DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “China Exclusive: Labor-rich province experiences post-holiday worker shortage” plus 9 more

HEFEI, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- A labor shortage that has been confounding manufacturers in China's burgeoning coastal regions is spreading to the underdeveloped central and western areas.

As the Spring Festival holiday draws to an end, company employers in Hefei City, Anhui Province are rushing to the labor market to recruit migrant workers.

However, while employers are vying for attention and increasing offers of pay at the job fairs, discerning jobseekers are holding out for the best deal.

"The average monthly salary on offer here has risen by about ten percent from a year ago and many companies have improved their welfare packages, but it seems that the higher pay and better benefits still cannot help the employers get enough people to work," Han Xue, an organizer of the Hefei job fair, said.

"About 10,000 jobs are offered by nearly 3000 companies, but there are far fewer jobseekers attending the job fair than we expected," Han said.

Recruitment centers in other cities of the province have also experienced labor shortages after the Chinese New Year holiday when factories resumed production.

Anhui, with a population of nearly 70 million people, is traditionally an agricultural province which lies in China's central region, west to the Yangtze River Delta export hub.

However, as one of the main migrant worker sources of the country, the province had an estimated shortfall of 245,000 workers as of December 2010, according to statistics released by the Department of Human Resources and Social Security of Anhui.

The labor shortage which has been haunting the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta since 2003 has been felt by the inland regions, such as Anhui Province, Sichuan Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region since about a year ago.

Experts attribute the spread of labor shortages to the rapid industrial development of the central and western areas.

The demand for workers in Anhui has jumped as more and more labor-intensive industries have relocated their manufacturing operations to the inner provinces, Liu Xiaoyan, an official of Anhui Labor Department said.

"This year, 32 industrial projects are expected to be completed in Anhui Province, which will create about 30,000 jobs," Liu added.

The Chinese government's efforts to develop the central and western areas in recent year have greatly improved the transportation conditions and investment environment in the interior.

Many factories on China's coast have been moving inland, seeking to secure enough workers and cut production costs.

Liu also attributed the labor shortage to China's shrinking labor pool due to expanded college enrollment, which has soared more than seven-fold in the last decade, and the country's "one-child" policy, which has been in place since 1977.

In order to ease the labor shortage, the Anhui provincial government has been organizing recruitment drives to the countryside to encourage farmers to come to the cities to work and to teach them various working skills for free.

The recruitment program, which was kicked off on Feb. 10 in Wuhu City, is scheduled to last for three month.

At the end of 2010, there were more than 13 million migrant workers employed outside Anhui, while about 4 million were working in the province.

"Companies in Anhui should work to improve conditions and pay to attract more workers," Liu said.

Meanwhile, they should also try to move up the economic ladder to become less dependent upon cheap labor, Liu added.

Yao Shujie, professor of economics at Nottingham University in the United Kingdom, said China's labor shortage will be a long-lasting issue and the ultimate solution to the problem is the transformation of China's economy from a labor-intensive, low-skilled, manufacturing one to a high-tech, more diversified economy.

MANAGUA, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- The 7th International Poetry Festival  opened in the southwestern city Granada Sunday, attended by 127 poets from 51 countries.

This annual event is the biggest literary activity in Nicaragua, Madeline Mendieta, the festival's director, told Xinhua.

This year, it is held to praise Nicaraguan poetess Claribel Alegria, who was awarded the Neustadt International Prize of Oklahoma University of the United States in 2006.

The European Union sponsored the welcome ceremony with 26,000 euros, Mendieta said.

The festival will end on Feb. 20.

SINGAPORE, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- HSBC said it has launched renminbi deposit accounts for its customers in Singapore, making it one of the banks offering such services in Singapore.

A service staff at the bank said on Monday that it is promoting the account for a period of about two months from Dec. 27 to Feb. 28.

Winston Teo, head of wealth management at HSBC Singapore, said many retail customers have already invested in China funds.

"We are seeing more demand, particularly from affluent customers, for instruments that allow them to gain access to the renminbi, as it provides an avenue to diversify their investment and unlock the full potential of the China growth story," the Straits Times quoted Teo as saying.

HSBC Affluent Asian Society has found that a fifth of Singaporeans hold foreign currency deposits, so it makes sense to offer them access to the renminbi, he added.

HSBC has also launched renminbi deposit account services in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as well as Malaysia and Japan.

Singapore's DBS Bank has recently begun offering yuan- denominated investments to local private banking and treasury customers. The bank required an account with a minimum deposit of 50,000 Singapore dollars (39,063 U.S. dollars) for its customers in Singapore to buy yuan in Hong Kong's offshore market.

DBS, the leading bank in Singapore and one of the leaders in Hong Kong, is also set to launch access to yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong in the weeks ahead.

DBS said that the yuan many appreciate further in the coming years and that China's growing importance in terms of both exports and imports makes the yuan hugely attractive.

