Commentary: Global brands need to change the way they court Chinese consumers

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OVERWARDS FOR CHINESE Teenagers AND GEN Z

The next tactics can be used by companies to pique the interest and independence of fresh Chinese consumers.

Second, companies can tailor their items to match the local culture. KFC, one of the earliest fast-food bars to provide China, exemplifies successful localised marketing. It has consistently expanded its menu to include dishes that go beyond fried chicken and reflect local culinary traditions.

For instance, KFC introduced things like the Old Beijing Chicken Roll, a smile to Beijing’s popular roast goose, and local variants such as Seafood Egg Porridge in Shanghai. This method is successful because Gen Z and millennials are the most common fast-food restaurants, according to our most recent cross-generation consumer review.

Next, high-quality products that deliver on their promises are non-negotiable. Apple’s unwavering acceptance with Chinese customers may be attributed to its commitment to quality. Its materials, perceived as status symbols, coincide with the needs of millennials and Gen Z for advanced, reliable systems.

Second, companies had utilise online platforms for advertising. Alaba and JD. web have mastered modern engagement, incorporating social media into marketing campaigns, and utilizing big data to customize customer tips.

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Commentary: From Temu to TikTok Shop, are Chinese e-commerce players winning over the West?

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Taiwanese E-COMMERCE FIRMS HAVE WANTED TO BUY THOSE ARTILES.

Cross-border e-commerce from China to the West is no new because China has the largest manufacturing base for consumer products worldwide.

Chinese businesses started leveraging cheap shipping and online credit card payments to sell products to East Asian customers in the late 2000s, such as SHEIN, Light InTheBox, and Globalegrow.

The factors were simple: Great margins, easy to send, and selling for ads on Google was low. Eventually, these players morphed into large, separate online retailers or marketplaces.

Some other Chinese sellers made use of American marketplaces like eBay and Amazon Global to market their goods. Alibaba, the world’s leader in e-commerce, even launched its international system AliExpress in 2010.

According to investors, 40 to 50 % of Amazon’s US$ 430 million third-party profits in 2022 were made by Taiwanese companies, either through their listed companies or US stores.

Foreign buyers have been tapped by global, regional, and country platforms to expand the range of products with affordable prices. Amazon, auction, Shopee, Wish, Uruguay- based MercadoLibre and Poland’s Allegro run big owner training and wedding groups in China.

Nevertheless, many of these Chinese e- business companies have struggled recently. Light InTheBox’s promote rate dropped more than 90 per cent since its IPO, and Globalegrow shut down in 2021 and was declared bankrupt by jury in 2023.

On the other hand, the group of innovative players TikTok Shop and Temu, as well as revamped SHEIN, have been surging back, disrupting the global electronic- business purchase. What’s unique about them?

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Commentary: China’s homegrown COMAC jet has its eye on Southeast Asia after Singapore debut

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Other incentives, including export credits (typically up to 85 per cent of a jet’s purchase price), may be extended to airlines willing to punt on the C919. Support in terms of maintenance, repair and overhaul, the construction of hangars and crew training are also included in the package.

That said, the C919 will still a hard sell outside of China’s domestic market. Air travellers may be wary of the “Made in China” label and COMAC has no track record to boost confidence, as a new and relatively unknown player.

Others say its weight – several tonnes heavier than the Airbus A320 and thus, less fuel-efficient – and limited range (5,500km vs about 6,500km for the A320 and Boeing 737 Max) make the C919 unattractive.

Christian Scherer, Airbus’ top salesman, told journalists after watching the C919 fly in Singapore that it “is not going to rock the boat”.

NOT IN THE GAME FOR MONEY, FOR NOW

But COMAC is not in the game to make money, at least not for now.

Its strategy is simple: Scale up at home, continue refining its planes, develop its own engines and exploit gaps in the market, at a time when Boeing is reeling from self-inflicted wounds.

While the US remains the world’s largest domestic aviation market, China is a close second and is projected to top the global market for aviation services by 2042, according to Airbus.

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Commentary: Young and jobless in Malaysia

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Malaysia: Malaysia’s economy is recovering, visitors are coming back, and business is flourishing. The poverty rate has risen to levels pre-pandemic rates, local demand is higher, and economic activity is normalizing. Stuff appear hopeful at first glance. However, the optimistic information coming out of Malaysia conceals a looming issue: youth unemployment.

The Department of Statistics Malaysia released its labor review just before the Chinese New Year, which showed that the unemployment rate remained constant at 3.3 % in the last fortnight of 2023, with higher jobs across all industries.

But, a unique story was told by the youth unemployment statistics. 307, 200 young Malaysians between the ages of 15 and 24 were homeless as of December last year, which is a 10.6 % unemployment rate. In addition, the poverty level for those in the wider 15 to 30 years range was 6.4 %, making up 432, 100 students.

According to statistics, these youths make up about 76 % of the 567, 800 people who are unemployed in Malaysia. This year, another 5 to 6 million individuals are expected to student, compounding the problem. Job paintings in 2023 slowed at the same time, making things even more difficult for young people trying to enter the workplace.

