British Prime Minister David Cameron laid a wreath at Jallianwala Bagh in India’s northwestern city of Amritsar on Wednesday where hundreds of Indians were massacred by colonial forces in 1919, calling the act ‘’a shameful event in British history”.
Britain’s prime minister laid a mourning wreath Wednesday at the site of a notorious 1919 massacre of hundreds of Indians by British colonial forces, calling the killings ‘’a shameful event in British history.”
David Cameron was the first British prime minister to make a gesture of condolence at Jallianwala Bagh in the northwest city of Amritsar, but stopped short of issuing a formal apology for his country’s actions 94 years earlier.
‘’This is a deeply shameful event in British history – one that Winston Churchill rightly described at the time as ‘monstrous,” Cameron wrote in the visitors’ book at the site. ‘’We must never forget what happened here. And in remembering we must realize that the United Kingdom stands for the right of peaceful protest around the world.”
The park was the site of an attack by British colonial troops on unarmed Indians attending a rally calling for independence. More than 300 Indians were killed during the massacre, which galvanized the national independence movement and marked the beginning of the end of Britain’s rule over the Indian subcontinent.
Queen Elizabeth II visited the same site in 1997 and laid a wreath there. She called the killings ‘’distressing.”
Cameron’s visit to Amritsar came at the end of his trip to India. The trip was aimed at boosting trade and investment between the two countries in the areas of energy, infrastructure, insurance, banking and retail.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
KFC unveils tighter quality control in China to rebuild battered brand after poultry scandal Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/24/kfc-unveils-tighter-quality-control-in-china-to-rebuild-battered-brand-after/#ixzz2M7icOkBa
BEIJING – KFC has unveiled new quality control measures in China in an effort to rebuild its battered brand after a scandal over misuse of antibiotics by its suppliers to fatten poultry.
KFC said Monday it will strengthen oversight of its suppliers and expand drug testing. It said more than 1,000 small producers used by the company's 25 poultry suppliers have been eliminated from its network.
The company, owned by Yum Brands Inc., says sales in China might fall by as much as 25 percent in the current quarter after state television reported in December that poultry suppliers were using excessive levels of antibiotics to fatten chickens.
KFC is China's biggest fast-food chain with more than 4,000 outlets. China accounts for about 40 percent of KFC's profit.
Bank of East Asia Says China Rate Cuts Weighed On Results
Bank of East Asia's overall net profit up 39%
- Bank of East Asia saw Chinese loan quality deteriorate last year
- The bank's China unit posted a mild drop in pretax profit as interest margins narrowed
HONG KONG--Hong Kong's Bank of East Asia Ltd. (0023.HK) said Tuesday profit at its mainland China operations fell slightly last year as Beijing's interest rate cuts ate into its margins.
The fifth-largest local lender in Hong Kong has the largest China exposure among its peers and is the second-largest foreign bank in China with more than 100 outlets in the country, just after HSBC Holdings PLC. Though its overall net profit rose 39% thanks to buoyant financial markets, its thinner margins in China were accompanied by a rise in bad debt, reflecting the risk of deteriorating credit quality in the world's second-largest economy.
"Interest margins in China were challenging last year, because the People's Bank of China cut interest rates and injected liquidity into the banking system," said Brian Li, Bank of East Asia's deputy chief executive. Mr. Li said interest margins started to stabilize at the end of last year.
Pretax profit at the bank's China unit fell 5% to 2.25 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$290 million) in the year ended Dec. 31, from HK$2.37 billion in 2011. During the same period, the bank's impaired loans in China doubled to HK$453 million from HK$216 million, while loans overdue by more than three months jumped to HK$375 million from HK$21 million.
Mr. Li said the bad loans were concentrated in Zhejiang province, where unpaid loans surged last year. Wenzhou, a city in the eastern Chinese province that is home to many export-oriented businesses, was particularly hard hit by weakening global demand.
