Singapore has an image problem. Moscow and Beijing have been forging a new alliance of late, but it is narrowly based. Despite concerted efforts to exchange Russia's natural-resource exports for China's consumer goods, there are no buoyant trade and investment links to act as a buffer in the event that political ties falter. Manufacturers hype the prospect of selling direct to consumers, cutting out middlemen and causing prices to fall. Industry wants to unload excess capacity by Internet auctions.
Consumers dream of finding bargains day and night on the Web.
And major manufacturers can keep their thousands of suppliers up to date instantly when there are production-line problems that mean a slowdown in absorbing stocks of materials. The Internet has become so important to them as a marketing tool that those banks that do not adopt the Web are in danger of going the way of the dinosaurs. On the surface, Chinese director Zhang Yimou's most recent films, The Road Home and Not One Less, may seem completely different, but they share the same deep regard for the people who are the salt of China's earth. The repeal on January 1 of Penang's rent-control legislation could have a devastating impact on poor and elderly residents who will have nowhere to go. The listing of PetroChina in the United States was supposed to lay the groundwork for other capital-starved Chinese state companies to tap into America's. stockmarkets.