insurance

India

Mauritius China India Hindu Business Line article When Indians think of Mauritius, they think of high society weddings, beautiful beaches and if they work in the financial field, about tax planning. View China Daily – Chinese in Chennai Most people from southern India’s Tamil Nadu state speak Tamil when they are children. Narayanaswamy Balakrishnan was fl uent in a dialect spoken in Fujian, the southeastern province in China that saw its residents fan out outside the country for their livelihood. View Mauritius Finance Magazine Bala article This is the first publication of Global Finance Mauritius, the apex organisation of the financial services industry in Mauritius. View Why Mr Lee is learning Chinese Institute of Chennai DNA newspaper This feature article, about a Chinese-origin man in Mangalore who is now learning Chinese from an Indian tutor in Bangalore in order to connect with his extended family in China, was published in DNA. View

Global

Worldsec – Forefront IPO document Forefront International Holdings Ltd.(FIL) is mainly engaged in the distribution and sale of heavy commercial vehicles in the Greater China region. the Group has the exclusive distribution rights. View Bala article on using Mauritius for Chinese funding to India Mauritius is in the fortunate position of having good relations with China and India. It is true that Singapore also has the same advantages while at the same time being one of the major financial centres of the world and with a very big Yuan deposit base. View Worldsec – Natural Beauty IPO document Natural Beauty Bio-Technology Limited (NB) is capitalising on two new and lucrative trends in the beauty care business, a shift towards natural ingredients and growing use of expensive body treatments rendered in spas to augment the beauty regimen. View From Lenin to Lee Kuan Yew, legacies are determined by the living I have seen the mausoleums of Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and Ho Chi Minh. Thousands still line up in hushed silence, to see them, demonstrating to non-believers that the embalmed bodies still serve a powerful emotional and political purpose. More Worldsec – Writing on Jockey Club of Hong Kong Hong Kong’s Jockey Club, one of the last bastions of the old older in the one-time colony, is doing its best to commit suicide in true dinosaur fashion, and the Government,which ought to know better, is helping it. View How British colonial rule left Hong Kong politically stunted There are some who think Hong Kong might have been better off, economically and politically, had it remained a British colony. Economically and socially, British rule was good, but it was a total failure politically – and the consequences are still with us. More Why rich societies like HK are committing demographic suicide As a newly married man in Singapore many years ago, my hairdresser once asked me when my wife and I were going to have our first child. I replied, like many people do even today, that it was too expensive to have a child and to bring one up. More Rule of law depends on Hongkongers’ values, not foreign judges It is no longer acceptable to have 19th-century prejudices such as the belief that the absence of melanin in the skin makes a person superior. However, the equally 19th-century belief that people from Europe or the US cannot be judged by “oriental” laws… More HK must avoid an underground hell on Earth Whenever I hear about expanding urban space below ground, as a study regarding better utilisation of some of our most popular recreational grounds intends to do, I think about a 600-year-old Turkish spa or hamam… More How one Malaysian school became a bright spot in colonialism’s dark legacy Neither of my parents knew any English. The reason I can write passable English is down to the schools I attended in Penang, Malaysia. Penang Free School, my secondary school, celebrates its 200th anniversary on October 21. More A rising China is good news for ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia – up to a point On the last day of the Rio Olympics, when the celebrated Malaysian badminton player Lee Chong Wei was playing in the final against a Chinese, I was attending Malaysia’s Merdeka Day (Independence Day) Ball. More Why the days of Western banks in Asia are clearly numbered Many people already know that Chinese banks are some of the largest in the world. But I was astonished to learn recently that some banks in India have a market capitalisation greater than the mighty Deutsche Bank. More ‘Little England’ made a wise choice to leave the pompous, crumbling EU After the Brexit vote, “Little England” is being used as a term of derision. But, to me, it is not size that matters but whether a country is able to provide security and jobs for its citizens. More Whoever wins the US presidency, expect the dawn of a wrenching new global order Around this time next year, people in Asia and elsewhere will be wondering how they could have missed the signals about the political and economic tsunami that the US has unleashed on the world. More Hong Kong banks need to put the customer first, not profits A long time ago, I was persuaded by a credit card company that somehow the colour of the plastic you carried in your wallet determined your status and so I applied for a “gold” card. More First, a cabbie. Next, a legislator of South Asian descent in Hong Kong? Two men surnamed Khan have made the news recently – one in Hong Kong, one in London. Both have a success story to tell, but the difference in what they aspired to speaks volumes about social progress and prejudice in the two cities. More Suzie Wong On a recent trip to Kyoto, Japan, during the cherry blossom season, I was surprised at the hundreds of “geishas” wandering around town, though I had seen only one or two during our last trip there a couple of decades ago. More Instead of Queen’s Road Central, let’s have Sun Yat Sen Avenue in Hong Kong There is not a street or road named after Dr Sun Yat-sen in Hong Kong. However, there are streets named after him in Calcutta, India, and in many other places, including even Mauritius. More Britain, like Singapore in 1965, has outgrown the need to be part of a federation An island nation that was dependent on free trade, international finance and other services for its wealth was part of a larger federation across the channel. The federation, unlike the island, had its own rigid political and economic imperatives… More Poor excuse Anyone with even a passing knowledge of India can immediately see that Indians arriving in Hong Kong to seek “political asylum” are engaged in a scam. View A vein of anger It should be easy to understand the ideology of Donald Trump in Hong Kong – he is

