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Volume II, Episode 54
April 2, 2008
Chinese 3G Wireless Testing - Bear Market Blues - GSM Mekong Summit
Sinomania.TV

March 24, 2008

Kuomintang Wins Taiwan - Business Gains on Gradual Reunification - Chinese Markets Bearish

March 17, 2008

Shanghai Bubble Burst? Beijing Election - A Special Comment on Tibet

March 12, 2008

Beijing Plays Musical Chairs: Report on the National People’s Congress - Chinese Stocks Tank!

March 5, 2008

Markets Plunge - Sovereign Wealth Fund - IPOs - National People's Congress convenes

February 21, 2008

Private Equity Buys Chinese - Macro Update - Sovereign Wealth Fund IPOs - more!

February 13, 2008

General Motors Turns Chinese - New China Funds - Coal Boom?

February 6, 2008

Macro Effects of Winter Storms - IPOs - Happy Year of the Rat! - more

January 29, 2008

Chinese Stocks: Correction or Bear? Davos 2008 - IPOs!

January 20, 2008

Four predictions for where Chinese stocks will be in 2008 - plus more!

December 31, 2007

A brief look back at some of the images of 2007

December 20, 2007

Markets Sag - Chevron Gas Deal - Aging Time Bomb? - Property ETF - IPOs - more!

December 10, 2007

US-China Summits in Beijing - QFII Up to $30 Billion (US) - IPOs losing steam?

November 27, 2007

Chinese Stock Prices Melt - Sarkozy Up to Beijing - IPO Updates - Will Trent Lott Lobby for Taiwan?

November 20, 2007

Currency Crisis! Dollars Drained by China, OPEC Continue Down - Inflation

November 14, 2007

Time to Short China's Yo-Yo Market? - Mining In or Out? IPOs - more

November 2, 2007

Oil Shock! Price Problems At the Chinese Pump - Stocks: Where's the Correction?

October 24, 2007

SPECIAL REPORT: 17th Party Congress - Shanghai Bubbles? - Market Numbers

October 15, 2007

China Bull Run Gets New Highs - PetroChina - IPOs - Money - more

October 9, 2007

Chinese Stocks Up & Up - IPOs - Iron & Steel - Pacific Pipeline - more

October 4, 2007

Hong Kong Booms - Commodities, Inflation, Oil at $100 a barrel? - more

September 25, 2007

UAW Tells GM No Jobs For China - Markets Hit 5,500 - China's Auto Industry - IPOs

September 19, 2007

New IPOs Rock Shanghai! But is Resistance Building? A Big Push for Private Equity…

September 10, 2007

Report on APEC 2007 - Energy Security - Markets Update - IPOs in Hong Kong

August 30, 2007

Chinese Stocks Stay Up - Big Bond Sale - IPOs - Upcoming Party Congress

August 22, 2007

China Stock Markets Get Higher But For How Much Longer? - Surprise Rate Hike - IPO Update

August 14, 2007

China Toy Recall - Markets & IPOs - Western Banks Catch Asian Flu?

August 6, 2007

Shanghai Composite Busts Past 4,600 - Beijing Bets on Banks - Chinese IPOs in Japan

July 31, 2007

China Stocks Up Again & Again! - Pussyfooting Around Currency? - Democracy in Japan?!

July 25, 2007

Will Barclay's Turn Chinese? 2Q/H1 Macro Report + IPOs!

July 19, 2007

Food Fight! China-USA sling hash / Peak Oil? / Markets Flat Line...

July 10, 2007

Chinese markets confused? Big IPOs - Chery+Chrysler

June 27, 2007

COSCO - China Mobile - IPOs - Telecom Mergers & Acquisitions

June 21, 2007

New Record Highs in Hong Kong, Shanghai: Will Beijing Put On the Squeeze? - IPOs & more

June 15, 2007

Fundamental Misalignment: US-China currency war - stock markets up & IPOs

June 7, 2007

China Stock Pop - Hot News items - climate change, tainted food...

May 31, 2007

Chinese stock markets hiccup - IPOs - USA-China Trade Gap

May 25, 2007

Report on the 2nd USA/China Strategic Economic Dialogue: Win-Win or When-When? - Market numbers - New IPOs


May 18, 2007

New life for Hong Kong? IPO Update - USA/China summit


May 11, 2007

Will Shanghai end up like NASDAQ or Nikkei? - IPOs


April 30, 2007

Tulips to Dotcom - is Sino Mania the next big bubble?


April 20, 2007

The Heat is on! - IPO Report - Air Pollution in China


April 15, 2007

China markets, IPO update, Beijing Ready for Olympics?


March 30, 2007

China markets up, up, up! Sinomania! goes to China


March 23, 2007

Focus on National People's Congress... Hi-Tech, IPOs


March 17, 2007

China's new investment strategy, IPOs, the Wrap...


March 7, 2007

China syndrome or hong bao bounce? New IPOs... more!


February 27, 2007

China Stock Market Yo-yo, new IPO issues, the wrap


February 17, 2007

Chinese New Year edition! Will China buy Chrysler & more!


