indonesia; Pakistan; and Viet Nam. Food price inflation is also rising in India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. And although no 2008 figures are yet available for Sri Lanka, there is little doubt that food prices are also rising at double digits there as well. Wheat-dependent countries in Central and West Asia are also experiencing double-digit rates of food inflation says an Asian Development bank report on rising food prices.

The problem is not confined to importing countries, as net exporters are also experiencing food price inflation. In fact, the rising inflation pressure has been more intense in net exporting countries.

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In its report titled “Emerging Asian Regionalism,” the Asian Development Bank said Asia will account for as much as 35 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP) in purchasing-power parity [PPP] terms, from only 28 percent in 2005. By then, Asia’s GDP is set to be more than 50-percent larger than the European Union’s or North America’s.

While continued growth will reinforce the region’s market-led integration, official cooperation, production and financial markets integration, economic interdependence and inclusive and sustainable growth will need to intensify based on sound economic principles.

The report highlights that Asia is less integrated in finance than in trade but financial markets are now larger, deeper, and more sophisticated than they were a decade ago. The ADB Study urges policymakers to strengthen supervision, surveillance and dialogue on financial markets through creation of a new, high-level “Asian Financial Stability Dialogue.”

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