Hong Kong`s total exports value falls 13.9% in August

Hong Kong (ANTARA News/Asia Pulse) - The value of Hong Kong's total exports and imports in August fell 13.9 per cent and 9.8 per cent over the same period last year, the Census and Statistics Department said Thursday.

The value of total exports fell 13.9 per cent to 213.3 billion HK dollars (US$27.5 billion), after a year-on-year drop of 19.9 per cent in July, with the value of re-exports down 13.2 per cent to 208.3 billion HK dollars and the value of domestic exports declining 37.3 per cent to 5 billion HK dollars.

The value of imports dropped 9.8 per cent over a year earlier to 235.1 billion HK dollars. A visible trade deficit of 21.8 billion HK dollars, equivalent to 9.3 per cent of the value of imports, was recorded.

In the first eight months of this year the value of total exports dropped 17.2 per cent over the same period last year, with the value of re-exports falling 16.3 per cent and the value of domestic exports dropping 41.5 per cent. The value of imports fell 17.4 per cent.

Source:
Business in Asia Today - Sept 25, 2009
published by Asia Pulse

News quoted by ANTARA

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China's Tyre Producers Should Consider Malaysia As Production Avenue

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 (Bernama) -- China-based tyre manufacturers should consider setting up operations in Malaysia.This is to avert the recent punitive tariff of 35 per cent imposed on Chinese-made tyre imports by the United States.

"China buys a lot of rubber from Malaysia as raw material to produce tyres there. If manufacturers set up factories and export from Malaysia, they would avoid the impact of the increased tax," the Deputy Chairman of the Malaysia-China Chamber of Commerce, Ir. Liew Choon Kong told Bernama here on Saturday.

The decision by the United States to impose extra duties on Chinese-made tyres has triggered strong complaints from local tyre companies in the country.

It has also led to China strongly opposing the act of trade protectionism by the United States.

According to Liew, if tyres are produced in Malaysia by China-based manufacturers, the specifications would not be categorised as being "Chinese", which would enable the product to enter the US market.

"In this way, it would be cost effective as well, while steering away from the impact of the new US tariffs on Chinese tyres," he said.

Liew said the move would also indirecty open up more business opportunities for Malaysian and Chinese companies to work hand in hand, in view of the current economic environment.

He also urged local food and beverage (F&B) producers to penetrate the Chinese market as there was more untapped opportunities due to the growing population.

"The Chinese have difficulty getting coffee suplies. So, this is an example of a market Malaysian producers can look at," he said.

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North Sulawesi Declared A Special Economic Region

JAKARTA, Sept 26 (Bernama) -- In view of North Sulawesi's rapid investment and economic development, Indonesia's central government has declared the province a Special Economic Region (SER).

"North Sulawesi is the second to have passed the verification as a SER in Indonesia," Governor SH Sarundajang said.

The governor said the central government gave serious attention to North Sulawesi and named it a SER after the province had made every effort to accelerate the development of its economic-supporting infrastructure projects.

Sarundajang said that the Bitung international sea port overlooking the Pacific Ocean as a gateway for exports and imports in East Indonesia, had a strategic function to support the SER.

"Besides Bitung sea port, Sam Ratulangi airport has also established international flights to a number of countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan," Sarundajang was quoted as having said by Antara News Agency in Manado, the provincial capital on Saturday.

According to the governor, both domestic and foreign investment in North Sulawesi had increased significantly from year to year along with exports.

Meanwhile, North Sulawesi councilor Benny Rhamdani said the province should receive positive response after having been named a SER.

"The central government has placed its trust in the province and this proves that the economic development in the area has substantially progressed," Benny added.

He however pointed out that unemployment and poverty rates in the province was still high enough and therefore a solution was needed immediately to prevent it from impacting negatively on the economic sector.

North Sulawesi, is growing in popularity among Malaysians including investors seeking new opportunities, ever since AirAsia began operating direct flights to Manado.

(Source: Bernama, September 26, 2009 16:00 PM) Read More......

Penang Port Never Incurred Losses In Container Traffic

September 24, 2009

By: Bernama

Penang Port has never recorded losses, particularly in container traffic, says Penang Port Sdn Bhd (PPSB) Managing Director Datuk Ahmad Ibnihajar.

Overall, PPSB has been making profit over a decade eventhough ferry operations suffered losses, he said.

"Since I took over Penang Port in 1999, it has been making profit. We were never in trouble in any kind of situation," he told reporters when responding to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's remark that the port recorded a shocking 24 per cent decline in container traffic in the second quarter of this year.