February 9, 2007

The USA-China WTO trade dispute and New IPOs


February 1, 2007

IPOs: New Red Chip — Bubble Burst? — USA-China


January 26, 2007

BUBBLE TROUBLE? — IPOs on NASDAQ — Renminbi Yuan


January 20, 2007

IPOs in 3 hot sectors — BAOSteel — Macro Report


China MARKETS » China WEATHER »
HKEX Hang Seng Shanghai
SSE Shanghai Hong Kong
SZEX Shenzhen Beijing
MUSIC in China: Listen!
 

TRANSCRIPT: Big news in Chinese telecoms with tests of China's 3G wireless standard, the continuing slide in China stocks, and report on the Greater Mekong Subregion economic summit ...
Sinomania! Volume II Webisode 54, April 2, 2008

Same Time, Last Year?
Chinese Stocks Go Back in Time
;
The Mekong Summit;
And This Week’s Alpha Bet!

CHINA 3 G WIRELESS

This week’s Alpha Bet starts with H for Hebei Province in northern China, the province that surrounds the big province-level municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin. The governor of Hebei Mr. Guo Gengmao told a Hong Kong newspaper that thirty companies from his province will IPO on Hong Kong this year. This bit of boosterism was lampooned by the Wall Street Journal but it does reveal the process of corporatization as the Chinese state spins off its assets and retools the economy toward services and consumption.

Next a surprise H share placement on Hong Kong late last week: 0552.HK or China Communications Services a company controlled by the China Telecom Group. The deal, worth almost two billion Hong Kong dollars or over $240 million US dollars, was backed by Cisco, IBM, and Blackstone and the open portion was about 2.3 times oversubscribed.

The company provides telecom equipment and services and analysts believe the sudden share sale and its success is related to the long awaited unveiling of China’s 3 G wireless standard, TD-SCDMA.

China Mobile began today commercial trials of it in eight cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenyang, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen and Qinhuangdao) that are sites of Olympic events this summer. Twenty thousand customers are participating in the tests and many of the handsets are being provided for free. Handsets for sale range from 3,800 Yuan to 1,800 Yuan. So a lot to watch there!

SAME TIME, LAST YEAR

New lows are bringing major Chinese stock indexes back to early 2007. The Shanghai Composite closed April 1st at 3,329 down over 4 percent and back to its position of a year ago although there was a brief rise last Friday on a buying opportunity when some shares in Shanghai saw double digit increases. The CSI 300 Index, last year’s darling, is this year’s dog – one of the worst index performers of 2008 so far – closed down another five and a half percent April 1 to 3,582.86. Shanghai B shares remain battered, lost almost five percent at close Tuesday to 243.49, again back to last April.

ShenZhen stocks have fared the worst, all major indexes there down over seven percent April 1st. ShenZhen Bs lost another five percent to 536.35 although they have recovered somewhat from the collapse on March 18. The ShenZhen Composite is barely at 1,000 and fell back to last April.

Hong Kong shares are a bit better. Both the Hang Seng and China Enterprise Indexes are recovering. The China Enterprise Index, shares of Red Chips, closed April 1st at 12,237, reflecting investor belief that they are a better value than their Shanghai cousins.

MACRO UPDATE

Despite paper losses in stocks, the Chinese economy continues to race ahead. Industrial profits were up February overall but the state-owned sector sank almost thirty percent. All other sectors were up and the most spectacular profits were of private enterprises that surged 552%.

The most profitable industry sectors were oil & gas majors (not surprising given oil prices; all global oil giants currently have massive profits), coal mining, construction materials, and special machinery, transportation equipment, and electrical components were all up with big profits. The least profitable sectors were steel, chemicals, and smelting, showing overcapacity in those areas. The worst data came from electric power companies whose profits were down over 60% on the winter storms. And chemical or synthetic fiber manufacturers are also way down.

Other economic indicators were largely unchanged from January or the end of fourth quarter 2007 except industrial production and some exports are slowing. Chinese consumer confidence was down sharply in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing, the probable areas of highest stock ownership although Guangzhou was impacted in many ways by the severe winter storms.

But is help on the way? Premier or Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said this weekend Beijing will ensure stability in the markets and that it is important they stay healthy. Some in and out of China interpret his remarks to mean Beijing might resort to bailing out investors if the market implodes much as Washington is currently paying for the investment mess in New York.

RICE SUMMIT

Wen Jiabao made his comments at the Third Summit of the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Zone or the GMS summit. The GMS was initiated by the Asian Development Bank back in 1992 but suffered a setback in 1997 due to the so-called Asian currency crisis. After a decade it is back in focus particularly for Beijing who wants to recreate the greater Chinese economic area of past empires. Leaders from China, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are all present and pledging further economic integration.

One of the big topics is rice. The price of rice on world markets is up 30 percent and stock levels in China are the lowest in years. Nonetheless Beijing is assuring Chinese there is no supply crisis and continues to allow large exports. The high prices for rice will benefit Thailand, long the biggest rice exporter.

The Greater Mekong Subregion is backing infrastructure in the region with highways, dams, and power transmission all in the works and a big project to build a railway from Singapore to Kunming the capital of the southwestern Chinese province Yunnan, the place working the hardest to build its economy south into Indo-China. The GMS summit is underway now in Ventiane the capital of Laos.

I’ll see you next time on The Sinomania! Show.

© Sinomania! 2008 All Rights Reserved.

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