During a meeting in Taipei to promote economic and cultural co-operation between Taiwan and Hong Kong Lai told civilian exchanges between Taiwan and Hong Kong had largely contributed to lay firm foundation for economic co-operation between the two sides. While Tsang who was on a four-day visit to Taiwan for the first bilateral talks said there should be more such high level exchanges to strengthen the ties.

Both countries are understood to have agreed to co-operate further in the areas of air transport, double taxation avoidance, tourism, health, culture and education. The meeting between the top officials from both sides is regarded as a major step forward in thawing of China-Taiwan relations. The meeting was part of the deal which Taiwan signed with mainland China in June.

Hong Kong is Taiwan’s fourth-largest trade partner, and two-way trade and the number of travelers between the two sides are expected to reach $38.8bn and 3mn respectively. The number of China-based Taiwanese businesses listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has reached 60, and some leading Taiwanese companies now consider Hong Kong as the main place for raising business capital.

Lai pointed out that to lay emphasis on promoting civilian exchanges between the two sides, the government last year relaxed employment restrictions on Hong Kong students, allowing them to enroll in graduate programs after graduating from local universities, and also began extending the duration of stay on visas for Hong Kong-based Chinese citizens visiting Taiwan. However, she admitted there were still some areas which require special attention to extract full result out of the trade ties with Hong Kong.

Lai was of the opinion that an announcement would be made soon on simplification of visa procedures for Hong Kong visitors. Besides Tsang, the meeting was also attended by Taiwan-Hong Kong Economic and Cultural Co-operation Council (ECCC) Chairman Lin Chen-kuo and its Hong Kong counterpart, the Hong Kong-Taiwan Economic and Cultural Co-operation and Promotion Council (ECCPC) Lee Y.

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On Tuesday, the Cambodian police with riot gears thwarted a week-long strike sparked off by the suspension of a union official at a Malaysian-owned garment factory, which produced goods for international brands including Gap, Benetton, Adidas and Puma. It has been reported that the clashes between more than 100 armed police force and 3,000 garment workers in Phnom Penh had resulted in nine women being hurt, though authorities maintain the operations did not hurt anyone.

The BBC’s Guy De Launey in Phnom Penh says the unrest could be a symptom of a wider social malaise owing to dwindling orders in Cambodia’s crucial garment industry which resulted in tens of thousands of job losses. Early this month, government increased the minimum wage from about $50 to $60, but the double-digit inflation and the trade unions demands of above $80 seemed to be bogging down the effect.

Albeit the unions retracted from a three-day general strike in protest against the meagre rise, the union official’s suspension is believed to have aggravated the situation. But last week’s Huffington Post report interpreted these strikes as a knee-jerk reaction to irrational calibration of wages by the outsourcing firms or associated agencies.

Interestingly, in last week’s blog by Auret van Heerden, President and CEO of the Fair Labour Association visualizes firms that build strong Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes into their operations and culture would have the edge in many markets. Nevertheless, evidences show such practices by firms are beyond procurement principles as it solely reckons pricing and related aspects devoid of labour rights – especially post-meltdown.

Cambodia’s textile industry accounts for around 85 percent of exports, and is the country’s third-largest source of income after tourism and agriculture. The Southeast Asian state continues to be in the grip of labour problems particularly after the global economic crisis that bombed exports severely to create an economic landscape of joblessness – and desertion of production units by the employers.

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Myanmar and Viet Nam have similar history and share almost identical culture and religion. While Viet Nam suffered boycott by the West in the past Myanmar continues to be ostracized by the US and the EU as well.

Phung who is active in Myanmar for some time with humanitarian aid became confident about its market following the back to back success of two trade fairs held to promote Vietnamese products in Yangon last September and April. Although the two-way trade between both sides last year was a meagre $74mn, the first half of this year is showing an uptick by recording $58mn.

Viet Nam exports steel products, cement, processed foods, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and electrical goods and other appliances. On the other hand, Myanmar’s main exports to Viet Nam are wood and forestry products, natural rubber and seafood.

According to the Association of Vietnamese Investors in Myanmar, Vietnamese enterprises have pledged investments of nearly $1bn in Myanmar this year, well short of their investments in the neighbouring Laos and Cambodia of about $6bn each. But Phung believes that the coming years will witness a greater interest among Vietnamese businesses to tap the new market as there is huge demand for their products in Myanmar on account of their quality, range and reasonable prices.

