China likely to be stronger after crisis

[idlisambar]

China, the world's third-largest economy behind the United States and Japan, had already become more assertive; now it is exploiting its unusual position as a country with piles of cash and a strong banking system, at a time when many countries have neither, to acquire natural resources and make new friends.

....

The country is using its nearly $600 billion economic stimulus package to make its companies better able to compete in markets at home and abroad, to retrain migrant workers on an immense scale and to rapidly expand subsidies for research and development. Construction has already begun on new highways and rail lines that are likely to permanently reduce transportation costs.

....

The international economic slowdown is also doing some things that Chinese authorities had tried and failed to do for four years: slow inflation, reverse what had been an ever-growing dependence on exports and pop a real estate bubble before it could grow even bigger.

The recession in most of the large economies in the world is inflicting real pain here — causing a record plunge in Chinese exports, putting 20 million migrant workers out of their jobs and raising the potential for increased and sustained social unrest. But as President Hu Jintao told the National People's Congress last week, "Challenge and opportunity always come together — under certain conditions, one could be transformed into the other."

To that end, Chinese companies are shopping for foreign businesses to acquire. The commerce ministry is leading a delegation of corporate executives to Europe this week for the ministry's first mergers and acquisitions trip; the executives are looking at companies in the automotive, textiles, food, energy, machinery, electronics and environmental protection sectors.


http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/16/business/compete16.php


SHANGHAI -- Chinese companies have been on a shopping spree in the past month, snapping up tens of billions of dollars' worth of key assets in Iran, Brazil, Russia, Venezuela, Australia and France in a global fire sale set off by the financial crisis.

The deals have allowed China to lock up supplies of oil, minerals, metals and other strategic natural resources it needs to continue to fuel its growth. The sheer scope of the agreements marks a shift in global finance, roiling energy markets and feeding worries about the future availability and prices of those commodities in other countries that compete for them, including the United States.

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China's state-run media outlets are calling the acquisition spree an opportunity that comes once in a hundred years, and analysts are drawing parallels to 1980s Japan.

"That China started investing or acquiring some overseas mineral resources companies with relatively low prices during the global economic crisis is quite a normal practice. Japan did the same thing in its prime development period, too," said Xu Xiangchun, consulting director for Mysteel.com, a market research and analysis firm.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/16/AR2009031603293.html?wprss=rss_world

[tom_paine]

1. China's BushPutinist State is the only thing holding the Global Ponzi Scheme together now

They're the only ones that actually make things anymore.