We need to find a fairer way of providing Goods and Services to the rest of the people on Earth.Cryptocurrencies and/or Gold Standard of money....maybe the answer to fight hyperinflation caused by too much printing of paper/fiat currencies by Governments and Central Banks all over the World. (https://nomorefiatmoneyplease.blogspot.com)
Malaysia's Khazanah announces US$1.57b investments to support govt measures
[KUALA LUMPUR] Khazanah Nasional Bhd, Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund, announced on Monday additional domestic investments of RM6.77 billion (US$1.57 billion) to support the government's economic measures to boost investor sentiment.
The Malaysian government announced earlier on Monday economic measures to boost confidence in a country reeling from a political scandal. The measures included the injection of RM20 billion (US$4.6 billion) into a state investment firm to shore up the stock market.
Khazanah will "accelerate and increase domestic investments over the immediate and medium term" in sectors ranging from leisure and tourism to innovation and technology, the fund said in a press statement.
Euro-area industrial production increases most since February
[FANKFURT] Euro-area industrial production rose more than economists estimated in July as output jumped in three of the region's four largest economies.
Production in the 19-nation currency bloc increased 0.6 per cent from June, when it dropped a revised 0.3 per cent, the European Union's statistics office in Luxembourg said on Monday. That's the strongest rate since February and twice as much as economists predicted in a Bloomberg survey. On the year, output was up 1.9 per cent.
The data add to evidence that the region's economic outlook is improving, even as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi cautions that a China-led slowdown in emerging markets poses downside risk. Economic confidence is at a 4-year high, unemployment unexpectedly declined in July and growth in the first half was stronger than initially reported.
Industrial output rose 0.5 per cent in Germany, 0.6 per cent in Spain and 1.1 per cent in Italy, according to the report. Production in Greece jumped 4.3 per cent in July, marking the first increase since March. By contrast, French output fell 0.8 per cent after a 0.2 per cent drop the previous month.
China sells net 723.8 bln yuan of FX in Aug, record monthly outflow
China's central bank and commercial banks sold a net 723.8 billion yuan (US$113.69 billion) of foreign exchange in August, by far the largest outflow on record, according to a Reuters calculation based on central bank data released on Monday.
PHOTO: REUTERS
[SHANGHAI] China's central bank and commercial banks sold a net 723.8 billion yuan (US$113.69 billion) of foreign exchange in August, by far the largest outflow on record, according to a Reuters calculation based on central bank data released on Monday.
The previous largest outflow, last month in July, totalled 249.1 billion yuan (US$39.13 billion).
On Aug 11, People's Bank of China surprised global markets by announcing a new fixing mechanism for the yuan against the dollar and abruptly devaluing the currency by nearly 3 per cent.
In the wake of the policy change, capital outflows have intensified and the central bank has spent large sums of foreign exchange defending the currency. In August, China's foreign exchange reserves fell by US$94 billion, also a record.
Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said that Singapore's top-notch AAA country credit rating is not in doubt, though longer-term pressures it shares with other advanced economies remain.
SPH
Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings said that Singapore's top-notch AAA country credit rating is not in doubt, though longer-term pressures it shares with other advanced economies remain.
These include slow productivity growth, income inequality, and an ageing population, Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia Pacific sovereigns at Fitch Ratings, told The Business Times over the phone on Monday.
The 2015 general election results show how the PAP remains in control of the process of changing Singapore's economic and social model, Mr Colquhoun said.
"The strategy is clear, the Government's intentions are clear. This is hard to do though, with no quick fixes generally," he said, referring to efforts to boost productivity.
And while Singapore has increased welfare spending in recent years, the spending is "well short on what would have a material impact on the rating".
"Singapore is certainly living well within its means," he said.
Chinese industrial production, retail sales and urban fixed asset investment figures were released over the weekend with all bar retail sales disappointing to the downside.
From a year earlier industrial production increased by 6.1%, higher than the 6.0% pace of July but below expectations for an expansion of 6.4%.
Disruptions caused by the massive explosion at the Tianjin port midway through the month, along with factory closures prior to the September 3 Victory Day parade to ensure blue skies for the event, are largely believed to have been responsible for the downside miss.