YANGON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has found natural gas yielding in Pale township, the country's Monywa district in northwestern Sagaing region after a test well was drilled recently, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Monday.

The Thingdadon test well-1 lying at an inland field block-D was examined to a production capacity of 2.1 million cubic feet ( about 59,000 cubic-meters) of natural gas a day.

The exploration was done by a joint venture between the state- run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise and the SIPC Myanmar Petroleum Co Ltd involving foreign experts, the report said.

The joint venture is planing to drill more test wells and so far six test wells have been so done for exploration of gas, the report added.

Foreign companies are working in 42 gas exploration blocks in Myanmar's oil and gas fields under respective contracts. The 42 blocks include 12 in the inland and 30 in the offshore areas.

There are 31 inland and 5 offshore oil and gas fields in Myanmar.

Starting 1998, Myanmar has been able to export gas to Thailand.

Oil and gas stands the sector with most foreign investment.

In 2009-10, Myanmar produced nearly 7 million barrels of crude oil and 400 billion cubic-feet (11.32 billion cubic-meters) of gas, according to official statistics.

Meanwhile, to boost oil and gas output from the inland blocks, Myanmar imported four huge seep-soil drilling machines from China for use in newly-explored Thagyitaung, Kyaukhwet, Maubin and Pyay oil and gas fields.

According to the geological condition, Myanmar has 14 geological valleys in the onshore regions, among which the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise has conducted surveys in the central region, Pay and Delta regions.

It was reported that there remains many more promising regions for exploitation of oil and gas in the country.

In the latest development, oil and natural gas are also being exploited at new blocks such as MD-4 in the west of Dawei, Tanintharyi division, MD-5 in the west of Palaw and MD-6 on the west of Myeik which were found in Mottama offshore deep sea region.

Although annual foreign investment in the oil and gas sector stood only 278.6 million U.S. dollars in 2009-10, it was raised sharply to 9.81 billion dollars merely in the first five months ( April-August) of 2010-11.  

Since 1988 when foreign investment was brought in Myanmar, that in the sector of oil and gas has hit 11.34 billion USD in 99 projects as of October 2010, accounting for 42 percent of its total foreign investment, latest statistics show.

SINGAPORE, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- The business of online payment facilitator PayPal has been surging in Asia Pacific, local daily the Business Times reported Monday.

"The company has been rapidly driving its growth and gaining momentum across the region by adding over four million users in the past year," said Farhad Irani, PayPal's vice president for Asia Pacific.

Irani said Asia Pacific was the fastest-growing region for PayPal and a big source of the company's growth.

Paypal's total payment volume in the region was nearly 9 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 45 percent year on year. The company's global payment volume was 92 billion U.S. dollars, up 28 percent.

"As you can see, the Asia Pacific region accounts for nearly 10 percent of the company's total transactions and is expanding over 1.5 times faster than the overall company," he said.

PayPal established its international headquarters in Singapore in March last year and announced that it planned to double its presence in Asia.

It signed a deal with leading Singapore lender DBS that allowed the bank's four million customers to debit their bank accounts to fund online purchases done through a PayPal account. It was PayPal 's first-ever bank partnership in Asia Pacific.

The user base of PayPal in Singapore grew by 45 percent year on year to 870,000 by the end of 2010. Its payment volume grew 63 percent and domestic payments, or transactions within Singapore, doubled.

"This is the clearest sign to us that our initiatives are working to grow the domestic e-commerce business in Singapore where local consumers are buying from local merchants using our services," said Irani.

CANBERRA, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- An Australian pilot is missing after his helicopter crashed off Papua New Guinea's (PNG's) north coast, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed on Monday.

The 57-year-old Queensland man has been missing since his helicopter crashed on Sunday in the Bismark Sea 36km south of Manus Island, in PNG's north.

The Pacific Helicopters flight was en route to Manus Island from Madang on a charter trip.

According to the company's managing director, Mal Kela Smith, two helicopters and a plane were searching for the pilot from Sunday, and some wreckage had been found.

"He still might be alive. It's a hope by me," he told The Australian newspaper on Monday.

"I know he is a very fit person and there was a small nearby island he could have swum to, but at this stage it's just a hope."

Smith said that weather conditions were good and the sea was smooth when the helicopter went down.

The Australian had been working in PNG's mining industry for about four years.

The Australian High Commission in Port Moresby of PNG is helping to coordinate the search and an official from PNG's Accident Investigation Commission is heading to Manus Island.

Officials in Canberra of Australia are providing consular assistance to the man's family.

SYDNEY, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- The number of new home loans for Australian owner-occupiers was higher than expected in December, rising 2.1 percent to 51,706, official data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed on Monday.

Economists forecast a 1.0 percent rise in housing finance commitments for December.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said flooding in Queensland did not affect this data collection.

The rise comes despite the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) raising the cash rate from 4.5 percent to 4.75 percent in November.

