〈China Daily, February 3, 2018〉Global paints and coatings company AkzoNobel said it expects its business growth in the Chinese market to “maintain the current momentum” in the coming years, despite concerns that tightening housing policy could deal a blow to the industry.

China is one of the most important markets for the Netherlands-headquartered company, Lin Liangqi, president of AkzoNobel China, said.

China accounts for approximately 12 percent of its total revenue each year.

“We are benefiting from China’s economic growth. In the last 10 years, we have been growing at double-digit rates,” he said, without giving a specific figure.

Lin acknowledged that the cooling down of China’s real estate market in the wake of tightening government policy could negatively affect the company’s business, but said he believes there is still plenty of space to explore in the country.

The major impact that policy regulation would exert is on the new home market, he said.“But China is such a big country in the repainting sector. Most buildings have not been repainted for more than 10 years … We still see a lot of potential for China in that area,” Lin told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

“We are not worried about the cooling down of real estate. If real estate continues (to develop), we will still benefit from it.”

The Chinese market generated 1.77 billion euros ($2.20 billion) in revenue for it in 2016, down 3.3 percent from 1.83 billion euros a year earlier, according to the company’s annual report.

〈Asia Post, February 3, 2018〉Hong Kong was ranked the world's freest economy yesterday for the 24th straight year by a US conservative think tank, which also downplayed the risk of a US-Sino trade war.

The city scored 90.2 out of 100, just ahead of Singapore on 88.8, in the index of economic freedom compiled by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing policy research institute in Washington.

Hong Kong scored highly in four areas: rule of law, government size, regulatory efficiency, and open markets. A lower incidence of corruption and a drop in business registration fees lifted its overall score by 0.4 this year compared with 2017.

China was 110th, edging up one place, while North Korea was again at the bottom of the list of 180 economies. The US dropped one place to 18th, though its score improved by 0.6 on the back of better financial freedom, such as lower government regulation in financial services.

At a press briefing in Hong Kong yesterday, Edwin Feulner, the foundation's president, addressed concerns about Donald Trump's "America First" approach and said there was no need to worry about a trade war.

The US announced last month that it would impose a 30 per cent tariff on solar panels and washing machines, mostly imports from China. Separately, it indicated that it would further curb Chinese investment in the US and was investigating alleged Chinese theft of intellectual property

〈Asian Post, February 2, 2018〉Election-facing government curtails sales of electricity transmission and distribution resources to overseas buyers on national security grounds

Australia has vowed to impose formal restrictions on foreign investment in its electricity sector - in which bids from the mainland and Hong Kong have previously been rejected on grounds of national interest - ahead of a federal election that could take place as soon as this year.

"All future applications for the sale of electricity transmission and distribution assets, and some generation assets, will attract ownership restrictions or conditions for foreign buyers," Scott Morrison, Australia's treasurer, said yesterday in a joint statement with Peter Dutton, the country's minister for home affairs.

"These conditions codify those already applied, on a case-by-case basis, to previous trans actions," they said, without providing details of the restrictions and conditions.

Most foreign buyers investing in Australian property and other assets are already required to obtain a no-objection notification from the country's Foreign Investment Review Board.

It was upon the board's recommendation that Morrison in August 2016 rejected bids by Hong Kong's Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings and state-owned power distribution titan State Grid Corporation of China for 50.4 per cent of Ausgrid, which supplies electricity to Sydney and neighbouring areas, citing unspecified national interest concerns.

Morrison and Dutton said electricity distribution and transmission infrastructure were "critical national assets" and diversity of ownership in such assets was "a key national security safeguard".

They said a systematic approach would allow Canberra to "actively manage" the level of ownership and control by investors in a single asset, or within a sector.

Factors to be taken into consideration include the cumulative level of ownership within a sector by prospective buyers, the need for ownership diversity and the asset's critical importance.

〈The Standard, February 1, 2018〉The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said yesterday that total loans granted last year by local banks to property developers amounted to HK$150 billion, 28 percent higher than the level in 2016.

Total loans granted last year were 16.1 percent higher than in 2016.The SAR's de facto central bank also said that it has enhanced surveillance of banks' credit risk exposures to major corporations, including companies from the mainland.

In May last year, HKMA introduced the eighth round of countercyclical macro-prudential measures on mortgages and new risk management measures on lending to developers.

HKMA deputy chief executive Arthur Yuen Kwok-hang said the agency currently has no plans to relax its mortgage tightening measures in the city's red hot housing market.

〈The Standard, February 1, 2018〉The Heritage Foundation released today its 2018 Report on the Index of Economic Freedom, rating Macao’s economy as “mostly free” for the tenth consecutive year. The SAR’s overall score of economic freedom is 70.9, higher than 70.7 recorded in 2017 and well above the world and regional averages, making its economy the 34th freest among 180 economies.

In the Asia-Pacific region, Macao is ranked 9th out of 43 economies, just behind Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Chinese Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan.

Based on 12 attributes, the Report assesses the degree of economic freedom of individual economies around the world. Macao receives relatively high score in attributes such as fiscal health, government spending, trade freedom, investment freedom, tax burden, monetary freedom and financial freedom.

The Foundation’s 2018 Report says that as a free port, Macao has long benefited from global trade and investment. Other growth areas include finance, insurance, and real estate. The entrepreneurial environment is generally efficient and streamlined, and property rights are generally respected. Taxation is low and relatively efficient.

〈China Daily, February 1, 2018〉The Centa-City Index, a benchmark on the state of the property market in Hong Kong, was less than 60 in 2009; now it has a score of about 168, having more than doubled in the past eight years. Hong Kong’s property market experienced a correction in 2009 following the widespread 2008 financial meltdown but it recovered quickly; it has been going up since then. Now, the city’s property market is the most expensive in the world. According to the newly released Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, Hong Kong’s median house price/median household income ratio is 19.4. This means a family needs to accumulate all its income for 19.4 years, without any expenditure, to buy a house. The housing price is far beyond the average Hong Kong person’s affordability. Everyone knows this. But what is the driving force behind the skyrocketing housing market? The answer is not so simple.

There are two fundamentally different sets of logic on world economic growth before and after the 2008 financial tsunami. Before the financial tsunami, the world economy followed a traditional economic logic: Enterprises and market power played major roles in the economy; economic expansion was the result of economic operation; asset markets were affected by economic performance mainly, monetary policy and fiscal policy were used to adjust the pace of economy.