Elsewhere urban fixed asset investment – essentially urban infrastructure spending – grew by 10.9% in the year to August. The figure was below the 11.2% pace of July and expectations for a deceleration to 11.1% and marked the slowest annual increase in investment since December 2000.
On the other side of the ledger, retail sales topped expectations, increasing by 10.8% from levels of a year earlier. The figure was higher than the 10.5% pace of July, also the level eyed for August.
Whether due to the mixed nature of the report, the fact it portrays what the Chinese government is attempting to implement – greater levels of household consumption to offset weakening industrial activity – or the widely-held belief that most Chinese data is spurious in nature, the market reaction to the news in early Asian trade has been near non-existent on Monday.
Clearly this data dump – once a noted market mover – has lost its market potency over recent years.
Thomson ReutersA banner showing former Greek Prime Minister Tsipras is seen in central Athens
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's leftist Syriza party narrowly led its main conservative rival, New Democracy, in three newspaper polls published on Saturday ahead of a Sept. 20 election, and the two parties were tied in a fourth.
Former prime minister Alexis Tsipras's Syriza led by between 0.3 percent and 0.7 percent in three polls published respectively by Alco in Proto Thema, by MRB in Real News and Kapa Research in To Vima. A Public Issue poll in Avgi put both parties on 31 percent.
The polls were in the Sunday editions of all four newspapers.
(reporting by Michele Kambas; writing by John Stonestreet; Editing by Dominic Evans)
Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2015. Follow Reuters on Twitter.
Thomson ReutersThe logo of General Electric is pictured at the 26th World Gas Conference in Paris
(Reuters) - KKR & Co and Apollo Global Management are seeking to acquire General Electric Co'sinventory finance arm, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
The buyout firms made bids two weeks ago for GE Capital Commercial Distribution Finance, a unit with $11 billion in assets, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Bloomberg said GE could select a buyer for the unit by the end of the month.
GE said in April it would seek to sell some $200 billion of its GE Capital assets as it moves away from financial services and focuses more on manufacturing jet engines, power turbines and other big-ticket industrial equipment.
KKR did not immediately comment, while Apollo declined comment. GE could not be immediately reached for comment.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2015. Follow Reuters on Twitter.
[JAKARTA] Helicopters on Monday water-bombed raging forest fires that have cloaked parts of Indonesia in thick haze and pushed air quality to unhealthy levels in neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.
Fourteen helicopters were dumping water on blazes on western Sumatra island and the Indonesian part of Borneo island and "cloud-seeding", which involves using chemicals to induce rain, the country's disaster agency said.
Authorities had struggled last week to start such operations as the haze was so thick that it was too dangerous for aircraft to fly.
Smog-belching fires are an annual problem during the dry season in Indonesia, where vast tracts of land are cleared using illegal slash-and-burn methods to make way for huge palm oil and pulp and paper plantations.
The blazes intensified in the past fortnight, sending smog over Sumatra and Borneo that has left tens of thousands ill, forced people to wear face masks and prompted the cancellation of flights and school closures.
Air quality has deteriorated in the city-state of Singapore and Malaysia in recent days, as wind carries the smog from Indonesia.
Smog continued to shroud Singapore on Monday, with air quality at unhealthy levels.
Two outdoor races scheduled for Sunday were cancelled, while organisers of the Formula One due to be held in the city-state reportedly said they are closely monitoring the haze in case it affects the event.
Haze levels have steadily been rising in Malaysia, with buildings more than a kilometre away in the capital Kuala Lumpur appearing as vague silhouettes. On Monday, 29 of the country's 52 air-quality monitoring stations tipped into the "unhealthy" range.
As of late Sunday, more than 1,100 "hotspots" - areas with high temperatures that are either already on fire or likely to soon go up in flames - were detected by satellites on Sumatra and the Indonesian part of Borneo, said disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho."Even when blazes are successfully extinguished, people then start new fires," Mr Nugroho said, adding that the police were investigating 26 companies and scores of people over the illegal blazes.
Pressure to stop the annual outbreaks of smog has increased since 2013 when South-east Asia suffered its worst air pollution crisis for more than a decade, but joint attempts by countries in the region to find a solution have moved slowly.