"Bad loans might still be popping up in the first half of this year. But it is well under control and won't cause material problems to the bank," he said.
Banking analyst Daniel Tabbush at the Tabbush Report said Bank of East Asia's bad loans rose 44% in the second half of last year compared with the first half. "(That) confirms the worsening credit metrics in China," he said.
The bank said its impaired loan ratio rose to 0.27% in the six months ended December, from 0.18% during the first half of 2012.
Bank of East Asia's net profit last year jumped 39% to HK$6.06 billion from HK$4.36 billion a year earlier, as rosier equity and bond markets drove its gains from trading and financial assets. The result was above the average HK$4.94 billion forecast of 11 analysts polled by Thomson One.
Spanish lender CaixaBank S.A. owns 16.38% of Bank of East Asia, while Guoco Group Ltd., a conglomerate controlled by Malaysian tycoon Quek Leng Chan, has a 14.34% stake. Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. also owns 9.5% of the Hong Kong lender.
China's Loose Policy Ending, Newspaper Says
China's recent loose monetary policy is coming to an end, said an editorial in the China Securities News published Tuesday.
Liquidity conditions have been looser than expected since Chinese New Year, the paper said.
But the People's Bank of China isn't likely to adjust interest rates or reserve requirements in the short term, the paper said. Instead, the main mechanism for transmitting policy is likely to be bond purchases and sales by the central bank, known as open market operations.
The paper didn't claim insider knowledge on the outlook for monetary policy, but its commentaries on policy are generally highly regarded in the market, having correctly predicted policy moves in the past.
The PBOC hasn't made any changes to interest rates since they were cut in July 2012, relying on open market operations to control the amount of liquidity in the financial system.
The PBOC will be reluctant to tighten conditions too drastically because of the huge levels of financing required for the country's urbanization drive, the China Securities News said. China's incoming leadership is expected make urbanization a centerpiece of its policy agenda.
It is important to build up multiple financing channels in addition to bank loans, the paper said, such as allowing local governments to issue municipal bonds.
Yum cutting some supplier ties after China food scare
BEIJING – Yum Brands Inc said on Monday it will stop using more than 1,000 slaughterhouses in China as it moves to tighten food safety and reverse a sharp drop in business at KFC restaurants in its top market after a scare over contaminated chicken.
Diners began avoiding Kentucky-based Yum's nearly 5,300, mostly KFC, restaurants in China in December after news reports and government investigations in the Asian country focused on chemical residue found in a small portion of its chicken supply.
Yum was not fined by Chinese food safety authorities, but its restaurant sales in the country dropped and have yet to recover. As a result, Yum warned this month that it expected 2013 earnings per share to contract, rather than grow.
Yum said it would end ties with smaller chicken suppliers that have not modernized their operations.
"This is a public problem. Even though China has rules on use of additive products, we very much regret that some people still operated while breaking those rules," Yum China Chairman and Chief Executive Sam Su told a news conference in Beijing.
Su declined to give specifics on other efforts to shore up the safety of the company's food supply in China or its plans to lure diners back.
Yum gets more than half of its overall sales from China, the world's fastest-growing major economy.
The scandal has been a blow to the company, which has a reputation for serving safe, high-quality meals in China, where food contamination is a chronic problem.
"This is going to be quite a management task for (Yum) in terms of their reputation," said David Mahon, managing director of Mahon China, an investment management company that advises multinational companies that operate in the Asian country.
"I think they'll put a lot of effort into closing suspect suppliers and bringing better standards and proving to consumers that they're doing so," Mahon said.
Ultimately, the Chinese government is responsible for setting and enforcing better food safety standards, he said.
Yum Chief Executive David Novak said early this month that time, not money, is the cure for the company's China sales drop.
Based on the company's experience with prior sales-damaging crises related to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), avian flu and "Sudan Red" dye, Yum said it does not expect restaurant sales there to turn higher until the fourth quarter.
Shares in Yum closed down 1.1 percent at $64.73 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)