Nevertheless, Phung admitted that the businesses would have to undergo challenges such as tortuous import licensing procedures and difficulties in getting payments, major reason being the US and the EU embargo against Myanmar. But he advised Vietnamese enterprises to strictly follow the guidelines of the Vietnamese embassy in Myanmar and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and do financial transactions only through designated banks.

Under British colonial era, Myanmar was the second-wealthiest country in South-East Asia but the country is one of the poorest in the region today. Viet Nam aspires to make Myanmar as developed as itself through exchanges as the former too emerged from the shadows of prolonged sanctions from the West.

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MHmobile is an optimized user interface that enables travellers to book flights and access up to date travel information while on the move. In a world’s first, MHkiosk employs touch-screen technology, and is equipped with passport and card readers for instant passenger recognition, and print 2D barcode boarding passes.

The introduction of the MHkiosk follows Jetstar’s recent debut as the first airline to use iPads as in-flight entertainment on their aircrafts. Jetstar Airways is a low-cost subsidiary of Qantas, the national airline of Australia.

MD/CEO of the MAS, Tengku Datuk Azmil Zahruddin claimed that there was huge interest in the iPad MHkiosks as it was so simple and user-friendly; and he later added that the MAS had plans of introducing more such kiosks depending up on the success. As part of the promotion, the customers using the newly launched kiosks will get a waiver on the administrative fee for travel during the six-month pilot project period.

The kiosks is understood to eliminate admin charges since the ticketing process is electronically managed allowing the customers to select their itineraries, credit card payments, confirmation via SMS and email sans printing material. “It will mean better queue management at our ticket offices during peak hours when customers can be re-directed to ‘stand-alone’ iPad MHkiosks,” said Zahruddin.

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This development has given rise to the market forces to flex its muscles in pushing up wages, and eventually eating up the profit margins. In addition, the narrowing of gap on the outlay of wages with other competing markets has also reflected up on the product prices, which have become higher as compared to other markets.

Surprisingly, though the total labour force of China is about 800mn, very few workers have the required qualifications. It should be recalled, C.P. Lee, Asia-Pacific human resources chief at Motorola Inc. had observed “The skills base does not meet the demands of a rapidly growing (Chinese) market.”

In a rising wages scenario, the Chinese Companies cannot survive in the global market without providing cheap products to its clients, which was the core competency of most Chinese manufacturers hitherto. With that, majority of the Chinese firms will be compelled to shift from the earlier strategy of producing cheap products to quality ones as the market for the cheap products may not exist in future. The absence of cheap goods market will leave the Chinese companies with only one option of leveraging through tapping the available ‘quality’ over a quantity product market.

Hence, to grab new buyers whom seek quality products, the manufacturing companies while dishing out higher wages will also be forced to retain or recruit competent labour force to produce superior quality products. The higher wages which trigger job losses will equip the existing companies the liberty to choose the best from the competitive labour market to cater to the new quality-preferred clientele.

Incidentally, it goes without saying cheap labour often adversely affects the efficiency of the workforce, and the China growth story is an example to that premise. China’s strategy to garner market share was always been associated with manufacturing more quantity while often blowing to the wind the standards of quality.

So as former chief Asia economist at Citigroup Inc., Huang Yiping’s contention, China may be heading for the so-called Lewis turning point, but the silver lining would be that the country would also be in the process of becoming a “quality global factory”. Huang was referring to the economic theory by the late Nobel Prize-winning economist W. Arthur Lewis where manufacturing competitiveness and the pace of growth begin to turn down as labour costs rise.

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Qimiao apprised Cambodia’s financial and banking methodology has particularly helped many of Cambodia’s commercial banks and micro-finance institutions to raise their standards of corporate governance, which eventually got rewarded with greater investments. Likewise, Chea Chanto, governor of the National Bank of Cambodia opined the recent bad experience of the world financial crisis taught Cambodia the hard way about how the failure of bank and financial system could impact livelihoods.

Chanto also told that Cambodia has learned a lot from the Asian financial crisis, and the National Bank of Cambodia has taken a series of measures to better supervise and regulate the banking and financial system in the country. Banks have an overwhelmingly dominant position in the country’s financial system, representing more than 90 percent and are extremely important engines of economic growth, he added.

In contrast, it should be recalled that Qimiao had said in the recently concluded Cambodia Development Cooperation Forum (CDCF) “transparency and accountability in the management of public finances and natural resources” were critical issues. This reference was in line with the international watchdog organization, Global Witness, which slammed donors last week for continuing to hand over huge sums of aid money, despite evidence of widespread corruption and mismanagement of public funds. Overseas donors continued to pledge financial support on the controversial Land Management and Administration Project, or LMAP that supposed to have rendered many homeless.

