dick jones
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Mucha deuda externa para el comercio veo yo. Algo no cuadra en estos datos del mayor exportador del mundo
Me lanzo con una hipotesis.
Por fechas y por el inciso "esta principalmente relacionada con el comercio", encaja con con los casos de falsas exportaciones.
Nada de lo que preocuparse segun los analistas, ahora lo que toca es preocuparse por la falta de influjos de divisas.
Hace tiempo que no se habla por aqui de la burbuja inmobiliaria china, os pego un texto sin mayores pretensiones que marcar las similitudes burbujistas hispano-chinas, los nuncabajistas del "pais del centro" ya estan en la fase de las teorias socio-culturales para reforzar su convencimiento acerca de la imposibilidad de que los pisos bajen.
As house prices rise, 'wild' theories thrive
Despite growing public resentment, the frothy Chinese real estate market has never been short of heavyweight academic supporters who often pass controversial remarks that touch the nation's nerves.
Recently, a professor of business from the prestigious Peking University openly defended high housing prices in Chinese cities, because he reckoned more taxes from the sales of luxury houses could be used to subsidize public housing projects.
Poor people should never unrealistically expect to buy homes or our cities will become shantytowns, he told the media on the sidelines of a forum on high-end properties early this month. Instead, the luxury houses should be allowed to be sold for record prices so that the government can get money to build welfare housing for the less fortunate, he said.
The professor's comment has drawn a lot of flak, because he is believed to have sided with real estate developers by putting a theoretical spin on their justification for high housing prices at a time when the government is trying hard to dampen the market's mood. In colorful layman's terms, Ren Zhiqiang, one of China's best-known real estate tycoons, said last month that although brassieres take much less time to make, they are a lot more expensive than real estate in terms of price per square meter.
Chinese academics could also be entertaining when they try to explain why housing prices would continue to rise, without using common economic benchmarks in real estate.
One of the most famous ones, the "mother-in-law theory", blames the ever-rising housing prices on the loving lady who tends to pressure her would-be son-in-law into buying a house before marrying her daughter. Then there is the "kept-woman theory", which says the increasing inclination of corrupt officials and some rich men to keep young mistresses has stimulated housing sales. The "surplus-woman theory" is one of the latest: It says housing prices rise faster in cities that have more well-educated but unmarried women than their male peers.
You may laugh away these ideas, thinking they are unproven, frivolous assumptions to get the attention of the people and the media. Since Chinese universities allow their faculty members to participate in the market by selling their skills and ideas, oft-quoted scholars can earn more money from consultations and speaking engagements, which motivates them to drop controversial or sensational remarks.
But on a more serious note, almost all these ideas appear to fuel the belief that there is no better time to buy a house than now and housing prices will keep rising because of the insatiable domestic demand. They ignore or play down the possibilities of changing market conditions like a rise in interest rates and a tightening of credit that could curb the demand and cause the housing bubble to pop.
The new notion of high housing prices being helpful to the poor, criticized by some Chinese media outlets as being "absurd" and "nonsensical", smacks of black humor because soaring housing prices are now widely regarded as one of the main reasons for the widening social gap in China. While housing prices continue to rise even after repeated government cooling measures, many aspiring homebuyers antiestéticar they may never be able to afford a place they can call home.
The controversial ideas of scholars have also reinforced the popular perception that some well-known pundits with close association with business interest groups such as property developers have lost their academic integrity, and in worst cases, become the spokespersons for realty developers.
Former US president Harry Truman once famously said that he wanted to find a one-armed economist, because whenever he asked his economists for advice, they answered, "on the one hand," and "on the other hand".
In real estate circles, blunt and funny one-armed Chinese economists come a dime a dozen, but they often point to the wrong direction.
A las inversiones inmobiliarias en el extranjero que llevamos la pista en el hilo añadimos un nuevo campo: Australia.
Chinese Buyers Sway Australia Property Market - WSJ.com
Chinese Buyers Sway Australia Property Market
Citigroup Economists Find Correlation Between Chinese Immigration, Real-Estate Prices
SYDNEY—Conventional wisdom says a nation's house prices swing with its economy. In Australia, economists are paying increasing attention to another factor: Chinese immigration.
Wealthy Chinese are now among the biggest buyers of real estate in Australia, picking up properties ranging from modest suburban homes to waterfront mansions with views across Sydney Harbour.
In one of the biggest purchases this year, a Chinese buyer spent more than 50 million Australian dollars (US$46 million) for Altona, a home in the Sydney suburb of Point Piper that's frequently been rented out to celebrities, including U2 frontman Bono. Weeks earlier, another Point Piper mansion—dubbed the Bang & Olufsen House because it resembles a hi-fi system—sold to a Chinese buyer for more than A$30 million.
