Asia

Air Transport, Solar and Wind Power News

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 A Japanese airline (a conglomeration of All Nippon Airways and ANA) will begin low cost domestic flights in November and services to China next year.  According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) over 5 million passengers were transported during the Spring Festival through domestic carriers, organizing close to 40,000 flights to meet increased holiday travel demand.  Services will be expanded between Dalian in China’s Liaoning Province and Toyama, Japan to Beijing.  Turkish airlines has grown, as well as Air China, the latter which transported 102,500 tons of mail and cargo.  Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways – with its subsidiary Dragonair – last month transported 2.24 million passengers, 6.8 percent higher than last year.  China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines likewise reported a significant increase in passenger transportation over the last year.  Spring Airlines will be using AsiaPay’s payment processing solution for its online flight booking, enabling clients to pay for tickets in local currencies.


In terms of airline partnerships, news is that first, China Harbor Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC, a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company Ltd.) just clinched a US$1.22 billion deal for the construction of a new international airport in Khartoum, Sudan.  Second, China Telecom Corporation Limited has entered into a strategic partnership with Hainan Airlines potentially enabling the latter to be “China’s first air carrier to provide in-flight phone calls and Internet.” New services will be added to Italian airlines too and a Tibet-based air carrier (Tibet Airlines) will be the first air-carrier in the region and will start its operation launching a Lhasa-Beijing service.
 

News from solar power is that China Solar Energy Holdings Ltd. will be acquiring domestic thin-film solar photovoltaic module maker Target Samoa for US$45 million in stock and convertible notes enabling the addition of amorphous silicon thin-film module production.  Taiwanese Neo Solar Power Corp (NSP) said its revenues last month escalated over 150 percent and this trend looks set to improve.  Volthaus GmbH (German solar power developer) is due to receive 20 MWp of solar modules in an agreement with EGing Photovoltaic Technology (Chinese module maker).  There is good news in the solar cell market too in the country, with the use of Maple solar cell technology (broader and flatter silicon cells with fewer grain boundaries).


There is work on potential wind power projects via China Resource New Energy which recently stated it would put US$728 million to US$984 million in wind power developments in pursuit of 150 gigawatts of overall installed capacity by 2020.  A US company CleanTech Innovations informed of its striking a wind tower supply deal from power producer China Guodian.

Substantial Drop in Asian Shares

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Recent world events – New Zealand earthquake, Japan’s credit rating downgrade and continued Middle East and Libyan unrest – led to a significant drop in stock markets across Asia.  For example, South Korea’s Kospi, the Nikkei 225 stock and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index all plummeted around 2 percent.  As well, Japan had trouble dealing with its huge debt following Moody’s Investors Service downgrading its outlook for the country’s credit rating, citing “increasing uncertainty” over Japan’s capacity to effectively deal with rising debt.  This doesn’t spell good news for the country which only last month had its sovereign debt rating cut by Standard & Poor.  Australia, China, Singapore and Taiwan are currently in the same boat vis-à-vis stock markets. The only good news for the region of late has been the increase in oil prices.

 

Wall Street News

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Stock markets and oil prices in Asia recently saw an increase, indicating the demand for the latter could be improving.  As well, makers of electronics increased between 0.9 and 2.8 percent in Tokyo.  IN Hong Kong the Hang Seng index rose 0.4 percent but South Korea’s Kospi index was “nearly flat.”  While Australia’s S&P/ASX200 slightly increased, BHP Billiton Ltd. Saw a hit of 1.8 percent which was a marked difference from the company’s claim of over 70 percent net profit increase from last July to December.  The Dow Jones industrial average encountered its second straight day of losses on Tuesday with the Dow falling 0.3 percent.  Nasdaq fell 0.5 percent as did Standard & Poor’s 500 index which dropped 0.3 percent.  On the New York Mercantile Exchange delivery increased 35 cents a barrel in electronic trading.