Economic Growth In Singapore

China's Five Year Plan

Since 1953, the Communist Party of China has used a series of five-year plans to guide China’s economic and social development. In its newly-adopted 12th Five-Year Plan China makes clear that it hopes to move up the manufacturing value chain by making explicit mention of Strategic Emerging Industries, which the Chinese government would like to see dominated by Chinese firms. These industries are: New-generation information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, advanced materials, alternative-fuel cars, energy conservation and environmental protection, alternative energy, and biotechnology. China’s goal is to take the Strategic Emerging Industries from a current combined share of 3% of Chinese GDP to 8% by 2015 and 15% by 2020.

Anyone name America's 5 year plan? Beyond destroying the U.S. middle class and American workforce , can anyone even think of one? China, on the other hand, is methodically going about dominating a host of advanced technology industries and capturing our jobs in that process.

Mathematician Ralph Gomory gave some stark testimony to what the United States can expect.

What we can expect in the future is simply more, and probably much more, of what we have seen to date.

What we have seen to date is this: rapid economic growth in China, coupled with a major negative impact of the imports of Chinese goods on the productive capability of this county. We have seen an enormous imbalance of trade as these imports are not balanced by a sufficient counter-flow of exports. In the U.S. we have seen greater corporate profits, accompanied by downward pressure on wages and employment.

Apple, despite its prominence, actually has only about 50,000 direct employees – 25,000 or so in the U.S. and 25,000 overseas. What the administration and others seem to purposely overlook are Apple‟s 250,000 indirect employees working at the company Foxconn, located outside of Shenzhen, China, dedicated to manufacturing Apple products sold in the U.S. (Foxconn‟s total employment in China is a staggering 1 million workers.) In other words, for every 1 of the 25,000 American workers now employed by Apple mostly in marketing, administration and R&D, there are 10 Foxconn workers in China who could, and many of believe should, be American workers.

The Chinese government, as Singapore’s had done earlier, makes intelligent use of this motivation. Through direct subsidies, abated taxes, and mispriced currency they can supplement cheap labor to the point where China becomes the most profitable place to locate the industries China is interested in. China is also able to add to this the lure of a giant growing market and to make, in practice, technology transfer a condition for market entry.

Singapore Daily Bulletin – 27/06/11 – SharesInv.com

Popular Holdings’ earnings fell 74.1% to $2.2m in its fourth quarter, resulting in a dip in its FY11 earnings by 23.9%. The bookstore chain which has diversified into property development witnessed its gross profit rise by 11.6% due to an improved turnover. The company has blamed its lacklustre earnings on the decline in its property development division. Having recently sold its units in 18 Shelford, the developer is now in the midst of completing its third project – 8 Raja. Weighed down by the property development division is its retail and distribution division, which contributed over 60% to the group’s earnings. Riding on the success of its retail department, Popular opened 14 new outlets in the financial year and emphasized that the company has potential for further growth.

Significance: While cooling measures has affected its property division, Popular’s strong cash at hand may be able to acquire more land bank when property prices decline. Olam International has increased its stake in NZ Farming Systems Uruguay from 77.98% in April to more than 85%. Olam had made an offer to NZ Farming shareholders and more than 44% of the shareholders accepted Olam’s offer of NZ$0.70 per share. Olam’s offer beats a 60 cents-a-share bid plan announced last week by Union Agriculture Corp, a Uruguayan landowner. The offer came into effect in April and Olam has mentioned that it is still receiving acceptances from remaining shareholders and will continue to do so until the 29 Jun thus potentially expanding its stake in NZ Farming to a greater extent.