Tag Archives: green
Emerging Market Rout Threatens Wider Global Economy
The $9 trillion (£5.8 trillion) accumulation of foreign bonds by the rising powers of Asia, Latin America and the emerging world risks going into reverse as one country after another is forced to liquidate holdings to shore up its currency, threatening to inflict a credit shock on the global economy. Fears of Fed tightening have pushed borrowing costs worldwide to levels that could threaten global recovery Photo: AFP By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 8:38PM BST 22 Aug 2013 India’s rupee and Turkey’s lira both crashed to record lows on Thursday following the US Federal Reserve releasing minutes which signalled a wind-down of quantitative easing as soon as next month. Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president, held an emergency meeting on Thursday with her top economic officials to halt the real’s slide after it hit a five-year low against the dollar. The central bank chief, Alexandre Tombini, cancelled his trip to the Fed’s Jackson Hole conclave in order “to monitor market activity” amid reports Brazil is preparing direct intervention to stem capital flight. The country has so far relied on futures contracts to defend the real – disguising the erosion of Brazil’s $374bn reserves – but this has failed to deter speculators. “They are moving currency intervention off balance sheet, but the net position is deteriorating all the time,” said Danske Bank’s Lars Christensen. A string of countries have been burning foreign reserves to defend exchange rates, with holdings down 8pc in Ecuador, 6pc in Kazakhstan and Kuwait, and 5.5pc in Indonesia in July alone. Turkey’s reserves have dropped 15pc this year. “Emerging markets are in the eye of the storm,” said Stephen Jen at SLJ Macro Partners. “Their currencies are in grave danger. These things always overshoot.” It was Fed tightening and a rising dollar that set off Latin America’s crisis in the early 1980s and East Asia’s crisis in the mid-1990s. Both episodes were contained, though not easily. Emerging markets have stronger shock absorbers today and largely borrow in their own currencies, making them less vulnerable to a dollar squeeze. However, they now make up half the world economy and are big enough to set off a crisis in the West. Fears of Fed tightening have pushed borrowing costs worldwide to levels that could threaten global recovery. Yields on 10-year bonds jumped 47 basis points to 12.29pc in Brazil on Thursday, 33 points to 9.72pc in Turkey, and 12 points to 8.4pc in South Africa. There had been hopes that the Fed might delay its tapering of bond purchases, chastened by the jump in long-term rates in the US itself. Ten-year US yields – the world’s benchmark price of money – have soared from 1.6pc to 2.9pc since early May. Hans Redeker from Morgan Stanley said a “negative feedback loop” is taking hold as emerging markets are forced to impose austerity and sell reserves to shore up their currencies, the exact opposite of what happened over the past decade as they built up a vast war chest of US and European bonds. The effect of the reserve build-up by China and others was to compress global bond yields, leading to property bubbles and equity booms in the West. The reversal of this process could be painful. “China sold $20bn of US Treasuries in June and others are doing the same thing. We think this is driving up US yields, and German yields are rising even faster,” said Mr Redeker. “This has major implications for the world. The US may be strong to enough to withstand higher rates, but we are not sure about Europe. Our worry is that a sell-off in reserves may push rates to levels that are unjustified for the global economy as a whole, if it has not happened already.” Sovereign bond strategist Nicolas Spiro said India is “caught between the Scylla of faltering growth and the Charybdis of currency depreciation” as hostile markets start to pick off any country with a large current account deficit. He said India’s central bank is playing with fire by reversing its tightening measures to fend off recession. It has instead set off a full-blown currency crisis that is crippling for companies with dollar debts. India is not alone. A string of countries across the world are grappling with variants of the same problem, forced to pick their poison. Continue reading
The Top Tax Havens
Tina Samuels shares the top tax havens across the globe 5 AUG 2013 By: Tina Samuels A tax haven is a location that offers taxes breaks or lower taxes in that area. It can either be a state, territory or country, with most being offshore locations, but a few in the United States as well. There are many benefits to putting your money in a bank located in a tax haven, which investors and corporations have done repeatedly. In the past, they were somewhat of a mystery, where corporations wanted to keep it unknown so the government wouldn’t be aware of it. However in recent years, the exact locations of tax havens, like the Cayman Islands, Nevada and Monaco, have been very well known. There are even major corporations in tax havens, such as Apple, Microsoft, Bank of America, Cisco and many more. OECD Rules for Tax Havens The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is in charge of defining tax havens. They base their distinctions on three main factors: the amount of taxes, protecting financial information and not having transparency. The Amount of Taxes This factor is for countries or states that either don’t have taxes or very minimal taxes, also known as nominal taxes. It often includes lack of personal income, gift, inheritance or capital gains taxes. Protecting Financial Information The location must also offer protection of the investor’s personal financial information, to be identified as a tax haven. They will have some sort of practice or law that keeps their financial information safe, not be shared with outside governments or authorities . No Transparency The final factor for tax havens is to have a lack of transparency. This is transparency in legal, administrative or legislative provisions. The OECD wants to be sure the nation has laws that are applied consistently for everyone and that foreign tax authorities have no say in the matter. Here is a list of the