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The Trade Minister’s words were marked by clear ideas on which the country’s economic path would be paved in the coming years regardless of its size. He said NZ started its reform process 30 years ago with very high protectionist barriers but now was solidly centred on reciprocal trade liberalisation.

Groser shifted his focus from the FTA talks to WTO negotiations and expressed dismay over the inertia at the WTO. He said the WTO negotiating process was suffering from sclerosis, and criticized the WTO Director General’s use of the metaphor of having done 80 percent of the negotiation. He added that but last 20 percent or whatever number one chose to illustrate the remaining negotiating gap – was proving elusive.

He arrayed data on NZ trade policies including the collective effort in the early 1990s that it would not put all its eggs in the then GATT or now WTO basket. He pointed out since then, while emphasising multilateral trade policy, successive NZ Governments had aggressively and successively pursued a bi-partisan strategy of developing FTAs with economies which were either major trading partners or promised to be – i.e. the emerging economies.

“All projections suggest that in even twenty to thirty years’ time, the countries with the largest populations will have the largest economies. We will be living in a truly multi-polar world in which we are highly likely to have four economic super-powers with huge populations (China, India, the US and the hybrid model of the 27 Member EU) plus a range of very significant economies on a second tier including Japan, Korea, Indonesia and, of course the other of the so-called ‘BRICs’ – the formulation that includes not just China and India but also Brazil and Russia”, claimed Groser.

The gist of the address disclosed that NZ current FTAs including China, Thailand, Singapore and Chile and future FTAs or any other trade deals were and will be designed to follow an extreme application of what is called ‘first mover advantage’ strategy – getting in first, to avoid the possibility of being left to last.

NZ is the first developed country to have established a comprehensive FTA with China. Besides, NZ has negotiated a parallel FTA with Hong Kong – NZ is the only country in the world so far, other than China itself, to have such a relationship.

At a glance, the NZ-Russia FTA opens up business opportunities for not only the NZ dairy industry but also extend to other areas such as agro-tech, tourism and education. New Zealand’s exports to Russia are worth NZ$187mn ($127mn) last year, of which about two-thirds are dairy products. That’s just a fraction of the more than the $30bn of food Russia purchases annually.

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The world body should lay emphasis on reducing the growing divide between the rich and the poor rather than pushing for trade to please some of the business powerhouses. If increasing world trade through global action means prosperity for all, the WTO has to address problems of the workforces that comprise of about 70 percent excluding self employed involved directly or indirectly in global trade.

It has to press for regulations which will bring in all workforces under one umbrella of organized sector as majority, particularly in developing countries are forced to work incognito. The workers of unorganized sector are deprived of employment protection such as paid leave, sick leave, healthcare and other perks; and are almost enslaved by their employers.

Similarly, even workers of organized sector are exploited by overloading with work schedules that may go up to 20hrs per day without any rest or extra allowance. Especially the workforces from countries without minimum hourly wages have been largely put to this hardship by calibrating it as a day’s work.

At a glance, it may seem like how on earth the strengthening of organized sector of workforce will improve the living standards of the poor and marginalized workers without developing other key areas such as free right to education, healthcare and other civic amenities. But by elevating the dignity of workers by providing reasonable earnings for what they work is likely to boost their confidence, and thereby prod themselves to meet all immediate needs without any administrative influence.

As far as trade is concerned, the atrocities perpetrated on workforces should also be given equal care like that of other aspects of trade agreements to avoid social unrests stemming from socio-economic asymmetries. The absence of minimum wages for workers or potentially running unorganized workforces, perhaps even with the backing of governments, should be given serious re-look as it is implied in individual trade deals as grievous human rights violations.

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Maria Neira, UN World Health Organization’s (WHO) director of public health and environment said that “Neglecting sanitation and drinking water is a strike against progress, and without it, communities and countries will lose the battle against poverty and ill-health.” She told this at the launch of the UN-Water Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) report in Washington.

The report has highlighted that with over 2.6bn people living without access to improved sanitation facilities and nearly 900mn people not receiving drinking water, the progress made in this sphere would be able to fulfil only half of MDG target by 2015. Some sources estimate that with the current pace, it may take couple of centuries to achieve the goal as the world population will grow disproportionate to the achievements made so far at the water and sanitation front.