East Asia

City can export its public wealth management skills N Balakrishnan says policymakers should realize that globally marketable talent exists in private, public sectors. View Blockchain isn’t just a new way for banks to make more money People in Hong Kong think that blockchain is a technology for the banks. Indeed, banks have much to gain from using blockchain technology and have cost saving as an incentive and the resources to implement this new technology. View Chinese Foreign Minister on India and China relations “China-India cooperation is like a massive buried treasure waiting to be discovered, The potential is massive.”Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi – Speaking in New Delhi on June 11, 2014 View It’s time to join the 5G bandwagon The next big leap in telecommunications, the “5G” standard, is now being tested on the Chinese mainland by China Mobile, AT&T in the US and DoCoMo in Japan. No one is doing anything in Hong Kong about 5G yet and this is a pity. View China Daily Article Bala Freedoms in West When I see so many people clamoring for “democracy” in Hong Kong now, I often wonderwhether they know about the severe modifications “democracy” has undergone in the pastdecade or so in the United States and the United Kingdom. To me, Hong Kong, which lacksuniversal franchise but is on the way to get it soon, already has many civil rights that are beingeroded in the advanced democracies. View ‘Western justice superiority’ the last imperial prejudice in HK According to the “international” media it is important for “Hong Kong people to rule Hong Kong” without interference from the Chinese mainland. But when it comes to Hong Kong’s judiciary and courts, the same Hong Kong people who are considered wise and mature enough… View China Daily Bala article on China tourists Most of us have had the experience of visiting a rich uncle’s household during a festive time. As long as the unwritten rules for such occasions are observed, the occasion can be rewarding for both parties. The poorer wing of the family gets to observe first hand a different and at least materially a better way of life and possibly some “free” gifts. View Our city planners should consider building bridges instead of tunnels As the Hong Kong government took over the Eastern Harbour Crossing from the private owners as the BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) contract expired earlier this month, one has to ask whether it would have been better to have built a bridge instead of tunnel… View Sensible ways to stop tax evasion In Southeast Asia there is a popular pastime call wayangkulit, performed with leather puppets behind screens on which shadows appear to be fighting furiously — but actually no fighting or even touching ever occurs. View China Daily – Law in HK The rule of law is evoked in political discussions a lot in Hong Kong these days. As far as I know no one has ever come right out and said they are against the rule of law. So the question has to shift to what type of rule of law one wants in Hong Kong. View Bala SCMP column on country parks in HK. At the beginning of the year, the chief executive announced that HK$10 billion would be earmarked for replacement of pre-Euro IV diesel commercial vehicles. View

