HONG KONG: The number of new marriages in China jumped 12.4 per cent in 2023 from a year earlier, reversing a downtrend that has lasted for almost a decade as more youths tied the knot after delaying their nuptials due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of newlyweds rose to 7.68 million last year, according to data released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs last week. This was up 845,000 couples from 2022 but still far below the peak of 13.47 million couples hit in 2013.

The data comes after China’s Premier Li Qiang pledged in March that the government would work towards “a birth-friendly society and promote long-term, balanced population development”, as well as reducing the cost of childbirth, parenting and education.

Policymakers are grappling with how to reverse a declining population, where the birthrate is falling and society is ageing rapidly. Roughly 300 million Chinese are expected to enter retirement in the coming decade – the equivalent of almost the entire United States population.

China’s population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023, as the record low birth rate and deaths due to COVID-19 accelerated a downturn that officials fear will have profound long-term effects on the economy’s growth potential.

It’s a numbers game.

Over the next decade, roughly 300 million Chinese will enter retirement – the equivalent of almost the entire US population. One in every two people aged over 65 in the Asia-Pacific region will live in China by 2040, Euromonitor estimates.

While China’s demographic crisis is threatening its industrial base, government finances and poverty alleviation efforts, some investors see the growing pool of elderly as a sure bet.

Mama Sunset, which offers 20 different classes to thousands of Chinese aged 50-plus, is in talks with domestic investors to expand to 200 franchised centres across the country in the next three years, when it wants to list on the Hong Kong exchange.

Nasdaq-listed Quantasing, the largest online elderly learning provider in China according to Frost & Sullivan, plans to hire more tai chi and traditional medicine tutors to add to existing classes ranging from memory training to video editing.

It also plans to leverage its customer base to sell products such as moxa sticks, used in traditional medicine, or Baijiu, a Chinese liquor.

Quantasing’s revenues grew 24.7 per cent year-on-year for the final quarter of last year to 980.5 million yuan (US$136.2 million), while its total registered users shot up 44.6 per cent year-on-year to 112.4 million at the end of 2023.

“It’s a real sunrise industry,” the firm’s CEO Matt Peng said.

China’s government is also getting involved, announcing in January tax incentives and financial support for products and services for the elderly. Premier Li Qiang pledged in March further efforts to develop “the silver economy”, without elaborating.

The provincial government of Hebei provided the land and space for Mama Sunset’s Cangzhou branch as part of a poverty alleviation program.

For foodies, the piece de resistance is undeniably Gaggan at Louis Vuitton, a fine dining restaurant headlined by acclaimed chef Gaggan Anand. The menu is designed to deliver “five S’s” (sweet, salty, spicy, surprise) in his signature subversive style. There are plates to lick, specific instructions for which hand to hold a sphere of spiced yoghurt, and a momo (dumpling) inspired by the brand’s signature Damier checkerboard pattern.

The challenge to soaking up this slice of the luxury life, however, is getting through the door. The restaurant is booked out for the next few months, so you may as well put yourself on the waitlist for a table as you might that elusive Neverfull tote.

BEIJING: China’s factory output sped up in the January-February period and beat expectations, marking a solid start for 2024 and offering tentative relief to policymakers who are seeking to shore up faltering economic growth.

Industrial output rose 7.0 per cent in the first two months of the year, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Monday (Mar 18), above expectations for a 5.0 per cent increase in a Reuters poll of analysts and faster than the 6.8 per cent growth seen in December. It also marked the quickest growth in almost two years.

Retail sales, a gauge of consumption, rose 5.5 per cent, slowing from a 7.4 per cent increase in December. Analysts had expected retail sales to grow 5.2 per cent.

The eight-day Chinese New Year holiday in February saw a solid return of travel, which supported revenue from the tourism and hospitality sectors.

Fixed asset investment expanded 4.2 per cent in the first two months of 2024 from the same period a year earlier, versus expectations for a 3.2 per cent rise. It grew 3.0 per cent in the whole of 2023.