It is apparent from the report that overall development aid for water and sanitation has fallen from 8 percent in 1997 to just 5 percent in 2008 – less than commitments for health, education, transport, energy and agriculture. Surprisingly, the study is able to find that water and sanitation played a far more important role in improving productivity and welfare of communities as people could allocate more time for productive labour while keeping themselves in good health. It stressed that improved access to sanitation and water produces economic benefits that range from $3 to $34 per dollar invested, increasing a country’s GDP by an estimated two to seven percent.

“Unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and the lack of hygiene claim the lives of estimated 2.2mn children under the age of five every year. Of these deaths, 1.5mn are due to diarrhoea, the second leading contributor to the global burden of disease,” said Dr. Neira. Similarly, Clarissa Brocklehurst, UNICEF Chief of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) opined it was imperative to act now to provide potable water and proper sanitation before it got into epidemic proportions.

The findings of the report will be presented at the first annual High Level Meeting of Sanitation and Water for All, which will be hosted by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Washington on Friday. The meeting will provide a platform for representatives of developing and donor countries to gain greater understanding of the linkages between water, sanitation and economic growth to commit appropriate resources and promote mutual accountability, partnership and shared responsibility.

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The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) stated in its annual report that the global arms race had accelerated, most dramatically in South America and South-east Asia, despite the economic meltdown. The Swedish institute, which conducts independent research on arms trade and its implications, said global defence transfers in the last five years had risen by 22 percent, with Asia and Oceania the biggest recipients with 41 percent of the total.

According to the head of the report, Paul Holtom, resource-rich countries were setting the trend by using their earnings to build out their combat aircraft fleets, and neighbouring rivals had reacted to these acquisitions with orders of their own. Furthermore, he questioned the rationale of these countries’ defence procurement policy in the allocation of resources in regions with high levels of poverty.

The study pointed out that it was able to witness a significant demand for combat aircrafts, and warned that deliveries of combat aircraft could fuel an arms race in the Middle East, north Africa, South America and south Asia. It said combat aircrafts accounted for 39 percent of major US weapons sales over the past five years, and about 40 percent of Russian arms exports.

Without any surprise, the US continued to top the chart with 30 percent of the total arms exports, followed by Russia at 23 percent, Germany (11%), and France (8%). It should be recalled that the study period was inclusive of more than two years of global economic contraction. However, the report was not in a position to provide the cost of the arms trade as most governments no longer released the figures.

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The last week’s announcement also underscores that it would no longer recognize the two existing certification authorities in New Zealand, Islamic Meat Management and the Federation of Islamic Associations. In response, the FIANZ argued Indonesian halal certification company setting up shop here did not have the resources to inspect meat plants and slaughterhouses.

Reza Khedmati, director of Al-Rasoul Halal Certification, said the company had been set up to offer New Zealand exporters an “internationally accepted halal certification” as a result of problems encountered with Islamic countries. The federation vice-president Javed Khan says “These people who are setting up their own certifying companies here have got no infrastructure to inspect the plants and all that … and still they are certifying.”

Khedmati claimed that it had been certifying for all the organizations throughout the world including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. The chief executive of the Iran-based Islamic Chamber Research and Information Centre, Abdolhossein Fakhari, while he was in New Zealand last month said Al-Rasoul Halal Certification had the backing of the centre, which was set up with the support of the governments of Islamic countries.

The Indonesian plan would restrict $100mn worth of New Zealand beef and $450mn of dairy products entering that country. The global halal market is valued at around $150bn with about 1.6bn consumers from 112 countries and Indonesia with 212mn is the largest consumer of halal products among Muslim nations.

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The EMP is a market access program that provides funding for technical assistance activities intended to promote exports of the US agricultural commodities and products to emerging markets in all geographic regions, consistent with the US foreign policy. According to the USDA, the EMP is a generic program, and projects that endorse or promote branded products are not eligible for this program.

The EMP, administered by the Foreign Agricultural Service, assists private and public organizations in improving market opportunities for the US agricultural products in low to middle-income countries with viable market potential. One of the emerging market criteria is that the per capita income should be less than $11,455, the current ceiling on upper middle income economies as determined by the World Bank.

The projects will be conducted in Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Particularly in countries that falls under the other criterion to emerging markets of population greater than 1mn.

The total budget for the program can be used for technical assistance, such as activities that focus on building trade capacity, or addressing technical barriers to trade. The USDA informed that this year’s recipients of the funds included universities, state and federal agencies, trade groups, and non-profit organizations.

