The Swiss are training the first generation of Mandarin-speaking ski instructors, part of a campaign to lure newly rich from China to come play in the snow — with help from Bollywood.
Category: Economy
SIALKOT — Mohammad Idrees walks slowly, with the help of his crutches, to the factory where he works in Sialkot, Pakistan. The 35-year-old has been stitching soccer balls here for more than 17 years, earning $3 a day to support his wife and six children. “I don’t have any other skills to earn a living, so I would have ended up roaming around the city or begging on the street if it wasn’t for the football factory in our village,” Idrees says as he sits on a low chair with some 30 other workers inside the factory. “I work for […]
JERUSALEM — Three hundred kilometers by high-speed rail between the cities of Eilat and Ashdod, connecting the Red Sea coast to the Mediterranean: They call it the “Red-Med” Project. Financed by Beijing and launched from Jerusalem, China has revealed its strategy for “West Asia” — the term that the China Shipping Container Lines company uses […]
Demographically and economically, Africa is well poised for success. But it needs to find new forms of growth and governance – and an end to bloody conflict – to realize its potential.
BEIJING — Chen Dongsheng has amassed a fortune with attention to both the mundane of insurance and the glamour of fine art. He is the founder of three completely divergent enterprises — China Guardian Auctions, the first Chinese auction company to specialize in the sale of Chinese artwork; Kangtai Life, one of China’s largest life […]
NEW YORK — There is no German-style “works council” for employees at Volkswagen USA. Then, last week, 1,500 workers of the Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly Plant, in Tennessee, voted by secret ballot against being represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW). Without membership of that union, setting up a works council is not possible under American […]
BEIJING — Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, calmly states that he has set a goal of $99 billion (600 billion RMB) in revenue by 2020 for his real estate development company. Just as calmly, he then adds that he’ll retire that year to write his memoirs. In mid-December, in front of dozens of […]
False visions of political concepts thrive in Argentina, where dictatorships past and spin doctors present employ their own forms of double speak.
SOCHI – For those around the world watching the Olympic Games on television, the location of the event is not, in the end, what matters. The important thing is who is skating faster, spinning better and winning golds and silvers. And then, before we know it, they ski away – in just a couple of […]
The capital’s unique harbor has driven Cuba’s economy for centuries. But with Brazil’s help, the building of a new commerical port of Mariel marks a turning point in the island’s history.
HANGZHOU — It’s well known that nobody in Wahaha, China’s biggest beverage empire, dares challenge the word of Zong Qinghou. But the cult of personality surrounding the group’s founder, dubbed the “beverage king,” goes much further: There are reports of how employees at a Wahaha dealers’ meeting shout Viva Wahaha! Viva Zong Qinghou!, and the […]
With French unemployment at record levels, times are tough for clients and workers of an unemployment agency in one of Marseille’s poorest, most crime-ridden areas.
Though chances still remain low, Israel wants to be prepared as threats grow of a major global boycott of its goods, like what happened in South Africa in the 1980s.
Its early adopters swear by the SF-based car-service app. But as Uber expands internationally, local cabbies in Milan and Paris are fighting back. Will rickshaw drivers in Bangalore be next?
Looking at the heirs of Latin America’s major business families, it is the best and worst of times – but it’s just about time for them to take charge.
The new freedom of the Asian nation, also known as Myanmar, has drawn global investors in a race to profit from new development. But Burmese workers and farmers suffer the side-effects.
The 45-year-old founder of Baidu, dubbed the “Google of China,” says technology offers great opportunity for success – but also means failure can arrive at any moment.
BEIJING — It was 30 years ago at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics that a 20-year-old Chinese gymnast named Li Ning captured three gold medals, two silvers and one bronze with an array of never-before-seen flips and twists that he had invented himself. Li, now 50, became China’s most decorated athlete and won the […]
President Obama used his State of the Union address to declare his determination to raise the U.S. minimum wage above 10 dollars. Wage policy in the rest of the world may surprise you.
How did the Argentine economy arrive at a point of complete exhaustion, asks Brazil’s leading daily. Here’s a checklist of the errors made over the past decade.
