Menu

East Asia’s myriad free trade agreements (FTAs) benefit the regions’ businesses and could help counter falling trade volumes and trade protectionism triggered by the current global economic crisis, says a new study from the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI).

From January to March, the total investment in real estate development was 488.0 billion yuan, up by 4.1 percent year-on-year, and 3.1 percentage points over the first two months this year, while that of a decrease of 28.2 percentage points over the same period of previous year. Of which, investment in commercial residential buildings reached 342.2 billion yuan, 3.2 percent of increase year-on-year, or picking up 2.4 percentage points over than the first two months, and 31.5 percentage points dropped over than the same period of previous year, which occupied 70.1 percent of the investment in real estate development.

National Business Climate Survey results showed that the national business climate index (BCI) was 105.6 in the first quarter, slightly decreased 1.4 points over the previous quarter (the fourth quarter fell 21.6 points over than the third quarter in 2008).

The World Bank released its poverty assessment report for China. The report brings together findings from multi-year analytical work undertaken by the World Bank on a policy-oriented assessment of poverty and inequality in China. A distinguishing feature of the report is its effort to robustly establish key underlying facts using large-sample, and in most cases, nationally-representative data, and to provide empirically-grounded analyses supplemented with in-depth qualitative work.

According to the results of annual statistics, the average wage of on-duty staff and workers in urban units reached 29,229 yuan in 2008, daily average wage stood at 111.99 yuan. The average wage of on-duty staff and workers in urban units went up 4,297 yuan, increased 17.2 percent, or 1.5 percentage points dropped, year-on-year. Conducted the price of commodities factor, the real growth rate was 11.0 percent.

According to the results of National Business Climate Survey showed that entrepreneur confidence index (ECI) gained 101.1 in the first quarter, increased 6.5 points over than the previous quarter.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index(TM) (LEI) for Korea increased 0.5 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index(TM) (CEI) for Korea also increased 0.5 percent in February.

China Venture Capital Association (CVCA) released the latest survey report on the China VC/PE industry. According to the report, in the context of the deepening global financial crisis and China's current economic difficulties, foreign VC/PE firms have generally slowed down their pace of investment in China, yet they still remain confident in the long-term development of the China market.

Japan has overtaken China in the first quarter of 2009 as the most active country in the Asia-Pacific region for the first time in five years. Japanese M&A accounts for 28% of the number of Asia-Pacific deals, while Chinese activity makes up 25%, according to mergermarket, the independent M&A intelligence provider.

Asia's mobile subscriber total is expected to surpass 2 billion subscribers by 2012 when 63 percent of the regions' residents are expected to own a mobile phone. However, the fact remains that in 2008 only 8 percent of the region's subscriber base was using 3G and launches in several Asian markets have left much to be desired in terms of subscriber and revenue uptake.