Ahmad said Guan Eng had quoted the wrong figures in his press statement on Tuesday. The statement would tarnish PPSB's image, he said.

He said PPSB had managed to achieve the best performance in container handling history by recording 92,439 in Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in August alone and had never incurred losses in the second quarter of this year as was reported in the media yesterday.

Contrary to Guan Eng's statement, Ahmad said Penang Port recorded a 13 per cent increase in TEUs from 199,391 to 225,322 in the same period.

"He (Guan Eng) don't have the authority to speak for PPSB before consulting us. I am the authority to speak for Penang Port.

"We have our Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and the federal government will evaluate us every year. I will have to go if I fail to discharge my duties efficiently," he said, adding that container handling is expected to record a 12 per cent increase in the third quarter of this year.

"Despite losses in ferry operations last year, we still managed to record RM23.13 million in overall profit last year.

"If the state is serious about helping us, they should contact us and make arrangement for discussions instead of creating bad publicity for PPSB with wrong figures," he said.

Despite the global economic slowdown, container throughput this year is expected to match last year's volume of 929,639 TEUs, he added.

Guan Eng had said in a statement on Tuesday that the Marine Department records showed ports in the country handled 10 per cent more containers in the second quarter of this year compared to the first, reflecting a recovery in both domestic and transhipment cargo.

Container traffic at the 10 major ports rose to 3.79 million TEUs from 3.44 million in the period under review while the volume at the Penang Port was only 2,000 TEUs, less than the Johor Port, in the first quarter, he said.

Guan Eng had also asked the federal government to give more attention to the Penang Port by injecting more funds to help save and keep the port afloat.

(Source: BERNAMA September 24, 2009 16:03 PM) Read More......

AT&T Says Google Voice Violates Net Neutrality Principles

September 25, 2009, 6:58 pm
The New York Times
 

By Saul Hansell

AT&T is playing a “gotcha” with Google. The big phone company filed a letter with the Federal Communications Commission Friday saying the Google Voice calling system violates the commission’s network neutrality principles. 

At issue is Google’s decision not to connect Google Voice customers to certain conference calling and other lines because of what it says are excessive access charges by the providers of those lines. AT&T, which is required to connect its telephones to all lines, says Google is discriminating against certain uses of its network, a no-no in the network neutrality world. 

Google, meanwhile, says it doesn’t have to follow the same rules AT&T does.Whether AT&T is right depends on all sorts of technical interpretations of the commission’s policies and which regulations actually apply to Google Voice, which is a technological patchwork of telephone calling and Internet communication.

But that really isn’t AT&T’s primary concern. The company is mainly trying to score some debating points and show that sometimes companies have good reason to treat some uses of their networks differently than others. (If you do want to get into the policy minutiae, start with this post from the public-interest telecom lawyer Harold Feld .)

What AT&T and Google agree on is that the system for exchanging payments between phone companies for completing long-distance calls is deeply flawed. I looked into this last year, when Kevin Martin, then the F.C.C. chairman, wanted to reform what is called intercarrier compensation. After a week trying to understand those rules, I ran away screaming. Our long-distance system is so topsy-turvy that it makes the Mad Hatter’s tea party look like drill time at West Point.

But to simplify it as much as possible: When your long-distance company connects your call to a telephone served by a different company, it pays a fee to terminate the call. This fee can range from almost nothing to as much as 7 cents a minute. The difference is set by a number of factors, including state regulatory regimes. In most cases, those access charges far exceed the actual cost of completing a long-distance call, and every telephone user pays higher bills because of these charges. 

So why do these charges exist? Originally, they were to subsidize service in sparsely populated areas, and they are still defended by the largely rural phone companies that benefit from them, many of which have allies in Congress. (Those phone companies get a number of other subsidies, too.)

Meanwhile, some enterprising phone companies, aided by local regulators, have taken to encouraging entrepreneurs to set up businesses that attract lots of inbound calls. Those include the free conference calling services, free fax lines and telephone pornography. The phone companies rebate some of the high call termination fees they receive to the companies running these services. 

Maybe the commission will decide that Google, since it is turning into a telephone company, will need to connect to those lines and pay the fees. Maybe it will agree with Google’s argument that its services are different enough to be exempt from the rules AT&T follows. But consumers would benefit most if the commission used this as another prod to do the difficult work of bringing some rationality to the way that long-distance calling is priced. 

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