Block Chain for the Poor

Block Chain for the Poor People in Hong Kong think that “Block Chain” is a technology for the banks. Indeed, banks have much to gain from using Block Chain technology and have cost saving as an incentive and the resources to buy and implement this new technology. In a town that worships Mammon it is understandable everything is thought of as an offering to the money God. But Block Chain is also a technology that can be used to help the poor. In fact, Block Chain as a technology that cuts out many of the “middle men,” has the potential to help the poor even more than the rich since it is the poor who lack the resources to employ the legal and professional middle men who help the well-off navigate the labyrinthine ways of modern business and government. In Silicon Valley Itself Professors in Berkeley are experimenting with ways to use Block Chain to help the homeless people and other needs of the poor. Even the fabled Silicon Valley is not immune from modern problems such as homelessness. Professor Po Chi Wu, a former Venture Capitalist, now teaching in nearby University of California Berkeley is among those who are trying to apply Block Chain technologies for “humanitarian” rather than commercial purposes. Block Chain is not just one technology with ‘settled” rules. This can be both a blessing and a curse. It is a curse because universities are reluctant to start courses on technologies which are still evolving and therefore it is difficult to prescribe text books which may be already out of date by the time they hit the bookshelves. It is a blessing because there is still room for growth and flexibility in applications which will allow “new” entrants to extend the Block Chain knowledge and applications. Hong Kong and Hong Kong’s universities, which do not have the scale or history to be leaders in “settled” old technologies, may have room to innovate and lead in applying new technologies such Block Chain. The fact a technology is changing too fast does not mean one should not try and teach it or implement it now. Just as in love when there may never be a “right time” to pop the question, there may never be “right time” to wait for the technology to settle and become tested and routine before embracing it. At some point one must jump in and embrace the new fully aware that things will change and something new will come along soon. Sometimes this makes one a “pioneer”, but the same move may look like a dinosaur old technology one is stuck with. The “Octopus” card of Hong Kong is a good example. When Hong Kong adopted it in 1990s it looked like the revolutionary adoption of a new technology. Now with mobile phone payments being more useful and cheaper, the Octopus looks more like a dinosaur. This may well be the time for Hong Kong’s universities to pioneer the teaching of Block Chain technology to its students and grapple with what seems like the intractable social problems of housing and bent old ladies picking up cardboard boxes for a living in this supposedly rich city. As Professor Ikhlaq Sidhu, founding Director and Chief Scientist of the University of California’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology put it in his blog, trying not to not teach Block Chain at the highest levels of University now “would be equivalent to ignoring Internet technology when it emerged twenty-five years ago”. Hong Kong already has many excellent old school MBA programs. Perhaps too many of them. These “old” MBA programs teach students old style Finance, Marketing and Operations. All three of them are in the process of being disrupted beyond recognition by “Cloud Computing” and Block Chain. What is less talked about is that the whole of “social services” will also be disrupted and hopefully improved by new technologies. Immediately after a tragedy strikes a poor family in Hong Kong such as an entire family committing suicide together by burning charcoal or an old person lies dead unnoticed fore a few days in his small flat, there is a hue and cry among the public and media about how such people could have slipped through the “monitoring” system of social workers. The truth is the dedicated, over-worked and under paid social workers of Hong Kong can only knock on so many doors in person. Cloud Computing monitors with instructions in Cantonese and Block Chain ledgers on “field work” among various social and medical service departments can make both the engagement with the poor and monitoring of them a more effective and seamless process. To take an example in housing. If Hong Kong is serious about “vacancy tax” to solve the problem of apartments sitting empty while waiting for capital appreciation while the poor live in sub-divided slums, cloud computing and block chain can come to the rescue by monitoring electricity, water and gas meters for usage patterns to determine whether an apartment is indeed being occupied for someone is just switching on the lights for a few hours a day to give the impression of ‘occupancy”. If the Universities and Hong Kong Government take political decision at the highest levels to find ways to help the poor using Block Chain instead just helping the banks to make more money, the possibilities are endless. The poor of this rich city deserve it. End.

