Category — Economy

According to an article  on EMSnow.com,  labor costs in China are rising fast due to pressure from human right organizations but also from government regulations to avoid social unrest and rising middle class expectations. CBA forecasts that the costs might keep increasing in the next two or three years. According to the article, electronics manufacturing data shows that there is not an unlimited supply of cheap labor in China, despite the huge population.

Moreover, according to the Economist, the increase of the costs has started in the coastal provinces where factories have clustered. In 2012, an investment bank has released a survey which stated that wages had already risen by 10% that year. According to Dale Weathington from Kolcraft (an American firm that uses China contract manufactures to make baby stollers in southern California), China’s coastal provinces are losing their power to  draw workers out of the hinterland. In previous years 95% of Mr Weathington’s  contract staff returned to work after the Chinese new year, compared to only 85% in 2012.

According to a study by WealthInsight, Mumbai takes the sixth position of the world’s top cities with the maximum number of billionaires, with a count of 26 billionaires. New York tops the list with 70 billionaires, followed by Moscow with 64 and London with 54.  Los Angeles counts 19 billionaires which place the city at rank 10.

In terms of countries with the most billionaires, India ranks 11 whereas the United States top the list.

According to the FDi report 2013, here are the five destinations which were preferred to invest in Asia-Pacific in 2012.

As you can see, China is the favorite country for FDI, quickly followed by India with a number of projects reaching 704.  In total, the region of Asia-Pacific has attracted 3,740 projects with a 31.7% global market share.

Let’s now take a closer look at the top 5 source countries from Asia-Pacific in 2012.

As you can read, outward FDI from Asia-Pacific decreased in 2012. In total, project numbers fell by 18.52% and the highest decrease happened in India with a percentage of 30.20. Japan is still the dominant investor from the region with 873 projects although it represents a change of -11.91%.

According to the Wealth Report, those two charts show the nominal GDP per country in 2012 and the predictions for 2030. You can see that the same countries are still part of the top 5 but not in the same order.  US and China have switched spot, making China number 1 in terms of GDP by 2030. Same thing happened with India and Japan. Germany is expected to remain fifth.

China’s GDP will triple by 2030 reaching $44,456 billion, whereas India’s GPD will quadruple reaching a nominal GDP of $21,233 billion. The USA, Japan and Germany’s GDP is expected to double by 2030.

Source: The Wealth Report