Together with better-than-expected trade data and consumer inflation, Monday’s indicators will provide some temporary encouragement for policymakers as they try to shore up growth in the world’s second-largest economy to keep it on track for an expansion of around 5 per cent this year.

But analysts say achieving such growth would be more challenging than last year, which had a lower base effect due to COVID-19 curbs in 2022. Moreover, the property sector remains weak and could continue to be a major impediment to a solid recovery this year.

Property investment slid 9.0 per cent year-on-year in January-February, compared with a 24.0 per cent fall in December but still far from levels of reaching stability.

The NBS publishes combined January and February industrial output and retail sales data to smooth out distortions caused by the shifting timing of the Lunar New Year. Activity picked up in the first two months of 2023 as COVID-19 curbs were lifted, which may create a less flattering base effect for this year’s data.

Premier Li Qiang promised at the annual parliamentary meeting earlier this month to transform the country’s growth model and defuse risks in the property sector and local government debt.

China plans to issue 1 trillion yuan in special ultra-long-term treasury bonds to support some key sectors and set a higher quota for local government special bond issuance this year.

The country’s central bank governor Pan Gongsheng also said at a press conference on Mar 6 that there was still room to cut banks’ reserve ratio requirement (RRR), following a 50-basis points cut announced in January, which was the biggest in two years.

The central-bank-backed Financial News on Friday said the bank “has no intention of actively draining cash”, after leaving a key policy rate unchanged while withdrawing cash from a medium-term policy loan operation for the first time in 16 months.

Authorities in January launched a “whitelist” mechanism, asking state banks to boost lending to residential projects. More big cities including Shanghai and Shenzhen have also eased purchase curbs to lure homebuyers.

The job market worsened with the nationwide survey-based jobless rate at 5.3 per cent in January-February, up from 5.1 per cent in December.

SEOUL: North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Monday (Mar 18), Seoul’s military said, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited South Korea to meet top officials and attend a democracy summit.

Blinken is in Seoul for the third Summit for Democracy, an initiative of US President Joe Biden, which the South is hosting this week, and is set to meet his Korean counterpart on the sidelines for talks.

Key security allies Washington and Seoul wrapped up one of their major annual joint military training exercises last week, prompting angry retorts and tit-for-tat drills from nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

“North Korea fired an unspecified ballistic missile toward the East Sea,” Joint Chiefs of Staff said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.

Japan also confirmed the launch, with the Japan Coast Guard saying the objects appeared to have already fallen.

The launch comes just days after the annual Freedom Shield, which this year involved double the number of troops, ended Thursday. The 11 days of joint exercises were aimed at strengthening South Korean and American deterrence against the North’s nuclear and missile threats.

Pyongyang this month warned that Seoul and Washington would pay a “dear price” over the Freedom Shield drills, and later announced that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had guided an artillery unit it says was capable of striking the South Korean capital.

The nuclear-armed North has long condemned joint US-South Korea military drills, calling them rehearsals for an invasion. It has carried out weapons tests in the past as a response to previous joint exercises of this nature.

Monday’s ballistic missile test is the North’s second this year, after Pyongyang launched one tipped with a manoeuvrable hypersonic warhead on Jan 14.

Blinken landed on Sunday afternoon ahead of the democracy summit, which runs from Mar 18 to 20 and will bring together government officials, NGOs and civil society members.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s central bank said on Saturday (Mar 16) that Google had misquoted the ringgit’s exchange rate, undervaluing the currency against the US dollar, and that it would seek an explanation from the tech giant.

The ringgit, which declined to a 26-year low last month, has weakened about 2.44 per cent this year. Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has said the currency is undervalued and does not reflect Malaysia’s positive economic fundamentals.

The bank said in a statement that Alphabet Inc’s Google published “inaccurate” information on Friday and had also done so on Feb 6.

