Chinese Economics Thread

[PanAsian]

More building outside of China, and technically in Africa.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Egypt is getting a new capital - courtesy of China
By Kieron Monks, for CNN
Updated 3:25 AM ET, Mon October 10, 2016

(CNN)Egypt's new capital city moved a step closer to reality with the announcement that Chinese developers will largely fund the megaproject.

The China Fortune Land Development Company (CFLD) agreed to provide $20 billion for the currently unnamed city, after a meeting between heads of the firm and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi.
This follows a previous commitment of $15 billion from another Chinese state-owned company, bringing the project close to its $45 billion budget requirements for phase I.
Plans for the new capital were first announced in March 2015. Government officials described the development as a solution to crowding, pollution and rising house prices in Cairo.
"Cairo Capital is a momentous endeavor to build national spirit, foster consensus, provide for long-term sustainable growth," said the project website. "(The) new city will create more places to live, work and visit."

Under construction
The 700 square kilometer city to be constructed in the desert to the East of Cairo would become the new seat of government, and it is presented as a far grander vision than the current capital.
Proposals for the city include housing for five million people, over 1,000 mosques, smart villages, industrial zones, a 5,000-seat conference center, and the world's largest park.
Interest in the project has been brisk. An Indian company is reportedly planning a vast medical center and university, while a Saudi firm intends to build a 12.6 hectare mosque and Islamic museum.
Construction is already under way. According to Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper, engineers have begun work on infrastructure including bridges and 210 kilometers of roads.
The first phase of the project will see government ministries and residential blocks rise from the sand. This phase could be complete within five years, with the first residents moving in.
Ghost town?
Despite the optimism from officials, there are concerns that the project will encounter familiar problems. Egypt has already constructed several satellite towns around Cairo, which have registered low occupancy despite high investment.

"The needs of Cairo should be met by the existing eight new towns around it," says David Sims, an urban planner and author based in the Cairo. "But people call them ghost towns."
The satellites repeated the same mistakes, says Sims, which are also likely to affect the new capital.
"The new towns produced housing that is unaffordable, unobtainable and inaccessible for the majority of Cairo's inhabitants," says Sims. "The new towns were built with a high modernist approach that did not allow the informal enterprises and activities that most Egyptians rely on."

Learning lessons
Egypt has a fundamentally misguided approach to development planning, according to architect and planner and Kareem Ibrahim of the NGO Tadamun.
"We have a chronic problem with the urban government of existing cities, and no matter how many cities you build you are not solving this problem," he says.
Ibrahim's research found that around 50% of Cairo neighborhoods lacked access to sewage services, while public services were failing, and municipal councils were operating with as little as $4 per capita per year.
"The levels of deprivation were shocking," says Ibrahim. "The investment should be going towards providing equal rights to public services and utilities. Let's think about how to develop better governing structure for the cities we have, and then build new cities."

 

[solarz]

More building outside of China, and technically in Africa.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Egypt has a fundamentally misguided approach to development planning, according to architect and planner and Kareem Ibrahim of the NGO Tadamun.
"We have a chronic problem with the urban government of existing cities, and no matter how many cities you build you are not solving this problem," he says.
Ibrahim's research found that around 50% of Cairo neighborhoods lacked access to sewage services, while public services were failing, and municipal councils were operating with as little as $4 per capita per year.
"The levels of deprivation were shocking," says Ibrahim. "The investment should be going towards providing equal rights to public services and utilities. Let's think about how to develop better governing structure for the cities we have, and then build new cities."

Engineers want to build new things. Managers want to make old things new. This guy sounds like a manager.

 

[manqiangrexue]

You people had been on it for a long time but tell me, what does the US presidential election namely Republican nominee Mr.Trump have anything to do with PRC economy?

He pledged to ruin trade with China and put 45% tariffs so I'd say that has a lot to do with China's economy. I do believe you were told by a moderator to limit your posts to military threads?

 

[AssassinsMace]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The devil on my shoulder wants to see Trump act on his nonsense. The only reason he's popular is because he just repeats what a lot of Americans believe is to be true. So many lies told by the establishment that people like Trump believe... the truth needs to be exposed. And that can only happen when they try to act on what they believe. Look at how Trump weasels his way into making excuses for his nearly billion dollar loss to which why he doesn't pay taxes. See how he spun how he's not actually a great businessman to lose a billion dollars into being a smart guy with tax codes? China can use the same excuses for why there's a trade deficit that Trump complains about. It's not about everyone following the law or what's fair. He gives himself the privilege while denying it to others.

 

[Equation]

How much money are in that field? Not much.

