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;DPA; ANPAf..r.. Money-Singapore-Investments JP/16/Money S'pore investing strongly in Asia

SINGAPORE : Singapore's investments overseas slipped a marginal 0.5 percent to US$159 billion in 2002, with nearly half in Asia, Department of Statistics (DOS) data showed on Friday.

China, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia were the top destinations for Singapore's investments in 2002, the most recent period in which complete statistics were available.

"The emergence of China and investors' familiarity with Asian markets could be reasons," the DOS said.

It cited a reduced level of holdings in money deposits abroad by branches of foreign banks in Singapore for the slight dip from the previous year.

Twenty-eight per cent of the investment abroad was in the British Virgin Islands and Bermuda, where several tax havens are located, followed by the United States.

Investment in the U.S. was mostly through financial services and mainly in the form of investment holding companies.

Direct investments, portfolio investments and other foreign assets make up those abroad, the DOS said.

Financial services and manufacturing remained the two most popular activities for Singapore-based investors.

In Indonesia, direct investment took the form of financial services, transport, communications as well as manufacturing.

The data does not include recent purchases by Temasek, the government's investment arm, which has been buying stakes in banks and telecommunications firms in India and South Korea, among other countries.

Temasek announced earlier this week plans to diversify into Asia and developed economies. -- dpa

;AFP; ANPAf..r.. Money-Singapore-finance Former prime minister Goh formally appointed central bank chief JP/16/Money Goh appointed as central bank boss

SINGAPORE: Former prime minister Goh Chok Tong has been formally appointed chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the city-state's central bank announced on Friday.

Goh, who ruled Singapore for 14 years until he stepped down last week, will take over from Lee Hsien Loong, 52, who succeeded him as prime minister and remains the finance minister.

An economist by training, the 63-year-old Goh has also been appointed senior minister, the government's second-highest post formerly held by the new prime minister's father Lee Kuan Yew, now an adviser to the cabinet.

The elder Lee, who turns 81 next year, was given the title minister mentor, the third highest post in terms of protocol.

Goh is a former civil servant and later business executive who played a key role in turning homegrown Neptune Orient Lines into one of the world's top 10 container shipping lines.

Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was appointed deputy central bank chairman.

The MAS said last month that it posted a net profit of 5S$ billion (US$2.9 billion) for its 2004 fiscal year, up sharply from S$623.42 million in 2003.

It said the profit jump was due to higher returns on its foreign investments as a result of more buoyant global financial markets.-- AFP

;AFP; ANPAf..r.. Money-China-agriculture JP/16/Money Chinese post deficit in farming trade

BEIJING: China recorded its first-ever agricultural trade deficit in the first half of the year, casting doubts on its ability to remain a self-sufficient food producer, state press reported on Friday.

The deficit came in at US$3.73 billion, the Ministry of Agriculture was cited as saying by the China Daily.

Agricultural officials said maintaining food surpluses China has enjoyed for years would likely no longer be possible due to the country's opening to foreign competition under its World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations.

Over the eight years to 2003, China averaged an agriculture trade surplus of $4.3 billion a year, the report said.

Although China exported $10.62 billion of farm produce in the first half of 2004, an increase of nearly 11 percent from a year ago, imports soared even more.

They were up 62.5 percent year-on-year to a record $14.35 billion, the government figures show.

"The deficit is glaring but not surprising given the country's commitments following WTO entry, the implementation of tariff rate quotas and competition in the global market," said Han Yijun, a researcher with the ministry's Research Center for Rural Economy.

The report said a fall off in wheat exports had affected the headline figure.

China was a net exporter of wheat in the first half of last year, but it imported 2.727 million tones of wheat by the end of June this year.

Compared with the same six-month period last year, China imported 1.8 times more grains, or 4.115 million tones, from January to June this year.

The deficit was largely a result of the sharp increases in imports of grain, edible oil and cotton, the report quoted Cheng Guoqiang, researcher with the State Council Development Research Center, as saying.

Since 1998, China's grain production has dropped by 15.7 percent to reach a low of 431 million tones last year as many farmers have found it unprofitable to till the land, according to official Chinese statistics.-- AFP

;REUTERS; ANPAf..r.. CHINA-BANKS-PORNOGRAPHY China banks probe online transactions for Web porn JP/16/Money Banks to closely probe Web porn transactions

BEIJING: China's banks are scrutinizing online transactions for links to pornographic Web sites as the country cracks down on Internet sex, Xinhua's online service said.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) had asked banks to strengthen monitoring of their daily business and report anything abnormal, including suspicious domain names and bank card numbers, Xinhuanet said in a report seen on Friday.