Now the influx of Chinese money is starting to skew Australia's real-estate data, which is closely watched by policy makers including the nation's central bankers. Economists at Citigroup Inc., C -0.64% retooling the computer model that churns out the bank's predictions for house prices, found a previously unknown connection: Shifts in levels of Chinese migration were consistently echoed, three years later, by changes in property prices. So strong was the relationship that Citigroup has now worked it into its equations.
"The story of the rich Chinese businessman snapping up a A$40 million mansion in Point Piper is a trend that isn't likely to end anytime soon," said Joshua Williamson, a Sydney-based economist at Citigroup.
The bank said the reason for the correlation isn't clear. It didn't find a similar relationship between total immigration and property prices.
"It could be that Chinese immigrants have the income capacity and desire to buy property, more so than other nationalities," said Paul Brennan, chief economist of Citigroup's Australian operations.
Australia has long courted China's affluent. The first visa in a program that lets foreigners settle in Australia for up to four years in exchange for investing A$5 million went to a Chinese toy maker.
In the fiscal year ending June 2011, more immigrants arrived in Australia from China than from any other country. Although immigration from China fell 9% the next year, to rank behind arrivals from New Zealand and India, analysts and realtors point to several factors that should keep buying interest in Australian property strong.
For one, curbs on property speculation in China are forcing investors there to look internationally. Australia's schools are also a drawing card. International education is big business—generating about A$14.5 billion in export revenue last year to rank behind only iron ore, coal and gold—and a survey this month by HSBC HSBA.LN -0.10% this month showed growing interest in property purchases among parents of Chinese children studying in Australia.
The falling Australian dollar—down 10% against the U.S. dollar over the past two months—is making property more affordable for overseas investors, says Richard Simeon, a real estate agent in the Sydney waterfront suburb of Mosman, which has panoramic views of Sydney Harbour.
Mr. Simeon, who has sold close to A$30 million worth of homes to Chinese buyers in the past few months alone, has to work in bulk to meet demand from wealthy clients. "I'm putting them on a bus and taking them around and then trying to find out their price ranges," he said.
To be sure, Australia restricts the type of property that can be owned by foreigners, in a bid to limit the potential for a real-estate bubble. Nonresidents can't buy an existing home, and temporary residents who buy one must sell it when they leave. But anyone can buy and keep a home under construction or buy a vacant lot and build a home.
The restrictions don't seem to be deterring investors. Simon Henry, co-founder of juwai.com, a China-based website connecting wealthy Chinese with real-estate sellers internationally, says Australia lags behind only the U.S. in investor interest in new homes.
China accounted for A$4.19 billion, or 7%, of the A$58.40 billion of foreign investment on commercial and residential real estate in Australia in the year ended June 30, up slightly from a year earlier, according to Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board. That ranked it third behind the U.S. and Singapore. Data measuring investment by Australian citizens of Chinese birth isn't available.
While early real-estate deals overseas involved wealthy elites, this is starting to shift as middle-class incomes rise in China. "Now there is a bigger bracket," Mr. Henry said.
---------- Post added 29-jun-2013 at 21:32 ----------
El nuevo premier esta removiendo muchos avisperos al tiempo, queda por ver si pasara a la historia como Xi "el reformador" o Xi "el breve".
President Xi targets PLA in new attack on corruption | South China Morning Post
President Xi targets PLA in new attack on corruption
President orders review of PLA's property and land holdings in move to stamp out corruption and consolidate his authority over the military
Sweeping audits of the People's Liberation Army's land holdings and property have been ordered in a new bid to crush corruption.
The review was launched by the Central Military Commission (CMC), of which President Xi Jinping is chairman.
It is being seen as his latest move to stamp out graft and tighten his grip on the military.
Army mouthpiece PLA Daily reported yesterday that a CMC group in charge of surveying the PLA's infrastructure projects and real estate held its first meeting in Beijing on Thursday.
The head of the PLA's General Logistics Department, General Zhao Keshi , who chaired the meeting, said the surveys were aimed at "bringing the construction practices and management procedures in line with standards and the law".
Zhao told the meeting a database of the army's infrastructure and barracks would be established after the survey.
It would cover all projects in the army and eventually be used for budgeting and cost control.
The military has previously issued orders banning the improper tras*fer of army property.
But analysts said land and property tras*actions remained the main source for corruption.
They said such moves reflected Xi's confidence in his authority over the army and his determination to clean up the ranks.