Potentially a lot, since the entire world are sick and tired of the NSA spying on them. Definitely more than making older tech semiconductor components because quantum communication is the next generation of the internet. Oh my, and the many Design, Build, and Made in China components related to it!

 

[Quickie]

You people had been on it for a long time but tell me, what does the US presidential election namely Republican nominee Mr.Trump have anything to do with PRC economy?

This is not the first time you start your comment with the words "You people... "
Do you know that those words are very rude and disrespectful of the people here?

 

[Blackstone]

This is not the first time you start your comment with the words "You people... "
Do you know that those words are very rude and disrespectful of the people here?

Hahaha, of course he does. It's just a bit of impishness to rile people up. Laugh it off and let the mods deal with it. 30 more peaceful years, and it'd be all over for those people anyway.

Yes, I'm being impish too.

 

[Equation]

Hahaha, of course he does. It's just a bit of impishness to rile people up. Laugh it off and let the mods deal with it. 30 more peaceful years, and it'd be all over for those people anyway.

Yes, I'm being impish too.

Or to cover up insecurity, know that there's NOTHING that one could do to change the current situation and status around.

 

[Blackstone]

Okay, okay, it's not nice, but I admit to a bit of schadenfreude when people like Kyle Bass and Gordon Chang take it in the shorts. The sad part is all the small investors following these people off the cliff.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

A hedge fund managed by Carlyle Group LP’s Emerging Sovereign Group plunged 43 percent this year through August as its wager against China soured.

Brian McCarthy’s Nexus fund saw assets erode to $125 million from roughly $500 million at the start of 2016, according to an investor document viewed by Bloomberg. This year’s loss marks a reversal from 2015, when the fund rose 35 percent.

Randall Whitestone, a spokesman at Carlyle, declined to comment on behalf of ESG.

The fund is a small part of ESG’s business, which managed $3.5 billion as of July. Carlyle, whose hedge fund business has been losing assets, is

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

its majority stake in ESG after five years.

Your cheat sheet on life, in one weekly email.
Get our weekly Game Plan newsletter.

Nexus suffered its biggest monthly decline this year in March after the world’s second-largest economy stabilized and a surge of new credit drove a rebound in the property sector. Until February, New York-based ESG was among a group of hedge funds, including Passport Capital, Omni Partners and Odey Asset Management that made money by betting

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

China’s economy. Bears were also hurt earlier in the year as central bankers propped up the yuan.

ESG is preparing for what it believes will be a “precipitous fall” in Chinese asset prices or the yuan by taking short positions on credit and the currency, the firm wrote in an investor document. The nation’s debt-deflation spiral can only be avoided by sharply lowering interest rates.

The fund profited last year when China’s central bank devalued the yuan by the most since 1994. McCarthy, who leads ESG’s Nexus strategy, was also able to cash in on a prediction he made last October during a conference call with clients that China would allow the yuan’s drop against the dollar to accelerate after the International Monetary Fund designated it as a global reserve currency.

Nexus stayed hot at the start of the year, climbing 24 percent in January as the yuan sank to its lowest level in five years. That was followed by losses in February and March of 14 percent and 33 percent, respectively, according to the investor document.

ESG founders Kevin Kenny, Mete Tuncel and Jason Kirschner are buying the Carlyle stake and will take full control over operations after the close of the deal, expected Oct. 31, according to an ESG letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg in August.

ESG was started in 2002 with seed capital from Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management.

 

[Blackstone]

You will take it. You will like it.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Japan has protested to China over signs it is pressing ahead with maritime gas exploration in the East China Sea despite Tokyo's repeated requests to stop, Japan's top government spokesman said on Wednesday.

The exploration platforms are on the Chinese side of the median line between the two countries, but Japan accuses China of ignoring a 2008 agreement to maintain cooperation on resources development in an area where no official border has been drawn.

China said in July it had every right to drill in the East China Sea close to waters disputed with Japan, adding that it did not recognize the "unilateral" Japanese median line setting a boundary between the two.

Ties between China and Japan, the world's second- and third-largest economies, have already been strained by their conflicting claims over a group of tiny East China Sea islets and the legacy of Japan's wartime aggression.

"Earlier this month, flares were newly witnessed at two of the gas exploration platforms China had installed in the East China Sea," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

"It is extremely regrettable that China, despite our multiple representations, is carrying on with unilateral development in an area where no maritime border has been set. We protested to China through diplomatic channels right away."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Thursday Chinese gas exploration was carried out in waters "indisputably under Chinese jurisdiction".

"It is a matter completely within China's rights and jurisdiction," he told a daily news briefing in Beijing.

Japan is also at odds with China's South China Sea claims.

China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims.

Japan has no territorial claims over the waters, but much of the trade is to and from Japanese ports.