Indonesia’s middle class (more than US$ 3000 available income per year) is rapidly expanding. Only 1.6 million people in 2004, it is now about 50 million people and according to analysts it will be close to 150 million in 2014. And they put their income to good use. Indonesians bought 8 million scooters and 750’000…
Tag Archive: China
China – Power Stations Reduce Output
China’s generally very effective development machine faces new challenges. With inflation on the rise and heavily relying on export oriented low cost and energy intensive industries, China’s bureaucracy scrambles to keep electricity costs down. One might consider this to be an easy task. After all, utilities are state controlled and basically have to follow orders….
Patents – Chinese Mass-Production
Patents are commonly perceived as indicators of a country’s innovation and creativity – maybe not for long anymore. This year, China will probably file more patents than any other country. This achievement however is more due to massive state incentives than due to raising creativity and research success. Filing above-average numbers of patents wins tenure…
Coal – China Burns the Coal That we Save
It is now generally acknowledged that coal-fired power plants emits huge amounts of the greenhouse gas CO2 and menace the world climate more than other sources of energy. As a consequence developed countries are trying to switch to other more sustainable power sources. Unfortunately the saved coal is still being mined and then shipped to…
Living standard – Taiwan moves past Japan
Since the golden 60′s, 70′s and 80′, Japan is stagnating. The population is rapidly shrinking, the economy, despite huge state interventions, is sluggish, prices are decreasing and consumers postponing purchases. In 2010, Japan – contrary to the expectation only 20 years before, to taking over number one from the US – was overtaken by China…
Development Aid – China One of the Biggest Recipient of Health Funding
China, now the second-biggest economy and disposing staggering 2.4 trillion US$ of currency reserves is one of the major recipients of development aid money aimed at improve health conditions and infrastructures in poor developing countries. More precisely, it is the fourth-biggest receiver of money for combating malaria and tuberculosis even though it is much less…
