China issues draft rules to regulate financial holding companies’ related transactions

SHANGHAI: China’s central bank issued draft rules on Tuesday (Aug 30) to regulate related transactions of financial holding companies. Such transactions must conform to rational commercial principles, be backed by genuine businesses and be priced fairly, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement. In addition, the transactions shouldContinue Reading

What Powell could learn from Rhee

TOKYO – As US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell rocks and roils global markets, he may have an unlikely but pivotal ally in Seoul.

Markets everywhere are still quaking over Powell’s August 26 speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he warned that higher interest rates will cause “some pain” and that the Fed’s tightening cycle may persist “for some time.”

Yet Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong seems less shaken than most. That’s an intriguing crouch given how the Fed’s last big rate-hike campaign in 1994 and 1995 devastated South Korea’s economy, along with those of Indonesia and Thailand.

But Korea’s economy has changed radically since the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis. And more recently, the BOK has accepted inflationary realities and utilized its brake pedal well before the Fed decided to act.

The post What Powell could learn from Rhee appeared first on Asia Times.

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China imposes COVID-19 lockdowns for millions around Beijing

BEIJING:   Millions of people within areas surrounding China’s capital were ordered into lockdown Wednesday (Aug 30), with authorities doubling down on efforts to include COVID-19 ahead of a key ruling Communist Celebration meeting this year. Almost 4 million people in Hebei state, which surrounds Beijing, were ordered to stayContinue Reading