Articles About Asia

Wobbly economies that shook up markets in 2011 took their toll on the world’s rich, though fast-growing Asia for the first time had more millionaires than North America.  According to the report, the global personal wealth of people worth $1 million declined in 2011 for the second time in four years, a side effect of […]

World Bank President Robert Zoellick believes the world will not slide into a double-dip recession. Zoellick was in Singapore, attending an economic conference amid plummeting world stock prices and worries over a slowdown in U.S. economic growth.  Zoellick believes the United States and the world will avoid a “double-dip” recession, but admitted that growth is […]

The popular image of French men and women spending their time in sidewalk cafes sipping aperitifs, smoking Gauloises and watching the world go by belies the fact that the nation’s residents work the least amount of hours in the world, yet are among the most productive. According to a recent UBS survey, people globally work an […]

Sales of luxury goods are doing quite well, according to a recent report from LVMH, the manufacturer of Louis Vuitton bags and accessories and Dom Perignon champagne.  The world’s largest luxury goods purveyor, LVMH reported a 53 percent increase in net profits to €1.1 billion ($1.4 billion) on sales of €6.9 billion in the 1st […]

The best way to survive a recession is to have a strategic plan firmly in place when the inevitable downturn happens.  That’s the opinion of Larry Armstrong, President of Ware Malcomb, an Irvine, CA-based international architectural firm with ongoing projects in the United States, Latin America, Asia and Europe. In a recent interview for the […]

Shipping activity has plunged as much as one-third at U.S. ports most heavily invested in the once red-hot but now declining Asia trade. Freight rates from South China to Europe have slid as much as 42 percent from some ports since November, leading shipping industry authority Drewry Container Freight Rate Insight Report to speculate that […]

Two trends in international trade worth highlighting: American exports are booming, thanks to the dollar’s current weakness.  This considerable increase in volume has made it virtually impossible for U.S. manufacturers to get space on container ships within a four-week window, especially for products shipping from the ports of Los Angeles or Long Beach to any […]