Samsung Electronics board chairman held for sabotaging union activities

Election News
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd board Chairman Lee Sang-hoon was condemned to 1-1/2 years prison on Tuesday for undermining real association exercises, a South Korean court said.
Lee and around 25 different litigants were accused of disrupting association exercises by subcontracted laborers at Samsung Electronics' fix unit, Samsung Electronics Service Co Ltd. At the point when association exercises occurred at Samsung Electronics Service in 2013, Samsung Group's currently old world class methodology office created and actualized methodologies to thwart the association's activity, Seoul Central District Court dominated.
Samsung officials and representatives were, to various degrees, associated with discovering delicate data about endorsers to persuade them to leave the association, instigating the conclusion of subcontracting firms with dynamic associations and postponing exchanges among work and the board. The decision pursues a week ago's decision by a similar court that allowed a 16-month prison term to Samsung Electronics Vice-President Kang Kyung-hoon on charges of association busting exercises at now-outdated subsidiary Samsung Everland, an entertainment mecca administrator and part of Samsung C&T.
"We submissively acknowledge that the organizations' understanding and view towards trade guilds in the past missed the mark regarding society's desires," Samsung Electronics and Samsung C&T said. A teacher at Seoul National University, Park Sang-in, depicted the decisions as "a further sign of progress for South Korean legal framework, which recently gave indulgent sentences to indicted businesspeople".

Samsung's new pioneer, Jay Y. Lee, needs to "construct modern relations which are in accordance with worldwide models", the teacher included....Read More

Senior Chinese diplomat set for first visit to South Korea in 5 years

International News
A high-ranking Chinese diplomat is visiting Seoul this week for the first time in five years as the two countries seek to improve ties amid a spat over a US anti-missile system in South Korea.
The Chinese government's top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, is set to arrive on Wednesday for a two-day stay, during which he will meet his counterpart, Kang Kyung-wha, and President Moon Jae-in, Seoul officials said.
South Korea sees China as instrumental in reviving stalled denuclearisation talks between the United States and North Korea, a longtime ally of Beijing.
Wang's visit will be his first since a dispute erupted over the installation of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system in South Korea, though he and Kang have talked on other occasions.
The United States and South Korea, meanwhile, have been locked in an increasingly public disagreement over how much Seoul should pay for hosting some 28,500 US troops.South Korea's foreign ministry said Wang's visit would be a chance to bolster relations "for new development," with bilateral and regional issues on the agenda.
Both sides are expected to primarily discuss Moon's planned attendance at a trilateral summit in China with Japan, and a possible visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to South Korea next year.
Missile tensions

The United States suggested setting up the THAAD system to address North Korea's missile threats, and a total of six interceptor batteries were installed at the southeastern air base of Seongju by 2017.Beijing angrily denounced the move, saying the system's powerful radar could penetrate into Chinese territory and was part of a...Read More

From India to Brazil, emerging markets can shore up global economy

International News
Emerging-economy central banks from India to Brazil still enjoy the firepower to shore up the global economy as their peers from developed markets take to the sidelines.
While policy makers at the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank are seemingly set to keep interest rates on hold, many of their developing nation counterparts have room to cut further. That should help support the world economy amid its weakest expansion in a decade.
“In most cases, emerging markets are now in the comfortable position to be able to cushion an economic downturn with monetary easing,” Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of currency strategy at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt, said in a report this month. “This easing of monetary policy is likely to give a lift to EM economies, and this would also be positive for developed countries.”
Faster Growth
That outlook was underscored this week by Morgan Stanley economists, who predicted emerging markets will grow 4.4% next year, more than three times the 1.3% rate anticipated in the Group of 10 economies.
After 20 of the 32 central banks monitored by the bank eased policy in 2019, its economists forecast 13 will do so in 2020 with the cuts concentrated in emerging markets helping to reduce the global weighted average policy rate to a seven-year low by March. India, Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey can all strike if they need to.

With some hints of growth stabilization on signs that the U.S. and China are warming ties on the trade-war front, fund managers see more reasons to park their cash back in emerging markets. The International Monetary Fund also sees them as the primary drivers of the global economy while advanced economies linger in sub-3% territory.....READ MORE

India's last-minute demands for concessions might jeopardise RCEP deal

Technology
India keeps making last-minute requests after it agreed to terms for the world’s largest regional trade agreement, potentially preventing Asian leaders from announcing a breakthrough on the 16-nation pact during a summit in Bangkok next week, people familiar with the situation said.
In recent days, India angered other negotiators by making additional requests on the China-backed pact covering half the world’s population, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Leaders of the countries had planned to announce a preliminary deal on Nov 4 when leaders gather for meetings hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, they said.
Chief negotiators are still confident they can reach a broad agreement on the deal, known as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), during a planned meeting on Thursday in Bangkok, the people said. Any announcement would pave the way for nations to finalize the details on the legal framework in the coming months.
A breakthrough after seven years of talks would mark a win for trade liberalization in an era of rising tariffs and resurgent nationalism. The deal would also further integrate Asia’s economies with China at a time when US President Donald Trump is seeking to convince the region to shun Chinese infrastructure loans and 5G technology.