Youth unemployment’s cultural, economic, and political repercussions never be underestimated. The root causes of the problems and flaws are deep within the system itself, necessitating structural change to bring about long-lasting change, not just a continuous issue.

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Commentary: Hong Kong’s Messi backlash says more about digital fandom than football

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Key to this is where end-of-career Messi has wound up. Inter Miami football club, which is co-owned by David Beckham, was founded in 2018 and began playing in America’s Major League Soccer two years later as a flamingo pink baby of the TikTok/Instagram Reels/YouTube Shorts epoch.

It gets that live audiences will pay to watch Messi not just for his football, but for his Instagrammable presence. It also gets that his astonishing goalscoring prowess in a weaker league will create the sort of “Messi scores three times in five minutes” incidents which social media hungrily regurgitates.

Football, as a sport, has been adapting with varying degrees of success and urgency to the pressures and incentives created by these new delivery channels: Inter Miami is a pure confection of them and Messi, in theory, the ultimate sweetener.

HEROICS OF INDIVIDUAL FOOTBALL STARS

The issue that football (along with other sports) confronts is one of ever more aggressive fragmentation of diversion. The short video form, and the algorithms that push them with such addictive force, is arguably evolving faster than any other form of entertainment in history.

It is a turbocharged thief of time. Its power to distract and absorb is infinite: Not only is the format a perfect medium for delivering the new content that thousands of people delight in producing; it is also able to repackage existing content (snippets from films, TV, games, sport) in a way that can make something you’ve seen several times seem new.

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Commentary: Can Indonesia afford presidential candidates’ election promises?

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ECONOMY IN MEDIUM TO LONG TERM

As it stands, the candidates are optimistic that their policies will boost economic growth.

The annual GDP growth of 5.5 per cent to 6.5 per cent as targeted by Mr Anies for the 2025 to 2029 period is considered more realistic than the 6 per cent to 7 per cent target of Mr Prabowo and the 7.5 per cent to 8 per cent target of Mr Ganjar.

With historical precedence, a more realistic growth potential for Indonesia – based on its performance in the last decade – should be somewhere between 5.5 per cent and 6.0 per cent, especially since momentum seems to have stagnated after growing 6 per cent in 2012.

Global economic uncertainty, sluggish consumption and the low manufacturing capacity are some of the reasons why a higher growth target is difficult to achieve. These all call for a strategic structural transformation in the areas of improving overall productivity, revamping investment incentives, and prioritising fiscal expenditure in sectors that can bring about higher fiscal multipliers to the overall economy.

Nonetheless, it goes without saying that whoever is elected the new leader would want to see a progressive Indonesia with a stable and stronger economy.

The country’s long-term prospects are brighter than ever, with its young, digitally savvy population, abundance of natural resources, growing consumer spending and strategic location at the heart of Southeast Asia.

Indonesia gets to choose from three suitors on Valentine’s Day. We are confident that it will be a happy marriage, whomever she chooses.

Enrico Tanuwidjaja is ASEAN economist at UOB. His coverage focuses on Indonesia and Thailand.

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Commentary: One of aviation’s biggest challenges played out on a Tokyo runway

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If the coast guard plane touched down on the tarmac, that would be an instance of a runway invasion, which is risky but fairly popular. &nbsp,

Most of the time, it goes unnoticed and is referred to as an aircraft incident—an event that occurred without having an impact. However, occasionally they lead to accidents, in&nbsp, with a motion or injury. It is difficult to track the scope of the problem worldwide because accidents are reported to authorities and the nbsp while incidents does not. &nbsp,

QUIET CALLS

According to data from the International Civil Aviation Organization of the United Nations, runway safety accounts for nearly 60 % of all accidents, far outpacing loss of control in flight, which occurred in about 30 % of cases ( an event can have multiple causes ).

The fact that airport attacks have remained stable andnbsp over the past ten years at a rate of only under five per day in the United States rather than declining in line with increased overall aviation security is of the utmost concern.

In the roughly 16, 000 airport attacks that the Federal Aviation Administration has documented over the past ten years, 63 % of them were caused by pilot deviation, or when the pilot violated federal aviation regulations by crossing a runway without permission. Control and actions by air traffic and nbsp were the second-biggest factor, accounting for 18 %. &nbsp,

The National Transportation Safety Board’s Chair, Jennifer Homendy, stated at a convention on airport security in May that” the most dangerous attacks, the closest names, appear to be on the rise.” She remembered one new incident from February of last year among others. When a passenger aircraft with 131 people on board and nbsp, in its path on the ground away, the pilot of the cargo plane saw it abort its landing in Austin, Texas. The two planes approached each other by 35 meters.

That close call is oddly comparable to what occurred in Tokyo.

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Commentary: Hong Kong’s economy struggles to get back on its feet

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HONG KONG: Following COVID-19 at the start of 2023, Hong Kong was one of the last states in the world to resume. The ensuing financial treatment was softer and short-lived than anticipated. The city may not regain its pre-pandemic luster due to a combination of fundamental and cyclical factors, such as geopolitical unrest and global monetary policy.

