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Economy
November 2008
Early death Zhang Sheng Yu, 39, has become the latest of Chinese listed company CEOs to suffer an early death. The head of the venerable pharmacy chain Tong Reng Tang, listed in Shanghai, died of a sudden heart attack on July 22.
Loan shark days The credit crunch has hit China so badly that some smaller companies and individuals are borrowing money at 600% per month, according to local media.
August 2008
Empty space Demand for prime office space in Japan has shown signs of waning as foreign financial institutions hold back expansion plans in the face of the fallout from the subprime crisis.
Video game winner Almost written off two years ago, Nintendo has captured the top spot in Japan for "Innovation in Responding to Customer Needs" with its Wii in the Wall Street Journal Asia’s latest Asia 200 survey of readers.
July 2008
Japanese annual inflation hit 1.2% in March, the highest in a decade. This helped trigger a huge sell-off in yen bonds in late April after the figures were released.
Investors feared Japan had little immunity from price increases and its central bank might be forced to raise rates, despite a weak economy.
Sticks and stones: Mahathir Mohamad and George Soros
Like a pair of bad tempered boys, Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia, and George Soros, the US billionaire speculator and philanthropist, had been feuding for a decade, using all sorts of platforms including a World Bank meeting for their fight.
November 2008
And to America Tata Consultancy Services will buy Citigroup's India back office unit for US$505 million and expects revenue to start flowing in from the acquisition as soon as the first quarter of next year, says TCS Chief Operating Officer N. Chandrasekaran.
Nomura in, Lehman out Japan's Nomura will buy over the defunct Lehman Brothers' India operations, a move that would expand its workforce in India by 3,000, including 1,200 IT professionals.
August 2008
ArcelorMittal, the biggest steelmaker in the world, has acquired 60% of privately held Dubai Steel Trading Company for an undisclosed sum. Dubai Steel, formed in 1986, has 50 staff and sells mainly to the construction market.
Sun power
Solar Semiconductor Private Ltd, a maker of photovoltaic modules based in Hyderabad, has signed a 10-year agreement to supply Deutsche Solar AG, a subsidiary of SolarWorld AG of Germany, worth US$1.2 billion.
Bra power Triumph, arguably the most famous women underwear brand in the world, will invest Rs 100 crore (US$25 million) to open 100 stores in India in the next two years.
It's a small world, after all
Hong Kong Disneyland is by far the tiniest of the dozen or so Disney theme parks around the world. Both Hong Kong and Disney officials have downplayed the size issue, saying extensions are on the way.
But they failed to tell the Hong Kong people — whose money paid for most of the park — that size is crucial in theme parks. The bigger it is, the easier to make money. Below a certain size, theme parks find it hard to survive.
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