Beijing is making infrastructure investments in and around Minsk that no one else is prepared to make. It may be a gateway to business in both Europe, and Russia.
TOKYO — The mackerel comes from Iceland, the salmon from Norway or Chile, and the king crab is from Russia. Less than half of the 2,000 tons of fish and seafood that passes through Tsukiji Market is caught in Japanese nets. The world’s largest fish market is a bustling trading center, with its early-morning auctions […]
A new study says some 90 percent of investments by China’s businesses in American operations don’t succeed. Chinese experts explain.
Categories
UK’s Risk Of Double-Dip Secession
It’s not recession, but secession that’s worrying many: Scotland will vote on independence from the UK, while Britain’s own potential exit from the EU could stunt an economic rebound.
BEIJING — Last week Maison Boulud Beijing, a French restaurant owned by the three-Michelin-star chef Daniel Boulud, shut down. Just before closing its doors for good, the restaurant suddenly became busy. Eating the foie gras, a Belgian expatriate couldn’t help but sigh: “It’s one less place to dine out and experience French haute cuisine.” Maison […]
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Single-Malt Whiskey From The Dead Sea?
Israeli businessmen are raising money and looking for a Tel Aviv location for what would be the Israel’s first whiskey distillery.
BEIJING — Winter has come to the capital, and Wang Jie (a pseudonym) feels particularly cold. The multinational communication equipment company where he’s worked for 20 years has just announced widespread layoffs in the marketing, sales and service departments. Wang’s name was on the list. When he joined the firm in 1994, he was part […]
As the Brazil’s “commodities supercycle” grinds to a halt, Dilma Rousseff’s economic policy has failed to find a new path. Is World Cup excitement enough to avoid a national bust?
The modern consumer is bombarded by advertising that exploits our “addiction” to visual stimuli. But after the holiday rush, can we still become discerning buyers?
Latvia becomes the 18th member of the European single currency zone, adopting the euro just as the small Baltic nation starts to enjoy economic growth. Will Latvians come to regret it?
BEIJING — That the profitability of a single U.S.-to-China airline route is equivalent to that of three domestic routes and seven times that of transatlantic flights is an open secret within the airline industry. And until recently, U.S. airlines executives could more or less count on this lucrative segment of the business. But for the […]
BAKU — Amid the crashing and banging of dumpster trucks loaded with ballast, Fazil Gazi is a prime witness to one of the most famous oil hills in the world as it enters a new era. In all the books dedicated to the black gold of the Caspian sea, this maze of small streets with […]
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The Risks Of China’s GDP Obsession
BEIJING — Last month, Chinese leader Xi Jinping gave a speech and released a document to local authorities reaffirming a key new reform message: From now on, “officials should no longer blindly compare only their GDP when it comes to performance and success.” Xi added that “the problem of “GDP-based promotions’ shall be rectified.” His […]
BEIJING — Both the definition of “Free-Trade Zone” and the “Pacific” should be called into question as the U.S. and Japan try to seal a deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by the end of the year. As an ambitious multilateral trade cooperation mechanism outside the World Trade Organization (WTO), the TPP would not currently […]
It’s been on the way out in certain sartorially laid-back countries. Now the eternally elegant Italians may be ready to kill the *cravatta* too.
Concerns grow in Beijing, especially as the American boom in shale-gas production is helping the U.S. move toward energy independence.
The roots of the Gross Domestic Product measurement of economic health are in World War II. Even in 1968, RFK had doubts, and now criticism is growing about GDP’s real value.
Chinese business owners should know that low prices alone are not a recipe for longterm export success, says a renowned German industrial design expert.
Thanks to crunching masses of employee data, the field of HR and corporate personnel management will never be the same.
-Op-Ed- MEXICO CITY — I am no energy specialist, but after reading and listening to experts in recent months, I have learned about the fundamental requirements that should drive any major energy-sector reform. Can smart energy policy become the most powerful platform for Mexico’s economic growth? Ramón Espinosa, an analyst at the Inter-American Development Bank […]