Even though more bad news is expected next year, Asia still offers great investment opportunities as the region faces less impact from the global financial crisis, an official at Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Ltd said last week.
“Asian businesses on average have a debt ratio of only 20 percent, much lower than their counterparts in the US and Europe,” Aberdeen Asset managing director Hugh Young said at a press conference on Thursday, while announcing the opening of the company’s first office in Taipei.
Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation’s second-largest telecom operator, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, represented good long-term investments as both companies have sound operations, Young said.
Aberdeen obtained a master agent license from the Financial Supervisory Commission in October, allowing it to directly promote and sell its fund products in Taiwan through third-party sales agents.
In the past, Young said, people often believed that emerging countries in Asia were decoupled from advanced economies. But Asia’s growing relationship with the world economy has made itself unable to escape global recession.
While individual Asian economies are still able to maintain stable growth, it is also evident that even countries like China and India — which once enjoyed rapid economic growth — are now facing spiraling downward risk, he said.
The slowing economic growth is likely to continue taking its toll on Asian businesses, which Yang said could lead to declining profits in other Asian economies in the next 12 to 18 months or even cause firms to cut capacity and staff to downsize operations.
Looking ahead, Young said he expected governments around the world would continue to implement loose monetary policies and inject capital into the banking system to revive lending.
“As market consolidation will cause the gap between strong and weak businesses to widen, companies who have sound operations and high cash positions are worth investing [in],” Young said.
Established in 1983, Aberdeen has Asian offices in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and China.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km
RSS