By Vivian Ni
May 31 – A recent trend has emerged as an increasing number of international luxury brands are deciding to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, proving the recent Hong Kong IPO fever has been contagious – from resource giants like Glencore to other businesses in other sectors that also find accessing the China market a crucial part of their search for future profits.
The Milan Station miracle
A relatively small offering by Hong Kong’s second-hand luxury handbag retailer Milan Station has just set a new initial public offering (IPO) record on the Hong Kong exchange, giving a kick to the market which had been sluggish since April. Planning to only raise HK$200 million, Milan Station’s IPO was oversubscribed 2,180 times, smashing a previous over-subscription record of 1,072 times set by Tianjin Port Development in 2006. Its shares surged by 77 percent at one point on its first day of trading on May 23, and closed with a gain of 65.8 percent. Continue reading
ULAANBAATAR, May 30 – Recent reports in the press over ethnic tensions “in Mongolia” demonstrate there is still much to be understood about the region. Apparently, an ethnic Mongolian herder was killed by a Han Chinese lorry driver in an accident that has sparked unrest in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. Meanwhile, Mongolia itself remains an independent country and is utterly unaffected by the incident in China. Such reports however, tend to demonstrate poor standards of journalism, a lack of appreciation of the dynamics between the two areas, and a disregard for historical fact. That the incident was widely reported in headlines as having taken place in “Mongolia” blurs distinctions and is indicative of lazy journalism. In this article I aim to describe the differences between the two as well as shed some light on the background to the incident in question. 
May 30 – The Asian Development Bank announced last week that it will inject around US$60 million into three venture capital (VC) funds in order to facilitate the development of green technologies in China and India.
May 27 – North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il returned to Pyongyang on Thursday after his recent trip to China from May 20 to May 26 during which he held meetings with President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiaobao.
May 27 – China, India and Vietnam were ranked the top three emerging Asian nations most likely to maintain steady and rapid economic growth over the next five years, according to Bloomberg’s Economic Momentum Index for Developing Asia.