“As this is the second instance of misreporting, BNM will be engaging Google for an explanation of how the inaccurate reporting occurred and the corrective measures taken given that this is a recurring issue that has afflicted Malaysia and other countries in the past few months,” BNM said in a statement.

It did not elaborate. Google was not immediately available for comment outside of US business hours.

The search giant does not verify data provided by financial exchanges and other content providers, and disclaims any obligation to do so, according to disclaimers on its website.

Google quoted the ringgit at 4.98 to the US dollar on Friday, BNM said, while the Malaysian currency’s weakest level on official data was 4.7075.

BNM quoted the ringgit at 4.7015 at 9 am and 4.7045 at 5 pm on the onshore interbank market. For comparison, LSEG data used by many international market participants quotes a Friday close of 4.7020.

BNM Governor Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour said last week that Malaysia’s government and central bank were taking coordinated action to further increase flows into the foreign exchange market to ensure the ringgit remains stable.

The relatively affordable prices in Phuket also factor in its popularity. Added Stuart Reading, managing director of Group Property Development at Banyan Group: “High-quality property is still significantly cheaper in Phuket than in most of the buyer source markets like Russia, China or Europe.”

Said Ho: “Phuket is now seen as a global destination alongside places in Europe like Ibiza or the Caribbean. There have only been two major beach tourist destinations in Asia – Phuket and Bali. But Bali’s been slipping behind because it’s got its own issues of waste management, and the traffic congestion is even worse now. Also, Phuket has got the perfect weather; the whole of the Andaman Coast where Phuket is is nice and dry [perennially, making it attractive for those escaping harsh winters at certain times of the year].”

It is expected that up to 5,000 residences will be built in Laguna Lakelands over the next five to 10 years. Five themed residential areas – Hillside, Orchard, Forest, Lakeside and Lagoon – will be connected by extensive walkways and cycling trails. Phase 1 will include Lakeview Residences condominiums – a four-storey complex and another seven-storey complex complete with rooftop infinity pools and housing one- to three-bedroom units – and Waterfront Villas with four bedrooms that average a built area of 560 sq m as well as private pools and gardens. Prices start at US$190,000 for the smallest apartments and US$1.7 million for the waterfront villas.

It is timely that such an ambitious project has been added to the Banyan Group’s fold as it turns 30 this year. Alongside this, Ho aims to increase its hotel list to 100. “We never want to brag about what impact we reach but we’ve seen what we did in terms of sustainability 30 years ago to now. It was never with the intention of trying to impress other people, leaving a legacy and so on. It has led other developers to look at us and say that’s not a bad thing to do.”

He added: “To that extent, we’ve done things in hospitality that is quite novel, but we haven’t actually done anything in property development that is new and that can make an impact, but Laguna Lakelands could make an impact.”

SEOUL: North Korean state media on Saturday (Mar 16) referred to leader Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter as a “great person of guidance”, employing a term usually reserved for senior leaders and hinting at her status as a potential successor, analysts said.

Both the English- and Korean-language versions of an official Korean Central News Agency report on Kim and his daughter’s visit to a greenhouse farm used the plural form of the honorific, suggesting it applied to both of them.

“The great persons of guidance, together with cadres of the Party, the government and the military, went round the farm,” read the English-language report, which ran with images of the pair.

Analysts said it was the first time Kim’s daughter – never named by Pyongyang’s state media, but identified as Ju Ae by South Korean intelligence – had been described as such by the North.

“This is the first expression of elevating Kim Ju Ae to the ranks of” a leader, Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.

The North Korean term “hyangdo” – meaning guidance – is typically only reserved for “top leaders or successors” of the isolated regime, said Cheong Seong-chang, director of Center for Korean Peninsula Strategy at the Sejong Institute.

“This level of personal worship for Kim Ju Ae strongly suggests that she will succeed Kim Jong Un as the next leader of North Korea,” Cheong added.