All applications to the program are subjected to a competitive review process that evaluates the quality of the proposal, its likelihood to succeed, and the applicant’s knowledge of the market in the region. The USDA has also funded 32 other projects totaling $831,474 during the same period, under the EMP’s Technical Issues Resolution Fund (TIRF).

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The Chinese goods will start flowing to the ASEAN markets since the FTA takes effect from January next year. It is feared that with zero percent import duty under the FTA, the demand and the price of local products would diminish, and eventually believed to bring down particularly, the textile industry of Indonesia along with other industries those China could overpower.

However, API observed that it would not be easy to impose safe guard measures or anti-dumping import duties against China as it is known for reprisals such as, banning products imported to China from any hostile country on some pretext or the other. Sudrajat averred Indonesian fish and shrimp products would be the primary target if country imposed any anti-dumping duties on the Chinese goods.

He pointed out that already a trade-war with Turkey was on the boil as Indonesian tyres and textiles were imposed with anti-dumping duties as against similar duties charged on Turkish flour in Indonesia. The FTA will remove all import duties on textiles, footwear and leather products, ceramics, food and beverages, iron and steel products, petrochemicals and electronics shipped out of China to Indonesia.

The textile imports from China to Indonesia are valued at about $900mn or 15 percent of the $7bn domestic textile market, and these figures are excluding illegal imports from China. Indonesia exported mostly natural resources to China such as, coal worth $17.2bn during last year whereas the same period witnessed imports from China at around $14.3bn which largely comprised of finished products.

Sudrajat admitted that a trade war with China would be unavoidable taking into account the woes of the textile industry that had been already affected by the downturn. Nevertheless, the industry ministry director for the textile industry of Indonesia, Arryanto Sagala is understood to have called for a postponement of the FTA by sending a letter to the Trade Ministry’s international co-operation administration center and secretariat general.

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Apart from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are also seemed to have impressed by livestock farming opportunities in Thailand. The southern provinces, the Andaman region of Thailand have been chosen for the proposed mega livestock farms.

The climatic conditions and geographic placing of Thailand are claimed to be the most suited in Southern Asia for livestock production and paddy cultivation. However, the UAE’s interest in rice production would not be possible due to shortage in suitable lands.

The UAE already has ambitious plans to establish agricultural production centres in Sudan and Pakistan. The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development aims to develop 70,000 acres of land for food production in Sudan alone.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia has also invested in overseas agricultural farms including Pakistan to ward off any potential food shortage threat like that which confronted the globe last year. The desert nations are showing keen interest in developing agricultural and livestock farms outside their region since engaging in similar activities in the region would require manifold expenditure, and also not sure of the results.

To cater to the burgeoning Middle East market, Thailand has made several plans for investing in the production of halal meat and dairy products in countries such as, Pakistan and Bangladesh. According to Thai government sources, Charoen Pokpand Foods, the largest agri-business firm of the country is preparing to develop mega livestock farms in Russia as part of its expansion plans to fulfil its export shortfalls.

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The summit happens to be the first forum after the North Korean satellite launch which has been widely criticized by Japan, South Korea and the western world as an attempt to test its ballistic prowess. As a result, many ASEAN members are concerned about the summit getting reduced to a forum for finding ways to penalise N. Korea for their action rather than meeting region’s economic problems. Earlier, despite the US and its allies headlining the Korea’s satellite launch as rocket launch and urging the UN to impose sanctions, China and Russia had called for patience.

The ASEAN summit was originally planned for last December and postponed with two phases in late February and April respectively this year due to anti-government protests that shut down Bangkok’s main international airport for several days during the scheduled period. Usually the summit is an annual gathering of representatives or leaders from ASEAN group, but the global economic crisis have compelled the group to include the economic powerhouses of the region in the forthcoming summit.

According to sources, the Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd will once again appeal the participants to review his proposal in last May for an Asia-Pacific Union (APU) in the line of the EU. Rudd’s proposed APU member states account for more than half the population of the world and is worth about half the global economic output. His call is likely to have more takers this time around since the summit has plans to formally denounce any form of protectionism to tide over the current economic mess quickly.

The ASEAN leaders will make sure that the focus is on climate change, which dominated the last summit, will be followed by trade, energy, food security and disaster management. They also hope the meet will include the finer points of the recently concluded G20 Summit to aid struggling economies get out of the present economic quagmire left behind by the global financial and economic crisis.

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