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China Economy Fall, Asian Stocks up by this Result

China's economy grew at its weakest pace in 2-1/2 years in the latest quarter and it appeared headed for an even sharper slowdown in the coming months as export demand fades and the housing market falters.

The fourth-quarter year-on-year growth of 8.9 percent, although slightly stronger than the 8.7 percent that economists polled by Reuters had predicted, may give Beijing yet another reason to gently ease monetary policy, most likely by reducing the amount of reserves that large banks must hold.

China’s economy expanded at the slowest pace in 10 quarters as export demand moderated and a prolonged campaign against consumer and property-price gains cooled growth.

Tuesday's data showed net exports subtracted from 2011 growth while consumption contributed more than half. Some analysts think China's first-quarter growth will be below 8 percent threshold seen as the minimum for assuring sufficient job creation.

Singapore STI Market Updates

With the ABSD in place, private home sales this year will largely depend on the economic outlook and the resilience of foreign interest. Forecasts by property consultants indicated sales of 9,000 to 14,000.

M1 was the first to introduce specific price segmentation based on usage of 3G mobile data plans. Going forward, it looks to extend the same pricing principle to its Long Term Evolution (or 4G) data bundles by repackaging them according to customer usage. Such a pricing change could help to recoup the high acquisition costs of data customers.

To achieve a higher trading volume, SGX will strategically introduce new products such as exchange-traded funds and algorithmic trading. Though such initiatives are sound, CIMB highlighted they would probably only yield significant results in the longer term and maintained its ‘Underperform’ rating.

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