Yu Guangzhou, vice minister of Ministry Of Commerce, says that by 2014 China may become the world's biggest luxury market with about 23% share of the total global revenue.
-From China Media Blog
It will be very interesting to see how this works out, but it seems that all of Asia is finally making a real push toward co-operation with each other. Which is always good.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak proposed Thursday the creation of the first liaison offices in the capitals of the two Koreas, which are technically in a state of war.
He told the Washington Post newspaper in an interview during his visit to the United States that the proposed offices in Seoul and Pyongyang would act as a permanent communication link.
"When I go back, and this is the first time I am publicly making this recommendation and suggestion: we need ... to open a permanent dialogue channel between the two Koreas," the new South Korean leader told the Post.
"In the past, we had dialogue between the two Koreas when there was a need and then if there wasn't a need, the dialogue would close," Lee said ahead of talks with US President George W. Bush on Friday.
"I don't think that is helpful in the situation," he said.
Unlike his two predecessors, conservative Lee has promised a firmer line on North Korea, linking aid to nuclear disarmament in a move that has angered the hardline communist state.
The North has kicked South Korean officials out of a joint industrial complex in the North's border city of Kaesong, test-fired missiles and accused Seoul of breaching the country's sea border.
Pyongyang has also threatened to turn its neighbour into "ashes".
But Lee said the two Koreas were in an "adjustment period" after he took over in February, following 10 years of rule in Seoul by liberal presidents who preached engagement.
"Both North and South Korea must change their ways," Lee said. "It is not sufficient for North Korea to resort to their old ways."
This Article from Counterfeit Chic is really interesting and a good way of showing the foreign perspective of Li-Ning. But it seems to me that they are missing on something that is quite crucial. Not only do Chinese people not consider Li-Ning to be a rip-off of Nike (although they will admit it looks pretty similar if pressed), but more importantly it's huge in China. More people have Li-Ning products than Nike. They may get one Nike product, but have several of Li-Nings. While Li-Ning has some luxury value, it's nothing close to Nike's. So while Li-Ning may want to take the luxury or more expensive approach I would argue that they stick with the way they are going and try to become more similar to Nike or Adidas in America. A top athletic brand, but not a luxury or super exclusive brand. Doing that Li-Ning can keep higher prices but still have the mass consumer base as well as being able to take advantage of being homegrown.In today's New York Times, columnist Joe Nocera notes that China has quickly mastered the intricacies of a market economy and cheap manufacturing, but its new-found enthusiam for brands hasn't yet translated into the ability to create them. The Li-Ning sneaker is the eponymous brainchild of a famous Chinese gymnast, but its modified checkmark logo says "Nike." Its English-language slogan, "Anything is Possible," sounds an awful lot like adidas' "Nothing is Impossible." And while Li-Ning has snagged endorsements from Western sports figures including Shaquille O'Neal, the Shaq figure stamped on some styles apparently bears strong resemblance to the Nike Air Jordan silhouette.
Like other domestic Chinese brands, Li-Ning would like to achieve a bit more respect (translation: higher price points) at home, and a share of the Western market as well. But before Li-Ning secures shelf space in your local Foot Locker, Nocera argues, it will have to learn a bit more about the art of branding. Not to mention trademark law.
Motley Fool has a very good article about the possibility of a new 3G Iphone, and what reason Apple would have of releasing one. They make the point that Apple has no reason to bring an Iphone to either the US or European market as their sells are already decent enough, and even so, would not get much of a boost by changing to 3G. The one market that they would have a benefit is China. As their talks with China before fell through by quite awhile ago and with China Mobile starting an experiment of 25,000 3G phones over 8 cities this next month (I'm not sure of the cities right now, but will try to find out). It seems that Apples best chance of getting the Iphone to China, would be to release it as 3G. Although I think that if they did release a 3G version they would still have to do some other negotiating with China Mobile, as I'm sure they aren't too concerned with having the Iphone, considering that Chinese people can just buy one and jailbreak it.
Sinosure, which is China's export guarantee facility made an offer to Nigerian president, Yar’Adua, when he was in Beijing last month. He came leading a delegation of oil industry and business leaders. The exact details haven't been decided yet, but according to Nigeria's finance minister, Sinosure offered $40bn-$50bn of its facilities to help fund projects in Nigeria, to be spread out over three years. As Nigeria is the largest oil producing nation in Africa, this is a great move by China just from that aspect. But if you look into it deeper, it's an incredibly beneficial move, to both Nigeria and China. Firstly although every nation says they care about Africa, the truth is that the only nation that's doing anything to benefit Africa in any substantial way is China. No matter how much money people donate to special charities it does nothing for the future. Even the doctors that go over occasionally to provide medical treatment, as great of a thing as that is, it doesn't have any lasting effect outside of the ones that are there for a long time (a couple years at least) teaching and training other doctors. The best way to not only benefit a nation, but also to have influence over it, is a way China knows better than any other nation on earth. That way is to trade with it. So not only is China securing energy for it's future, it's firstly securing it's place in a continent that will eventually have much influence in the world once China and India fully make their transition from being manufacturing nations, to super powers and consuming nations. And secondly it now giving itself more influence than any other nation on earth on what's going on in Africa, from human rights, to politics, etc.... Just look at the situation with North Korea. But many people think this doesn't matter because, according to them, China has it's own problem with these, and is doing nothing to fix them. But in actuality China is doing more to solve it's problem than many people even consider, and although they definitely have some major problems still, just looking at how much better they handled the recent situation, even with the western media bashing them should be a good enough example. But the truth is some people will never give China it's fair due, why? Because China doesn't talk about what it's "going" to do, like some other countries. Rather China chooses to not waste it's time talking about what it's fixing and just fix it.
Posts
