Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Feb. 22 – As part of the recent news that China has just overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy and our comments on that here, let us now take the opportunity to run another of our occasional, tongue firmly in cheek pieces on the 10 things you can get…and this time, featuring Japan and China. We’ll run the 10 things in China you can’t get in Japan in a couple of days. Continue reading
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Feb. 9 – As stories begin to break about concerns over the Chinese economy, and the slowdown that this would invariably bring, what are the potential impacts that resurgent Indian and Vietnam markets could instead bring to the table? Our firm, Dezan Shira & Associates, has been operational in each of these markets for some considerable time now. Next year, we will celebrate twenty years of legal and tax advisory services in China, from our ten offices there. In India, it will be five years and five offices, and in Vietnam, four with two offices . These are not small operations, either. In each country we operate in, we have applied for, and been granted, the requisite operational licenses, invested the required registered capital standards, and employ staff managed by a National Country Manager. In China, this is Alberto Vettoretti, in India, Aneet Virk, and in Vietnam, Hoang Thu Huyen. Continue reading
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis and Teja Yenamandra
Feb. 2 – As we approach Chinese New Year’s Eve this evening, it’s an appropriate time to take a look at other New Year celebrations across Asia. Systems of calculation vary, and some countries don’t even hold their New Year on the same month, let alone the same day. Here we take a look at New Year in other Asian countries:
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Dec. 14 – The recent riots in Dhaka and Chittagong Port in Bangladesh over salary levels may have implications for potential Chinese labor unrest as well.
The riots, which involved some 4,000 workers in factories in the Chittagong Export Processing Zone alone, left three people dead, 250 injured and hundreds of factory outlets damaged. The main area of activity was focused in the textile industry, Bangladesh’s biggest single export earner worth about US$12 billion. Demonstrations turned nasty over the implementation of the new increase in minimum salary levels. Salaries were supposed to rise from an average of US$23 per month to US$43 on December 1, however some processing problems caused the first week’s payments, due December 7, to be at the old levels. Continue reading
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Oct. 26 – While Asia continues its rapid transformation, many people are still playing Nero, fiddling while Rome burns. They are content to have been part of the new emerging Asia – sitting in swanky restaurants in Shanghai and declaring themselves the cutting edge of the world’s second largest economy. When I mention India, the conversation always drifts towards the dirt, the poverty, the lack of infrastructure, and the lack of…well just about everything. Continue reading
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Oct. 25 – As India starts to replace China as the darling of the global investment community, we look at nine reasons that India has been able to turn itself from “has been” into “is becoming.”
English language usage
It’s partially a cliché, but it happens to be true – educated India speaks English to an extent that educated China does not. Furthermore, Chinese is so radically removed from the English language in a manner that say, Spanish, Italian, French and German are not, that it will remain regionally, rather than globally, spoken. As India opens up to the global investment community, its superior global language skills will help considerably. Continue reading
Mumbai outperforms Shanghai by a factor of four
Op-Ed Commentary: Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Oct. 22 – The largest coal mining company in the world, Coal India, launched their IPO this week, open both to institutional investors and the public at large. The offering, also India’s largest ever, signals another way in which India differs from China.
Coal India has long been a wholly state-owned enterprise, and now it’s partially public. Although the government still owns about 90 percent of the company, the longer term strategy in India is controlled divestment. Coal India’s success is likely to encourage the government in this regard – it needs to raise serious capital to pay for national infrastructure development in other areas. India’s government is doing something that China’s is not, it’s getting out of business. In terms of success, the offering was over-subscribed by 15 times. Continue reading
