Despite past tensions between eBay and Alibaba under former CEO Meg Whitman when the two companies waged war in China, eBay's new CEO John Donahoe is open to partnerships with the company according to Bloomberg. Alibaba's founder and Chairman Jack Ma has been in the United States for the past 2 weeks with top executives on a team-building exercise. While here, he has met with eBay, Amazon.com, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks, and GE to discuss possible partnerships.
Ma spoke before the Asia Society in New York City on Thursday (link), and said he wants to enter the U.S., but not to compete.
eBay PowerSellers use Alibaba.com to acquire inventory from all over the world to sell online. In China, Alibaba operates a C2C marketplace, online payment service and other business services in addition to its B2B global marketplace.
While previous trips to Silicon Valley had inspired Ma because of the hard work he observed, he was surprised that most companies today are in a very depressed mood. He said there was a focus on money, with engineers talking about products that could make money, not about how the products could change the world. "I was a little bit disappointed," he said.
Ma talked about his experience in building Alibaba from a small team in Hangzhou and building it into a company of 12,000 employees, with plans to hire an additional 5,000 this year. He said that at Alibaba, the customer is number one, employees are number two, and shareholder are number three. (The customers pay you, the employees stay with you, but the shareholders - "they are all gone when disaster comes.")
English-teacher turned entrepreneur and business leader, Jack Ma is known for his motivational public-speaking. Yesterday, he donned a sweater in classic Bill Gates style.
Ma spoke about the global economic crisis. People should not to wait for the government to take action, he warned. For years at world economic forums in Davos, people have spoken about social responsibility. "It's time to take action. Social responsibility is not a slogan. Bury it into the business model. Not only care for yourself, care for employees, the customer, the environment. Take action, put it into reality, into action."
The man who beat eBay in China said he values hard work over MBAs. "Everything (MBAs) say is right, but everything they do is terrible."
Of the companies he met with, Ma seemed most impressed with Starbucks.
Source: http://www.auctionbytes.com/
eBay Is Open to Talks with Alibaba
Experts warned of harms from gold export
VietNamNet Bridge – The gold exports in the last while, when the world’s prices surged, brought large profits to Vietnamese enterprises. However, experts have warned that the continuing gold export will bring harm.
In the list of export items of Vietnam in the last two months, only four product items saw the export turnover increase, while the other 20 export items saw the turnover decrease.
All of Vietnam’s key export items, including oil, garments, and seafood products had the export turnover down drastically. Vietnam’s export turnover to key markets, including the EU, US, Japan, and ASEAN, reportedly dropped by 20%.
The two export items that saw the biggest increases in export turnover were rice (up by 113%) and precious metals, up by 3,152.6% over the same period of the last year, reaching US $939 million in turnover.
Statistics showed that the exports of precious metals, gemstone, and relating products were modest in February 2008, with the turnover of US $130 million. Meanwhile, the export turnover of the same products soared to US $800 million in February 2009.
The massive exports helped enterprises earn a big sum of money as they could re-export the gold they imported in the first half of 2008 at low prices.
Enterprises decided to export gold as the world’s prices were between VND 300,000-800,000/tael higher than the domestic prices.
Nevertheless, experts have warned that the massive gold export may do harm to the national economy. Later, when Vietnam has the demand for gold, it will have to import gold again. By that time, if Vietnam cannot well control the forex market, the demand for foreign currencies will soar, thus causing the imbalance in the monetary market.
Doctor of Economics Nguyen Dai Lai said that how to manage the capital sources most effectively also proves to be worth giving attention.
The gold export has really influenced the domestic gold prices.
In order to have gold for export, enterprises had to collect gold from institutions and individuals, and the massive collection has made the prices increase.
It may happen that the domestic prices would big higher than the world’s prices, which may cause a new wave of rushing to purchase gold, thus making the gold market tense.
The State Bank of Vietnam, realizing the risks of the gold export, has always been regulating the export with a cautious and hesitant manner.
The central bank granted licenses on gold export to several enterprises. However, the list of the enterprises and the volume of gold export has never been released.
The bank is considering the capability and legal capital of enterprises in order to grant quotas on gold export in the most reasonable way which ensures the fairness among enterprises. It is also checking the legal framework in order to set up the regulations on the management over gold transactions.
Experts all believe that the gold prices will keep rising in 2009. Several major countries in the world, including China, have decided to raise the foreign currency reserves, which are believed to lead to the very high demand for gold. In the context of the economic recession, other investment channels like real estate and the stock market have been falling. Therefore, gold has always been the safest habour for investors to preserve their capital and make profit.
Source: http://english.vietnamnet.vn/
Exporter Neal Asbury is on a trade mission
Exporter Neal Asbury operates a Weston company that represents 40 American manufacturers in the commercial food service industry in 130 countries.
He also owns a handful of companies that make commercial and home appliances, everything from heavy-duty mixers to drink dispensers to blenders.
And he just spent millions to buy two iconic companies: Omega, which makes juicers, and Zeroll, whose novel ice-cream scoop earned a place in New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Yet Asbury says he has a more pressing purpose. ''I'm on a mission,'' he says. ``I'm on a mission bigger than running a couple of businesses and making a couple of acquisitions. [I] want to change the world.''
