Views, Indicators, Opinions, Economy, Updates!

Hong Kong flats for sale at record price (By Justine Lau in Hong Kong and Daniel Thomas in London) Published: September 17 2009 19:24

Two new luxury flats in Hong Kong have been put on the market for a record per square foot price of HK$75,000 (US$ 9,640) as the buoyant economy and stockmarkets on the Chinese mainland lift demand for exclusive properties beyond pre-crisis levels.

Hey PEOPLE! I took the above off F.T.Com.

Looks, like we are now at the gateway into the pre-2008 levels. Can you believe it, the “crazy” price “flats” are going for in Hong Kong! Well these are actually the prices that were changing hands per-2008. So, we now are at a point where market sentiments are at the good old days. Property was sold down out of fear the last 1 to 2 years ago, for whatever reasons that have resulted in the sell down. This is now being confirmed with the MSCI Asia Pacific Property Index chart.

Clearly it shows that the index is hovering at the pre-crisis 120 in September 2009.

From the Asia Pacific Property index, it is now at or above the October 2008 level, at 120 in September 2009. Your guess is as good as mine. The upside potential is out there and can see that it is intact for Asia (see last chart on populations rankings).

Now what about our good old US$14 trillion consumer? Yeah!, the USA. The unemployment statistic from the Bureau of Labour Statistic web site is reading, up to August 2009, the Unemployment Rate in percentage is improving. (http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/outside.jsp?survey=ln) From the below statistic chart there are signs that the rate is holding and not heading towards the 10% mark. In fact it is indicating a decline. We’ll wait and see, if the September 2009 percentage will drop below 9.6%? (for every 1% it represent 3 million jobs on a population base of 307,504,637 in the US)

Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey

Series Id: LNU04000000 Not Seasonally Adjusted Series title: (Unadj)Unemployment Rate Labor force status: Unemployment rate Type of data: Percent Age: 16 years and over
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2008	5.4	5.2	5.2	4.8	5.2	5.7	6.0	6.1	6.0	6.1	6.5	7.1	5.8
2009	8.5	8.9	9.0	8.6	9.1	9.7	9.7	9.6

Here is the other population statistic I mentioned at the opening of this posting. So many top ranked Asia, South East Asia, and Asia Pacific, also Central Asia countries in terms of total population are ranked top 20 global list. Have a good time looking out and sporting how many of them are in Asia. The other important question is how many out of 11 South-East Asia countries are listed at the top 20 ranked total population chart?

Countries and Areas Ranked by Population: 2009
RANK	COUNTRY	POPULATION
1	China (Asia)	1,338,612,968
2	India (Asia)	1,156,897,766
3	United States	307,212,123
4	Indonesia (SEA)	240,271,522
5	Brazil	198,739,269
6	Pakistan (Asia)	174,578,558
7	Bangladesh (Asia)	156,050,883
8	Nigeria	149,229,090
9	Russia	140,041,247
10	Japan (Asia)	127,078,679
11	Mexico	111,211,789
12	Philippines (SEA)	97,976,603
13	Vietnam (SEA)	88,576,758
14	Ethiopia	85,237,338
15	Germany	82,329,758
16	Egypt	78,866,635
17	Turkey (Asia)	76,805,524
18	Congo (Kinshasa)	68,692,542
19	Iran (Asia)	66,429,284
20	Thailand (SEA)	65,998,436

In closing, when the sentiments are back at pre-crisis levels your guess and mine too will not be far off. We will be spot on, yes the engine of global growth will shift and we are smack right in the middle of it – hey it is Asia! Where the action will be...

To all my Muslim blog-readers and of cause dear friends too, no matter how deferent we are, HAPPY AIDILFITRI. With good intentions, I say SALAM to all of Muslim faith in celebrating your blessed day.

Tj