India, which has raised some tariffs under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has long been the main holdout on an RCEP deal due to strong domestic opposition over fears the country would be flooded with cheap Chinese goods.India DemandsModi, who is fresh off a landslide re-election win in May, agreed to move ahead with the deal after receiving personal assurances from Chinese President Xi Jinping in an informal seaside meeting earlier this month, an Indian official said...READ MORE

No easy exit in sight from worst Japan-South Korea spat in decades

International News
Japan and South Korea plan to meet over Tokyo’s move to restrict vital exports to its neighbor, but neither has much political incentive to climb down from their worst dispute in decades.
Decades of mistrust make it difficult for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in to retreat from their budding trade feud. A series of looming deadlines, including a Japanese upper house election on July 21, are only raising the political pressure on both men, who can’t afford to look weak dealing with disagreements rooted in Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula.
On Wednesday, Moon, who was elected in 2017 on a promise to reconsider his predecessor’s moves to ease historical spats with Japan, warned business leaders in Seoul of a “prolonged” battle. At an election debate last week, Abe accused South Korea of reneging on its promises.
“The leaders on both sides are incompatible with any sort of political rapprochement,” said Jonathan Berkshire Miller, a senior fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo who specializes in Northeast Asian security issues. “The sense on Moon here is negative and Abe is obviously persona non grata in South Korea.”

 The flare-up stems from a series of South Korean court decisions ordering the seizure of Japanese corporate assets as compensation for Koreans conscripted to work in factories and mines during the colonial era. The issue escalated from a regional diplomatic spat to a global trade worry last week after Abe’s government moved to curb the export of specialty materials vital to South Korea’s technology sector.The restrictions give Japan a mechanism to slow production by chipmakers such as Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix, squeeze the South Korean economy and disrupt supply chains dependent on their memory chips and components...Read More

This is going to be prolonged war with Japan: Korean Prez warns biz leaders

International News

South Korean President Moon Jae-in warned top business leaders of an extended battle with Japan over its export controls on vital manufacturing materials, raising concerns their latest fight could disrupt global supply chains.
On Wednesday, Moon told executives from companies including Samsung Electronics Co., SK Group, Hyundai Motor Co. and Lotte Group, that he saw Japan targeting South Korea’s economy for political gains. Japan last week imposed curbs on highly specialized products needed to make semiconductors and computer displays, and could also remove its neighbor from a list of trusted buyers.
“Our government is forming a response system demanding Japan to withdraw its unfair export limit measures with a sense of urgency,” Moon said in Seoul, calling the current situation an “unprecedented emergency.”
Japan has said it made the move to ensure proper security and questioned its trust of South Korea after courts there last year ruled that Japanese companies needed to pay compensation to Koreans conscripted to work at mines and factories during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. Tokyo said all claims were settled by a 1965 treaty and that it didn’t see the court decisions as valid.

 The dispute has moved into the economic arena what the two see as proper contrition for Japan’s colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula. Past fights have mostly kept industries on both sides out of the fray but the worry now is that tensions between the major trading partners and U.S. allies could spiral out of control.Moon on Wednesday proposed an “active support” from the government’s end for companies to diversify importers and expand local production, adding that the export curbs would be reflected in an upcoming extra budget bill proposal within the National Assembly.

Can Bangladesh beat India in development race? Here's what economists say

Economy & Policy:

There’s an old theory that as an organism develops, it progresses through the same evolutionary stages travelled by its ancestors. Traditionally, economic development has worked in a similar way. When a country first shifts from agrarian poverty to industrialization, it tends to start out in light manufacturing, especially textiles. Later it masters more complex manufactured products, and finally, it progresses to inventing its own cutting-edge technology. Thus, each country’s development tends to look a bit that of nations that already went through the process.

That certainly seems to describe the experience of South Korea and Taiwan, which reached developed-country status relatively recently. It’s also the path being followed by China. As these countries got richer and their wages rose, low-tech labour-intensive manufacturing industries tended to migrate to countries with cheaper workers.

Recently, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this process has been Bangladesh. The garment industry accounts for more than 80 per cent of the South Asian nation’s export revenue, and about a fifth of its gross domestic product. In 2017, Bangladesh was the world’s second-largest apparel supplier after China, with 6.5 per cent of the market, outpacing neighbouring India despite the latter’s much larger economy.

This economic development path has no doubt come at a real human and social cost -- Bangladesh's workers suffer harsh working conditions and many industrial accidents, including a horrific factory collapse in 2013 that killed more than a thousand people. But overall, the tried-and-true industrialization strategy seems to be working. Real GDP per capita has doubled since the turn of the century, and Bangladesh appears to be on a similar exponential growth path as its neighbour India:


 India, meanwhile, has generally underperformed in manufacturing. The country does have a few bright spots -- for example, it’s now the world’s sixth-biggest auto manufacturer, with an immense factory cluster in Gujarat,and has been increasing its production of smartphones...Read More