Asbury, president of Greenfield World Trade and the Small Business Administration's reigning National Champion Exporter of the Year, believes fixing global trade inequities that favor other nations would go a long way towards curing the economic ills that now plague the United States.
So he's spends much of his time spreading the word. He writes a regular column for an online news service. He blogs. He pontificates on a weekly radio show now broadcast in six major cities. And he's writing a book tentatively titled Trading Up he says will offer solutions to such problems as unemployment, poverty, failing schools, and a crumbling infrastructure. It's set for release later this year.
''This is fundamental to who I am and where I'm going,'' says Asbury, 51. ``We just can't keep making bad decisions and wasting money and resources and think this country is going to live happily ever after.''
Working for 21 years overseas in the export business representing American companies, Asbury says, gave him a bird's eye view into what he calls a ``corrupt and skewed trading system.''
''Countries like China, India, Brazil, Japan and others routinely manipulate and distort markets to their benefit, and conversely, discriminate against American exporters,'' Asbury charges.
Take KitchenAid, the appliance maker, which Asbury represents overseas. Getting approval from China late last year to sell KitchenAid products took two years of effort, Asbury says.
China requires companies to submit manufacturing drawings and other intellectual property to be able to sell there. That has scared off many manufacturers who are afraid their property rights will be pirated by Chinese companies, Asbury says.
Asbury cites U.S. government's statistics that show intellectual property theft by Chinese companies costs American companies $250 billion a year in lost sales.
''We need to invest in our trade enforcement under the U.S. Department of Commerce, because the magnitude of the problem is so much greater than the manpower that we have working on it,'' he says.
So what does KitchenAid have to say about Asbury's effort on its behalf?
''Neal Asbury is one of our favorite people,'' says Larry Simpson, KitchenAid's export sales manager. ``He just does a lot for KitchenAid. He clearly has our interests high on his list as he works on his many, many projects.''
Asbury didn't start out as an exporter. He was a music major at New Jersey's Rowan State University but decided he didn't want to pursue a music career upon graduating in 1979.
''It just dawned on me that I wanted to be in international trade,'' he says. So he moved to New York and got a job as a mail clerk for an export company. It was a fortuitous decision, even though the company told him he was overqualified.
Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/
India copper futures set to open flat, gold lower
MUMBAI, March 16 (Reuters) - India copper futures are expected to open little changed on Monday following markets in London, and but may perk up later in the session following regional stocks, analysts said.
At 9:40 a.m. three month London copper
Strong equity markets signal an economic recovery, which may lead to more demand for the industrial metal.
"In all, copper should be trading sideways to higher due to strong equity markets," said Vishal Maniyar, an analyst with Karvy Comtrade in Hyderabad.
Copper may trade "on the higher note in between 188-193," said Pranav Mer, an analyst with India Infoline in Mumbai.
The benchmark April contract MCCJ9 on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) ended 0.2 percent lower at 189.35 rupees per kg.
It may open at around 189.2 rupees per kg, and trade in the range of 185-194, said Karvy's Maniyar. March zinc MZIH9 ended at 62.25 rupees per kg, while lead for March MLDH9 closed at 64.15 rupees per kg.
GOLD:
Futures are expected to open lower on global leads and a strong rupee, analysts said.
At 9:39 a.m. Comex gold for April delivery GCJ9 was 0.38 percent lower at $926.6 an ounce.
"The probable range in gold is 15,100-15,350," said Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, director with Commtrendz Research.
Further moves would depend on how the stock markets behave, added Thiagarajan.
The benchmark April gold contract MAUJ9 closed 0.2 percent lower at 15,315 rupees per 10 grams.
It may open at 15,260-15,270 rupees per 10 grams and trade in the range of 15,100-15,450, said Angel's technical analyst Abhishek Chauhan.
Source: http://in.reuters.com/
Turmeric leads gain in spices
NEW DELHI: Spices, led by Turmeric, gained in futures trade on Monday on sustained buying by traders and speculators amid restricted supplies from producing areas.
On the National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange, turmeric hit its upper limit of three per cent to trade at Rs 4,834 per quintal in trading of 7,250 lots, followed by jeera, whose May contract rose 1.34 per cent to Rs 11,913 per quintal in trading of 1,845 lots.
Jeera for March contract inched up by 0.78 per cent to Rs 11,570 per quintal in trading of 6,336 lots. Chilli for April-month contract moved up by 1.16 per cent to Rs 5,561 per quintal with trading volume of 125 lots and March contract rose by one p er cent to Rs 5,391 with a trading volume of 60 lots.
In line with a firming general trend, pepper also showed improvement and its April contract gained 0.75 per cent to Rs 10,685 per quintal in a turnover of 739 lots, while its March contract added 0.65 per cent to Rs 10,485 a quintal, clocking a business volume of 249 lots.
The fresh rise in spices was mostly attributed to the increased demand in the spot markets and fresh export enquiries, traders said.
Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/
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