Hong Kong’s personal use increased throughout the year, but imports and exports remained subpar. Tourism and investment investments have also been underwhelming. Visitor visitors were only 65 % of their 2018 level nine months after the opening. The commodity markets in Hong Kong are in similar challenging situations.

Personal property prices briefly increased at the start of the year but quickly lost momentum and fell in the second half, falling by about 5 % from year to date. Even as the S&amp, P 500 in the United States increased by about 25 % the same year, the Hang Seng Index fell by more than 15 % in 2023 and appears to be decoupled from the global market.

In the first quarter of 2023, Hong Kong stocks reached a four-year small with an average business of just US$ 14 billion. Problems that Hong Kong has lost its luster as an global economic center were raised when money raised from initial public offerings cratered to a 20-year low during the same time period.

In light of this, the government reduced its most recent quarterly GDP forecast from over 4.5 percent to just 3.2 %.

STRUCTURAL AND CYCLICAL FACTORS

Both seasonal and structural factors contributed to Hong Kong’s underwhelming post-pandemic economic performance. On the continuous side, rising regional interest rates as a result of US Federal Reserve rate increases made real estate an undesirable investment. Due to Hong Kong’s robust local currency, locals prefer to shop abroad while visitors find the city to be expensive.

Hong Kong is a victim of political tensions between the United States and China on the fundamental front. Trade relations between the two markets have decreased as a result of trade restrictions and tech restrictions, and more goods are now being rerouted around Hong Kong through next nations like Vietnam and Mexico.

Geopolitical unrest might have wider effects than just business. As a gate to and from island China, Hong Kong enjoyed long-term success. Hong Kong’s reputation as an East-meets-West hub has been fueled by financial services, buying and logistics, hospitality, and specialized services. Any departure from this agreement could pose a city-wide existential threat.

The significant wage and price difference between Hong Kong and the nearby city of Shenzhen is a significant structural component. For a fraction of the cost, Hong Kong residents can then access roughly comparable service nearby.

Residents of Hong Kong will continue to benefit from cheaper services and goods near as their economy more tightly integrates with the area, despite government initiatives to revitalize local businesses like the Night Vibes Hawaii campaign.

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Commentary: AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes’ topless massage during meeting is not ‘open’ workplace culture

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Perhaps, Mr Fernandes’ behaviour could be justified as part of a relaxed, easy-going and informal workplace culture – where staff do not bat an eye at the big boss showing some skin and adeptly multi-tasking. A spokesperson from AirAsia later defended this incident, speaking to the “fun, friendly and open culture” of the airline company.

But, commenters on the now-deleted LinkedIn post were quick to point out it is unlikely other AirAsia employees could get away with the same behaviour in a professional meeting.

Rather than culture, it is probably Mr Fernandes’ position of status and authority that allowed him to behave this way. How many employees would voice their objection or discomfort?

PERSONAL BRAND AFFECTS CORPORATE REPUTATION

Moreover, Tony Fernandes has cultivated a public persona characterised by his unorthodox approach to business and willingness to take risks. Indeed, some netizens have come to his defence, citing his unconventional leadership style and his right to make choices that align with his personal brand.

But what’s the cost of aligning personal branding with actions that challenge traditional norms? It becomes a delicate balance between individuality and the image of the company.

While individuality and personal branding are essential, boundaries should be respected. The behaviour of CEOs is not merely personal but an integral facet of a company’s branding and reputation.

Personal conduct can be a form of reputational risk. Bernard Looney, CEO of BP, resigned in September for failing to fully disclose previous relationships with colleagues. The energy company said leaders are “expected to act as role models and to exercise good judgment”.

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Commentary: Deflation is the last thing China’s recovery needs

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CHEAPER STUFF ISN’T A BLESSING

Given the surge in inflation in most major economies last year, you might think cheaper stuff is a blessing for China – or any country. Not really. A protracted fall in prices tends to create the expectation that, if companies or consumers wait a bit longer to make a major purchase, then things will be even less expensive.

Businesses relentlessly seek ways to cut their own costs, including investment and, in time, wages and jobs. In a widely cited 2002 speech, Ben Bernanke, then a Fed governor, left no doubt about its corrosiveness. “Sustained deflation can be highly destructive to a modern economy and should be strongly resisted,” he warned.

Interest rates can be cut. The PBOC has been lowering them for a while, though it’s been reluctant to make deep reductions. Bloomberg Economics projects a trim of 10 basis points in the main rate next week.

There’s a huge role for fiscal policy, too, and Beijing appears to be on board. Last month, the legislature green-lighted the deficit exceeding the traditional limit of 3 per cent of GDP. There’s now a greater sense of urgency.

The dour statistics remind us how far China has to go before its economy can hum again – at a pace of growth more like that of other major powers, not the exceptional beast of yesteryear. Given the traumas in global policymaking in the past few years, it’s easy to forget that in 2017 Janet Yellen, then Fed chair, almost sounded wistful about perky inflation.

Its quiescence in the midst of a long expansion was dubbed a “mystery” by Yellen, who is now Treasury secretary. China can probably relate. Such is the tyranny of being a grown-up economy, complete with ups and downs.

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