A main talking point has also been his party’s agenda for Hindu reawakening, including the inauguration of a grand temple to Lord Ram on the site of a destroyed mosque.

Modi has set a target of 370 seats for BJP and 400-plus for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it heads in the 543-member lower house of parliament, up from the 303 the BJP won and more than the 350 the NDA won in 2019.

The 2019 performance was the best ever for the party which was formed in 1980.

Modi will be challenged by an alliance of about two-dozen opposition parties led by the main opposition Congress party called INDIA or the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.

The alliance formed last year has, however, been struggling to stay united and share seats amicably to be able to put up a one-to-one fight against BJP.

Congress, which has ruled India for 54 of its 76 years since independence from Britain, has sunk to record lows after Modi swept to power and is struggling to revive support.

The party is highlighting unemployment, rural distress, what it says is crony capitalism, the need for more affirmative action for the so-called backward castes and the need to end religious polarisation and hate in its pitch to defeat Modi.

Nearly 970 million people are registered to vote at over one million polling stations in the mammoth electoral exercise with 2,400 political parties likely to contest.

HONG KONG: A Hong Kong court on Saturday (Mar 16) sentenced 12 people to jail terms from more than four years to nearly seven years in a high-profile rioting case linked to the storming of the city legislature during an anti-government protest in 2019.

Protesters broke into Hong Kong’s legislative council building on Jul 1, 2019, smashing windows and streaming inside as public anger mounted over an extradition Bill that would have allowed authorities to send people to mainland China for trial.

Those sentenced by district court Judge Li Chi-ho included actor Gregory Wong, 45, who was jailed for six years and two months after pleading not guilty.

Political activists Ventus Lau and Owen Chow, who had pleaded guilty, received terms of 54 months and 20 days, and 61 months and 15 days, respectively.

Li described the incident as a “serious” blow to the city’s rule of law.

“The large number of protesters, the intensity, the unique constitutional status of the Legislative Council, and the intention to weaken the significance of the (Hong Kong) government, are insulting,” he said.

The judge described in detail how protesters had rammed their way into the building with metal barricades, pelted the area with eggs, sprayed political slogans on the walls and inked over a government emblem.

The former president of the University of Hong Kong’s student union, Althea Suen, 27, who had pleaded guilty, was sentenced to four years and nine months.

Relatives and supporters cried and shouted “Take care!” and “Hang in there!” as the defendants were led away from the glass dock.

Chow said the government’s refusal to withdraw the extradition Bill after one million people marched against it was the immediate cause of the incident.

“No matter what punishment the court imposes on me, I’ll continue to move forward and convert my fear into a force for change, just like the day I walked into the chamber,” Chow told the court before the sentences were handed down.

He said their actions stemmed from a need to stand up for basic human rights that were under threat from authorities.

“Martin Luther King, leader of the human rights movement who has always advocated peaceful and rational demonstrations, once said, ‘A riot is the language of the unheard’,” Chow told the court.

Lau said he had rushed to the scene given his fears of a bloody crackdown by the police. Lau later left Hong Kong returned despite the risk of prosecution.

“I don’t want the public to think all the people in this movement only care about their own safety,” he said.

In a mitigation letter submitted to the court last month, actor Wong said his arrest and conviction had essentially derailed his career as an actor since the age of 12.

“I will still help people in need with a sincere heart,” Wong wrote.

Student reporter Wong Ka-ho and online media reporter Ma Kai-chung, who were acquitted of rioting but found guilty of “entering or staying in the precincts of the chamber”, received fines of HK$1,500 (US$190) and HK$1,000 respectively.

Rioting holds a maximum seven-year sentence in Hong Kong’s district court.

More than 10,200 people were arrested in relation to the protests in 2019, of whom 2,937 have so far been charged with offences including rioting, unlawful assembly and criminal damage, according to police figures.

Of these, over 870 people have been charged with rioting, according to the Witness, an online news portal specialising in legal news.