"Some pornographic Web sites have used the banks' online transaction service as a means to charge clients, negatively influencing their reputations and business," the CBRC was quoted as saying in a circular.

"Once a Web site is found to be involved in pornographic business, banks should immediately cut off its capital."

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had checked all 355 of its affiliated Web sites to ensure that they possess certificates for online business and have promised not to engage in "indecent activities".

The China Construction Bank designated a liaison person in each of its branches responsible for reporting updated information about affiliated Web sites.

A nationwide crackdown on pornographic Web sites kicked off in mid-July to rein in what the central government perceives as the harmful influences of the Internet in a country where usage has exploded in recent years.

Police have closed down more than 700 pornographic Web sites so far and arrested 329 suspects.

China's communist rulers have gradually relaxed the puritanical rule they imposed when they swept to power in 1949 but sporadically try to crack down on the sex industry.-- Reuters ;REUTERS ANPAf..r.. MONEY-ECONOMY-POVERTY U.S. poverty likely rose in 2003, income gap wider JP/16/Money U.S. poverty likely up in 2003: Report

WASHINGTON: More Americans likely slid into poverty in 2003 and the gap between the rich and poor widened, economists said on Thursday in a report that could fuel Democrat criticism of President George W. Bush.

While the nation's official poverty rate will not be released until next week, the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated 700,000 Americans were added to the ranks of the poor last year, based on early numbers.

That takes the number of poor in the United States to about 36.4 million, from 35.7 million in 2002.

The poverty line is set at an annual income of $9,573 or less for an individual, or US$18,660 for a family of four with two children, according to the Census Bureau.

Using Census Bureau data for the first half of 2003, economist Heather Boushey said the percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty rose to 12.8 percent, up from 12.7 percent in the first half of 2002.

Children were even more likely to be poor, the study showed, with poverty rising to 18.8 percent of children in 2003 from 18.6 percent in 2002.

The poverty rate tends to track the overall economy, rising during a recession and falling in boom times. It has increased each year since 2000, sparking criticism from Democrats that Bush's economic policies are skewed to benefit the rich.

But Bush's economic team has argued he inherited the 2001 recession from former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and that three rounds of tax cuts have since spurred the economy's recovery and kick-started job growth.

The official poverty rate is set for release on Aug. 26. Boushey said it will likely be slightly different than her calculation because it will include a full 12 months of data and is taken from a separate but similar Census survey.

In past years, there has been only a slight gap between six months of one survey and a full year of the second.

The study also showed the median household income rose 3.6 percent to $48,216 in the first half of 2003 from the same period in 2002 -- though when inflation is taken into account, incomes rose a smaller 1.1 percent.

Together with the rising poverty rate, the increase in the median household income suggests the gap between rich and poor is widening, Boushey said.

"Families above the average are seeing an increase (in income), but the families at the bottom are seeing a drop," she told journalists.

The report also found the number of Americans with health care coverage likely fell in 2003 for the third year in a row, as unemployment grew and employers cut back on health benefits. -- Reuters

;DPA; ANPAf..r.. Money-Singapore-Outsourcing China leads Asia-Pacific region in outsourcing human resource jobs JP/16/Money China leads region in outsourcing jobs

SINGAPORE : China, the recipient of many outsourcing jobs, leads the Asia-Pacific region in outsourcing human resource functions, two surveys showed on Friday.

Two in three of the companies queried in China are outsourcing at least some of their human resource jobs, according to the findings of consultancy firm Hewitt Associates.

Only 39 per cent of the firms surveyed in the rest of the region are farming out such work.

The China survey covered 51 foreign-owned companies. The second survey included 524 firms across the Asia-Pacific region.

Human resource "sourcing is still a relatively new phenomenon in the region, although it is more common in India, the Philippines, Malaysia and Australia", Hewitt's report said.

"Vendors in these countries have grown significantly in recent years, acting as back office administrators primarily for American and European clients," it added.

Payroll processing, benefits administration and training and development are the human resource functions most often considered for outsourcing in the region.

Cultural factors and historical developments explain why outsourcing is more prevalent in China.

The practice there grew out of long-standing government requirements that mandated foreign-invested entities to hand- deliver employee records to the local social insurance office, Hewitt said.

State-owned companies were set up to handle the record-keeping process.

These agencies now face growing competition from private firms also offering additional services, the report said.-- dpa