Another round of news from here

1) Last year, do you know how much the central gov't spent on out-of-country training for officials? Apparently an astronomical number of RMB 900 billion. I cannot phantom this number. Wonder what they trained on. And how much foreign reserve actually is left and how much money there are to spend on the internal infrastructure projects.

*Note: When Chinese refers in "billion", the translation is: 1 "billion" is 100 million in unit of measure in the West.


2) Apparently 20% of the expats in my city has been sent back to their motherlands. US car manufacturers were the brunt of this.

3) The HK gov't has an official figure, 300 people, that are sleeping on the street. Wonder how it counts. According to the charity group, this number is only the tip of the iceberg. I can believe it.

4) Followed the Lehman Brothers mini-bonds effect, now the stock market downturn, the HK teacher's pension investment has been hammered again. First, it lost HK$130million, now another HK$120million. Good thing though, the HK gov't will provide interest free loan to the fund if it cannot support the guaranteed 5% interest payment to retired teachers. The big problem is the bank stocks being hammered, in particular HSBC stock price. It has gone from HK100+ to now HK60 or so due to the downgrade from a big name under the water US-based asking for Fed handouts bank's analyst.

5) HK people are getting less educated and less brain. One example: there is currently a forest fire at a frequently visited hiking trail. Fire department and the gov't have issued warning telling people to avoid the affected area. But there were still over 100 people refused to listen. They went. One soon to be married couple said, they will hike the opposite direction of the fire. Right. And other said, the weather is so nice, they shall not miss the opportunity. Right. All I can say, dumb asses. And if they were gotten trapped by the sudden shift, they expect the fire department to rescue them for free. Maybe, should do what some US cities are doing. Charge the dumb assess after rescue.

6) The HK restaurant association is worry that business post-Chinese New Year will see an expected total revenue drop of 15-20%; that translate to about HK$3.0 billion. Restaurants may close. This association has about 500 members. From CNY day onward for 3 days, the members are giving out HK$100 million worth of gift certificates to consumers.

7) Last year, Macau's tourism industry topped over HK for the first time. There were 30 millions visits. Hong Kong Chief secretary said he is not worry as tourism is only 3% of Hong Kong's GDP. It shows too when you have to wait in line at the HK international aiport immigration desk for over 45 minutes to get in. Worst than China welcoming tourists. On average, Shanghai immigration wants to process tourists at less than 30 seconds per passport.

8) Wow, this is huge. The People's congress conference is still going on in Shanghai; in a speech rebutting one of the Shanghai delegates (who happens to be a major real estate developers here), the party secretary basically said: "Shanghai's residential pricing should not continue to rise". He said 5-year experience in the workforce gets pay between RMB4,000 to RMB5,000. In seven years, there is No way these people can afford an apartment. So the policy is set... Expect prices to drop... Maybe.

9) Guandong province's labour department has cancel all administrative fees for local companies; this is to avoid burdens to them. The policy is one of many approaches to stimulate the economy.

More to come... that's it for now....