Ben Jarman, economist at JP Morgan, a leading global financial services firm, said the modest rise in housing finance was in line with his forecast.

"That's pretty good, given that in November we had the RBA's most recent rate rise and that was super-sized by the major banks, " he said.

Jarman said it seems that housing finance numbers had stabilized in a modest upward trend, but further gains may be difficult.

The ABS said total housing finance by value rose by 2.5 percent in December to 21.59 billion AU dollars (21.64 billion U.S. dollars)

The December data marks the sixth straight monthly rise in housing finance commitments, which last fell in June 2010 by 2.6 percent.

"It's an indication the household sector might be a little less cautious," said chief economist Stephen Roberts from Nomura Australia, the stock broker in Australia.

"It adds to the case for a lift in rates at some point in the next few months, but not immediately," he said.

Roberts said he expected a cash rate of 5 percent by May, up from its current 4.75 percent.

CANBERRA, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Business Council of Australia (BCA) on Monday said cuts to disability services and foreign aid should be considered as alternatives to the flood levy.

The Federal Government said 1.805 billion U.S. dollars is needed to help pay for flood and cyclone reconstruction in Queensland and Victoria.

In its pre-budget submission, the BCA, which represents Australia's top 100 companies, said the council would prefer to see the federal government use budget savings, rather than the taxpayer levy, to fund flood recovery efforts.

"Just like every area of government spending we should be seeing that we are getting good value for money," council president Graham Bradley told ABC Radio on Monday. "I am not saying that is a bad use of funding."

But the assistance should be considered against other demands on the government, Bradley said.

Axing the 501 million U.S. dollars Indonesian schools aid program has also been one of a number of measures proposed by the federal coalition to remove the need for a flood levy.

The council also cited reforms to welfare, and the national broadband network (NBN) as areas for possible budget savings.

"We need to be doing everything we can to reduce the (welfare) incentives, including the tax disincentives for people to go back to work," Bradley said.

The council said the NBN is a large demand on the government purse and has not been subject to a cost-benefit analysis.

Meanwhile, BCA also backs calls to establish a new Natural Disaster Fund to provide framework for dealing with future catastrophes.

The Federal Government still needs to win support from crossbench Members of Parliament (MPs) to get its flood levy legislation through.

Independent MP Tony Windsor on Sunday said he was leaning away from supporting the legislation, while fellow independent Bob Katter last week voiced his support for it.

SYDNEY, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Australia's biggest contractor Leighton Holdings Ltd on Monday reported a 25 percent drop in first-half profit and said it expected full-year net profit to fall by more than 20 percent in 2010/11 due to wet weather.

Leighton posted a profit of 218.25 million AU dollars (218.45 million U.S. dollars) for the six months to December 31, down from 288.71 million AU dollars (288.97 million U.S. dollars) in the first-half of 2009/10.

The construction and mining giant posted a record net profit of 611.9 million AU dollars (612.45 million U.S. dollars) last financial year, but said on Monday it expected full year net profit in 2010/11 around 480 million AU dollars (480.43 million U. S. dollars).

Leighton said cost overruns on its troubled Brisbane Airport Link project, wet weather in Queensland and Indonesia and the high Australian dollar had contributed to the result.

New chief executive David Stewart said the result was disappointing, but he said Leighton had a record amount of work in hand.

"While we have issues to deal with, which we are, Leighton has a record 45.6 billion AU dollars (45.64 billion U.S. dollars) of work in hand and most of our major markets -- Australian infrastructure and resources, and most of Asia -- are very positive," he said in a statement.

The recent floods in Queensland, and wet weather in Indonesia, would cost the group around 40 million AU dollars (40.04 million U. S. dollars) over the half year and 100 million AU dollars (100.09 million U.S. dollars) over the full year, the company said.

Stewart said he was conducting a strategic review of some of Leighton's investments.

"We are bringing a rigorous approach to the existing and any new businesses and are focused on reducing costs and increasing margins so as to return Leighton to its historic performance levels," he said.

BRISBANE, Australia, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- One of Australia's most wanted fugitives has been caught in Queensland after being on the run for 15 years, police said on Monday.

Convicted murderer Luke Andrew Hunter, 42, was arrested on Sunday morning in a north Queensland town, police said.

A covert police operation traced Hunter to a home at the town of Herberton in the Atherton Tablelands.

The former farmhand ranked as No. 4 on the nation's most wanted list in 1998 and Queensland's most wanted man.

Sergeant Mal Meadows said Hunter was in the Cairns watch house charged with unlawful escape from custody.

He escaped from the Borallon Correctional Center, a high security prison on the outskirts of Ipswich, west of Brisbane, in February 1996, by breaking through a fence with bolt cutters.

A warrant was issued for Hunter's arrest after his escape.

Hunter had been serving a 21-year term for murdering his lover' s husband. He was sentenced at Newcastle in New South Wales in 1990 and was transferred to Queensland under an interstate agreement.