Day: October 1, 2023

Beijing craft brewers add Chinese flavours as Great Leap, other microbreweries grapple with expat exodus

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For Great Leap Brewing, one of Beijing’s first craft beer brands founded in 2010 to serve the expatriate community, adding Sichuan-style spicy chicken to the menu does not seem immediately intuitive – but Allen Lueth, the company’s chief executive, has his reasons. “The dish goes really well with our beer,” he said. “It’s a big hit, especially among our Chinese customers.” Like Great Leap, many of the city’s foreign-run restaurants and microbreweries that started out with menus catering to Western tastes are now shifting strategies and marketing to locals. Chinese…

Asia faces one of worst economic outlooks in half a century, World Bank warns

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Receive free Asia-Pacific economy updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Asia-Pacific economy news every morning. The World Bank has cut its forecast for China’s growth next year and warned that east Asia’s developing economies are set to expand at one of the lowest rates in five decades, as US protectionism and rising levels of debt pose an economic drag. The gloomier 2024 forecasts from the bank underline the mounting concern over China’s slowdown and how it will spill into Asia. China’s policymakers have…

Asia faces worst economic outlook in half a century, World Bank warns

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Receive free Asia-Pacific economy updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Asia-Pacific economy news every morning. The World Bank has cut its forecast for China’s growth next year and warned that east Asia’s developing economies are set to expand at one of the lowest rates in five decades, as US protectionism and rising levels of debt pose an economic drag. The gloomier 2024 forecasts from the bank underline the mounting concern over China’s slowdown and how it will spill into Asia. China’s policymakers have…

Chinese households opt for domestic goods as budgets tighten, national pride swells

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Last year, consumption accounted for 32.8 per cent of the growth in China’s gross domestic product, down from 54.5 per cent in 2021. According to Morning Consult, a US company that measures Chinese consumer sentiment, trust among consumers towards their finances and the state of the economy showed improvement in August while still falling short of its 2021 peak. 02:50 China’s live-streaming industry heats up as millions of would-be hosts vie to break into the field China’s live-streaming industry heats up as millions of would-be hosts vie to break into…

SKorea Women Take Gold in Badminton, Beating China at Asian Games

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South Korea won the women’s team singles in badminton Sunday at the Asian Games, defeating China 3-0. An Seyoung and Kim Gaeun won their singles matches and Lee Sohee and Baek Hana teamed up in doubles to beat the sport’s No. 1-ranked female pair, Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan of China. Lee said the team surprised itself. “Playing in China against the Chinese pair who are also the world No. 1, I didn’t expect to win,” Lee said. “I thought it would be a very tough match. This game was…

German manufacturers resist trade tensions in China’s Mittelstand enclave

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With its steep red-tiled roofs, signs pointing to the Bierplatz and loudspeakers playing The Blue Danube, Taicang’s new town square feels like a version of Germany from someone’s imagination. Over three decades this city 50km from Shanghai has become a favoured place to invest for German businesses seeking growth in the world’s second-largest economy. Many are family-owned and often highly specialised Mittelstand businesses of the type that have powered German exports and built the country’s reputation for high-end manufacturing. Today, business ties between Germany and China are frayed, with Berlin…

Germany Welcomes China’s Support for G20 Debt Restructuring Framework

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Germany has welcomed a show of support from China for the G20 debt restructuring framework for poorer countries in a joint statement after their financial dialog in Frankfurt over the weekend. “We welcome the fact that the Chinese side is also committed to this in our Joint Statement, because solutions are inconceivable without China as such an important player in world politics,” German Finance Minister Christian Lindner said Sunday, after his meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng. Neither provided further details on the rules for the restructuring plans and…

Overseas real estate buyers identify Japan as an opportunity

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Tokyo for business and shopping. Osaka for the food. Karuizawa for the alpine forests. Kyoto for the history. And Niseko for the best powder ski slopes in the world. For many years, this was more or less how Japan was mapped-out in the minds of visitors from outside — a place to enjoy, but also to leave. In 2023, that has completely changed. For many visitors — in particular those from Singapore, Hong Kong, and mainland China — Japan is now, emphatically, a place to buy. The weak yen and…

Yen tumbles and shares soar as Japan inflation begins to bite

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Receive free Japanese economy updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Japanese economy news every morning. On a Friday afternoon late last month — just after the Bank of Japan had signalled that it was in no rush to end the ultra-loose monetary policy it has maintained for two decades — the shares of three of Japan’s most celebrated corporate names closed at all-time highs. Even in the days of the great 1980s bubble, Toyota, Honda and the construction machinery giant Komatsu had never…

Japan government pension acts on population strain

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Receive free Pensions updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Pensions news every morning. Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund — one of the world’s most powerful investors — is overhauling the way it chooses active managers, in a bid to secure the higher returns needed to support a rapidly ageing population. As its sheer size makes it harder to achieve above average performance, the world’s largest pension fund is leaning increasingly on data science to find those managers who can beat the market. “If…