PLA corruption was put into the spotlight last year when reports said the deputy head of the logistics department, Lieutenant General Gu Junshan , had been placed under investigation, accused of selling land owned by the PLA to developers. The PLA has never officially confirmed the accusation.
Ni Lexiong , director of the Sea Power and Defence Policy Research Institute at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said some officers made huge profits by reselling properties, which they purchased through concessionary offers.
Yue Gang , a retired colonel and military commentator, said the lack of a database meant it was difficult for the army to check if officers had received kickbacks to tras*fer army properties at below market rates.
"Setting up the database and assessing army properties is the first step to get rid of improper tras*fers," Yue said.
CCTV reported last night that Xi had issued another directive, ordering soldiers to "resolutely oppose" formalism, bureaucratism and extravagance.
Lin Wen-cheng, director of the Institute of Mainland China Studies at Taiwan's National Sun Yat-sen University, said Xi's orders indicated his desire to consolidate control over the army.
"Such anti-corruption practices will affect the interest of many powerful officers and could easily trigger a backlash," Lin said. "He wouldn't come up with such rhetoric unless he was fully confident."
In the eight months since Xi became the CMC head, he has started a crackdown on waste and corruption in the armed forces, making frequent visits to army, navy and air force bases.
---------- Post added 29-jun-2013 at 21:35 ----------
Chinese Leader Xi Jinping's Rare Scolding of Top Communist Party Leaders - China Real Time Report - WSJ
Xi Jinping’s Rare Scolding of Top Party Leaders
After telling the lower ranks of the Communist Party to shape up and make a clean break from past practice, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has taken aim at a new target: the Party leadership itself.
And he’s done so with authority and openness from the highest pulpit of politics in China–the Politburo, the very place where the senior leaders sit and make policy.
Reuters
In a speech at the conclusion of a three-day special meeting that was covered across Party media and took up nearly half of the evening newscast on Tuesday evening, Xi proclaimed that senior members of the Party needed “to play an exemplary role,” and that they had to be “broad-minded enough to reject any selfishness…to adhere to self-respect, self-examination and self-admonition” in their work (in Chinese).
It’s extremely rare for Politburo proceedings to be spoken of in such detail and openness. And it’s unprecedented in modern times for the Party boss to start taking swings at his colleagues at the top by so directly reminding them of their responsibilities—a move that suggests he might be planning something even stronger soon.
Having just admonished lower-level cadres in a salvo last week, some observers might think that Xi is simply putting on a show here. After all, it’s difficult to demand improvement in the work-styles of the rank and file without at least paying lip-service to the idea that those at the top could stand to do a little better themselves.
But the tone of Xi’s comments and the play they’ve received in the state media suggest this is far more than just rhetorical window dressing. It wasn’t enough for high officials to “strictly abide by party discipline and act in strict accordance with policies and procedures,” Xi said. Those at the top must also “strictly manage their relatives and their staff and refrain from abuse of power.”
“The sole pursuit” of senior members of the Party, Xi insisted, should be tied to “the Party’s cause and interests” – in other words, “to seek benefits for the Chinese people as a whole.”
Whether it’s misuse of official license plates or the high-end looting of state assets (in Chinese), Xi knows that corruption is not always confined to lower-level cadres.
Xi was careful to concede that there have been some positive developments in the ways by which the Politburo and other Party bodies operate, such as “improvements in research and reporting.” Meetings have been shortened and presentations streamlined, “enhancing the majority of party members’ and cadres’ sense of purpose, as well as the view of the masses” towards the Party leadership, he noted.
But it’s clearly jovenlandesality at the top — not the way that decisions are made — that concerns Xi and his allies the most. As Xi’s speech noted, “as long as Politburo comrades always and everywhere set an example, they can continue to call the shots, for that will have a strong demonstration effect, and the Party will be very powerful.”
But Party leaders “must ***ow their own strict requirements first.”
Xi’s reprimand seems to imply that some of them are not. His predecessors talked about the general threat to Party rule from the evils of corruption; but in nearly every case they chose to scold officials in the abstract, instead of smacking them around. As with so many other efforts, Xi’s being different.
Indeed, such comments raise the very real possibility that Xi has someone specific in mind – that he could be about to strike against one or more of the conservatives who populate the Politburo and who might be standing in the way of further reforms.
Whatever form the next round of fighting takes, Xi and his reformist colleagues are clearly interested in creating a fresh sort of politics, even at the very top of the system. This is risk-taking and resolution of a high order–and it brings a real political showdown with opponents of Xi’s brand of reform all the closer.
