Asia Pacific

For very many Taiwanese, the central issue of the January presidential and parliamentary elections was breaking out of the economic shackles tying them to China that had been imposed on the island nation by the previous government.

An Australian police report says the country’s real estate market is providing a golden opportunity to launder drug money and other profits of crime.

The head of the industry organization Property Institute of New Zealand in that country’s largest city, Auckland, says there’s a risk of market collapse if government has a “knee-jerk” reaction to unaffordable housing prices.

Environmental impact assessment rules are hindering development, says the governor of Jakarta, Indonesia, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama.

For rural Chinese who in the last 35 years or so have decided to leave their villages and seek their fortunes in the cities, a scary part of the adventure is leaving their hukou behind.

Russia is stepping up plans to develop its vast far eastern region, including controversial plans for a US$10 billion agricultural joint venture with China and expanded fishing around the Kuril Islands, which are claimed by Japan.

The most upwardly mobile ASEAN countries can look forward to growth rates in the 6.5% to 8% range

The Beijing government is making yet another attempt to stimulate domestic consumer spending to counteract the decline in manufactured exports.

Dynastic politics are not faring as well in India as in Canada. Last year Rahul Gandhi and his Indian National Congress party were defeated by Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The development authority in Pakistan’s second-largest city and economic hub Lahore has released a list of 459 illegal factories and industrial plants after a spate of fatal accidents.