China’s equivalent of the Nasdaq stock exchange is failing to attract some of the country’s most innovative companies. ChiNext was supposed to anchor local high-tech businesses on home soil with a secure source of funding, but foreign investors have proven to be stuck in their ways. It has been...

Australia’s future prosperity depends on how well it marries structural change in the economy to new opportunities emerging in Asia, especially China. At a time of deep shifts in the Australian economy, the challenge is to find new sources of growth and investment beyond mining. The Hon Andrew Robb...

Old MacDonald sold the farm: so what’s the future for agriculture? When most Australians think about farmers, one image still springs to mind: a family in Akubras and Blundstones, battling the elements with a Blue Heeler by their side. That’s still the image invoked by politicians when calling for...

The China Banking Regulatory Commission’s recent announcement that it would allow the creation of three to five private banks in 2014 is a positive yet cautious step toward financial reform. It is positive because the majority of loans under the almost entirely state-backed banking system continue to fund state-owned...

The liturgy in the West is that so long as China becomes a responsible stakeholder in the international economic system — conforming to the western created rules and norms — its accommodation into the global economy is guaranteed. The same liturgy used to be cited when Japan was on...

Real estate advisory arm of Korda Mentha have  revealed that the Australian Government’s Significant Investment Visa scheme is booming, with the number of approved visas growing exponentially in the second half of 2013. The visa requires, a “significant investor” to commit at least $5 million worth of investment into...

Those of us in China recognise that outbound China FDI is about Food Safety more than it is about Food Security or Food Sovereignty – which are domestic issues. State Owned Enterprises and their corporate offshoots will invest outside of their core industries but there is a barrier  to...

There’s a lot at stake as our property experts gaze into their crystal balls and make some predictions for the coming year.Terry Ryder, property commentator and founder of hotspotting.com.au, believes the 2014 housing market will show “a little bit more sanity” than this year. “Sydney and Melbourne are experiencing an auction...

As markets commence the new year in a sense of panic on the back of an uncertain outlook for China’s economy, I am brought back to a bookshop discovery I made in 2001 and the pending doom and gloom which loomed as I completed Gordon G. Chang’s The Coming Collapse...

KPMG report on megatrends in global urbanisation How can government plan for infrastructure better so that it is timely, effective and sustainable? What is government doing to get rid of poverty in my city? view full infographic Almost two-thirds of the world’s population will reside in cities by 2030.1 Urbanization is...