When China announced its colossal $600-billion stimulus package back in November, we cautioned investors against irrational exuberance on the overall impact it would have on commodities, stocks and heavy equipment.

Now that the dust has cleared, it appears that the China plan is not entirely as big as advertised — further diminishing the halo effect on the global economy.

When originally unveiled, China’s $600-billion plan proposed a massive infrastructure build-out through 2010 to help create jobs and shift the country away from it’s over-reliance on exports, which have suffered from the global recession.

The announcement was framed as a brand-new initiative. The blueprint China laid out before the world included projects for low-cost housing, airports, roads, highways and aid to farmers. Pundits saw the investment by China as an overnight boom for raw materials, although we took a wait-and-see approach.

Asian stock markets surged on news. Japan’s Nikkei index jumped 5.8% while Hong Kong’s

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Sponsored by Sichuan government's office in Beijing and the Sichuan Entrepreneurs Association in Beijing, Beijing Chuantotem Trading Company has been opened in Beijing. The company, which is reportedly the first Chinese chain store company that focuses on the Sichuan specialty products, currently has 14 stores in Beijing and five stores in Tangshan, Hebei, providing famous Sichuan [...]

The Sichuan-based convenience store chain Wowo has received a USD10 million investment from the private equity firm ARC Investment Partners and the Chinese retailer is now preparing for listing on Nasdaq to become the first Sichuan retail company that is listed in the United States. According to Zhang Yifa, ARC's investment partner in China, Wowo has [...]

The Chinese government announced that it will spend $146.5 billion ($1 trillion RMB) over the next three years on Sichuan earthquake reconstruction. Plus, China increased its budget on infrastructure --- roads, bridges, ports, etc --- from 2 trillion to 5 trillion RMB over the next five years. Somebody is going to get very rich from that massive infrastructure spending.

- The city of Beijing recorded a lower economic growth than the national average during the first three quarters of 2008, a report of the Municipal Statistics Bureau revealed. The city's total output stood at RMB758.63 bn, up 9.1 per cent. The national average was up 9.9 per cent. - Geologists have discovered 1,202 mineral fields since 2006. These fields could "greatly reduce the country's dependence on imported minerals", the Ministry of Land and Resources said in a statement. - The number of visits to China dropped in September year-on-year, state media reports. New figures from the China National Tourism Administration shows that the number of inbound travels decreased 5.94 per cent to 10.56 million. Reasons singled out for the decline: Higher hotel prices, fewer visas granted and the global financial crisis. - Revenue from inbound tourism from January to September decreased 3.26 ...

It is estimated that China will spend $42 billion to host the Olympics. To put that into perspective, that is almost three times what Greece spent on the Athens Olympics and roughly the cost of Hurricane Katrina reconstruction. That infrastructure build out has certainly been a major boost to the Chinese economy, but China plans on spending even more on the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai and the Sichuan earthquake reconstruction is expect to cost $140 billion. The Chinese building boom is going to last for a lot longer.

China's industrial-production growth accelerated on rising exports, signaling that the world's fourth-biggest economy is weathering a global slowdown. Output rose 16 percent in May from a year earlier after gaining 15.7 percent in April, the statistics bureau said today.Overseas shipments surged last month and retail-sales growth was close to the highest in nine years, keeping factories busy even as the deadliest earthquake in 32 years disrupted output in Sichuan province. The shortening of a weeklong May holiday to a three-day break boosted production. Sichuan's small role in China's manufacturing limited the May 12 disaster's effect on production. Quake reconstruction work is boosting output of some products like steel sheets for housing. Raw-coal production rose 18.5 percent in May from a year earlier after gaining 13.9 percent in April. Crude-oil output climbed 1.8 percent in May after increasing 0.5 ...

I don't mean to turn this into a Hollywood tabloid blog, but I wanted to show how authoritarian the Chinese government is. In fact, I think twice before I say anything about the Chinese government. Sharon Stone made the insensitive remarks about the Sichuan earthquake being 'karma' for government poor treatment of Tibet. Not only has Christian Dior fired Stone as their representative in Asia, she was removed from the celebrity invitation list from the Shanghai Film Festival as well as having all her movies permanently banned from being played in China.

If you want to do business in Asia, you need to be careful about what you say. Sharon Stone, the model/spokesperson for Christian Dior in Asia, recently said the Sichuan earthquake was 'karma' for its treatment of Tibet. That insensitive remark outraged the Chinese. Not only has Christian Dior dropped Stone from its Asian advertising campaign, the Christian Dior booth at the Hong Kong mall I visited was deader than a doornail. The other cosmetic counters were doing brisk business...but Christian Dior was dead. A similar boycott happened to French grocery retailers Carrefour when the Olympic torch was aggressively protested during its journey through France.