Twenty First Century Will Begin in 2020

Twenty First Century Will Begin in 2020 Twenty First Century Will Begin in 2020 and in China – by N. Balakrishnan At the beginning of the last century in 1900, a British journal asked many “experts” to predict how the future technology of the that century will look like. There were many predictions about steam ships with ten funnels since steam ships were the latest technology for transport then. But no one predicted the airplanes that will be invented just three years into the new century in 1903. But it was the airplane and not the ships with ten funnels that revolutionized transport in the new century. The experts in London were not stupid. It was indeed difficult to take those amateurs tinkering with flimsy aircraft made from canvas and steel wires seriously while massive iron ships were being built in Glasgow. Just as it was difficult to take seriously the car which were travelling at 5 miles per hour when trains were travelling at about 100 miles per hour and US tycoons were building palatial train stations – the “airports” of those days – such as “Grand Central” and “Penn Central” in New York City. The horse and carriage industry in the US was a vibrant one and one company was producing them at a rate of 130,000 carriages a year. The main worry then was how to get rid of all that horse manure that was littering the streets and creating a health hazard. Amateurs at the turn of the century were already tinkering with “moving pictures” but not many predicted their coming influence later. It was only in 1920s, after the first World War that the technological and cultural forms of what we think of as the “Twentieth Century” began. The Jazz Age, with its radios, “talking” movies, and short skirts arrived at that time. As we approach the third decade of 21 st century, we may well be approaching our own “Jazz Age” moment and the arrival of the 5G standard in telecommunications will be the harbinger of the “real” 21 st century. Mobile “smart” phones are capturing our imagination now because they enable us to communicate, perhaps over communicate with others. But the 21 st century will arrive only with the arrival of 5 G standard in mobile communications which, though already working as a pilot projects in various countries, will only be rolled out on a large scale in the year 2020. Last week saw two announcements which foreshadow what may be coming as this century gathers steam. One announcement was that sales of mobile phones worldwide declined more than six percent during the last quarter of 2017, the first decline registered since the large-scale manufacturing of mobile phones began. More importantly companies such as CISCO are already announcing that most telecom operators will be able to achieve something around 80% of the 5 G properties with software and minimal hardware upgrades instead of having to invest in whole new systems of hardware. What this means is that “almost 5 G” will be coming to your neighborhood sooner than you expect. Within the next five years, mobile phones will join the analog phones that had dial as being old fashioned gadgets. I remember interviewing a Hong Kong Telecom engineer who knew much more about telephony about 1993 and he insisted that for a long time to come analog phones and mobile phones will “co-exist” and that all this talk about mobile phones replacing existing analog technology was only in the projections made by amateurs. Since the mobile phones at that time looked like bricks and weighed as much too, the engineer was justified in thinking that way, using incremental projection of changing technology and popular tastes rather than exponential changes. We all know what happened to analog phones. I have one sitting in antique display cabinet and our son looks at it as a strange object. Come to think of it, I am supposed to have returned that black monster to Hong Kong Telecom when I disconnected the analog number. Sorry, Hong Kong Telecom! The new 5 G standard will not be much use to the mobile phone which is already getting all the speed it needs. It will be gadgets like driverless cars that will need the 5 G because they need two- way communications and instructions, unlike the mobile device which is mostly a one-way receiver. The driverless cars will be are already operating in China now. Soon the rich and powerful China and Hong Kong will no doubt use those driverless cars parked outside the Landmark as a symbol for showing off, not to speak of the Legco members. At that point trying to show off your mobile phone will become as much of a faux pax as trying to show off your short-wave radio now. One good thing from driverless cars will be that we can finally be rid of all those idling cars waiting in front of fancy office buildings and offices, waiting for their fat cat executives and goods laden rich wives. The twenty-first century has only been idling so far. Over the next couple of years, it will start speeding up and this new “5 G Epoch” will reach its zenith in China. End.