top 10 tax havens in the world, according to Daily Intel. Each of them has their own benefits and drawbacks. Switzerland Switzerland is one of the most well known tax havens in the world, known as a “neutral” country. But since they are known for their tax haven status, they are also a bigger target. Austria Although Austria signed an agreement in 2009 to get removed from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s list resulting in sharing banking information, they still have a place on the list. Austria doesn’t have inheritance tax, and they provide tax breaks for citizens. Singapore Singapore is rising quickly in popularity as a tax haven, even drawing the attention of co-founder of Facebook, Eduardo Saverin. There is no capital gains tax in Singapore, which is one of the reasons it has become such a popular location. British Virgin Islands The British Virgin Islands have no inheritance tax, capital gains tax, sales tax or gift tax, making them one of the most popular tax havens. Unfortunately this also means the government is aware of their existence, putting investors at risk. Monaco Monaco has strict laws in relation to tax evasion, but if you can connect with a bank there, you have multiple perks. Any investor wanting to avoid tax and get into a tax haven will find benefits to choosing Monaco. Cayman Islands Hedge funders are particularly fond of putting their money in the Cayman Island, which is why the name is used so often in movies and television shows. Celebrities, investors and even politicians like Mitt Romney choose the Cayman Islands as their go-to tax haven. United States Not all tax havens are located outside the U.S., in fact two states have tax havens in the U.S.: Delaware and Nevada. Delaware is the local corporate tax haven and hold more than 50 percent of corporation funds in the U.S. that are incorporated in Delaware. Companies like Bank of America and apple that have addresses in Delaware, take full advantage. In Nevada, there are no personal income taxes and is another great place in the U.S. for tax breaks. Tax havens are a safe alternative to paying high taxes in the U.S., U.K. or other countries where they are known for their rising taxes and strict regulations. It is something for investors, individuals, and corporations to explore. Continue reading
Wood Resources International LLC: Steady Increase In Global Trade Of Wood Chips The Past Ten Years; Japan And China Imported 83 Percent Of Traded Hard
SEATTLE, Aug 20, 2013 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The global pulp industry has increased its importation of wood chips the past ten years, reaching the second highest import levels on record in 2012, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly. Japan, China, Finland and Turkey were the largest importing countries last year. Wood chips are one of the few forest products commodities that have seen a steadily increasing trend in globally traded volumes the past decade. With the exception of 2009, when global production of pulp fell by about ten percent and the demand for wood fiber was down, international trade of wood chips has increased every year from 2000 to 2011, as reported in the Wood Resource Quarterly. (www.woodprices.com) From 2009 to 2012, global chip trade increased by 6.5 million tons to just over 31 million tons, valued at over five billion US dollars, slightly below the all-time high reached in 2011. Much of the increase in chip imports has been because of the expansion of MDF production capacity in Turkey and due to major investments in pulp capacity in China. The top ranking of chip-importing countries has changed quite considerably the past five years. Although Japan is still, by far, the largest chip importer in the world, import volumes have declined from a record-high of almost 15 million tons in 2008 to just over 11 million tons in 2012. China, on the other hand, has gone from being a net exporter of chips less than ten years ago to become the second largest importer of wood chips in the world. With the expansion of pulp production capacity in China and the lack of domestic fiber sources, it is likely that China will surpass Japan as the world largest chip importer within 2-3 years. Japan and China are the two dominant consumers of globally traded chips. Their dominance is particularly accentuated for hardwood chips, where they imported 83 percent of the world’s total imports in 2012. Pulp mills in Finland, the third largest chip importer, have for a long time relied on residual chips from Russian sawmills with close proximity to the border and on chips from the Baltic States, as reported in the Wood Resource Quarterly. This trade has increased in recent years. The fourth on the import ranking list for 2012 is Turkey, which has become a major chip destination in just the past few years. It is likely that global trade of wood chips will continue to go up in the coming years for two main reasons because 1) there are limited forest resources in some of the countries which are expanding industry capacity and 2) some forest companies are making the strategic decision to diversify their supply sources and import wood chips rather than procure marginal fiber supplies locally. Global pulpwood and timber market reporting is included in the 52-page quarterly publication Wood Resource Quarterly (WRQ). The report, established in 1988 and with subscribers in over 30 countries, tracks sawlog, pulpwood, lumber and pellet prices, trade and market developments in most key regions around the world. To subscribe to the WRQ, please go to www.woodprices.com Wood Resources International LLC (WRI), an internationally recognized forest industry-consulting firm established in 1987, publishes two quarterly timber price reports and have subscribers in over 30 countries. The Wood Resource Quarterly, established in 1988, is a 52-page market report and includes sawlog prices, pulpwood and wood chip price and market commentary to developments in global timber, biomass and forest industry. The other report, the North American Wood Fiber Review, tracks prices of sawlogs, pulpwood, wood chips and biomass in most regions of Canada and the US. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com SOURCE: Wood Resources International LLC Continue reading
