Current Account Balance

Rank Country Current account balance (million US$)
1 People's Republic of China (PRC) 179,100
2 Japan 174,400
3 Germany 134,800
4 Russia 105,300
5 Saudi Arabia 103,800
6 Norway 63,330
7 Switzerland 50,440
8 Netherlands 50,170
9 Kuwait 40,750
10 Singapore 35,580
11 Venezuela 31,820
12 Sweden 28,610
13 United Arab Emirates 26,890
14 Algeria 25,800
15 Hong Kong 20,900
16 Canada 20,560
17 Malaysia 17,860
18 Libya 14,500
19 Brazil 13,500
20 Iran 13,130
21 Nigeria 12,590
22 Qatar 12,510
23 Taiwan 9,700
24 Finland 8,749
25 Iraq 8,134
26 Angola 7,700
27 Oman 7,097
28 Belgium 6,925
29 Austria 5,913
30 Argentina 5,810
31 Chile 5,063
32 Denmark 4,941
33 Philippines 4,900
34 Luxembourg 4,630
35 Trinidad and Tobago 3,259
36 Azerbaijan 2,737
37 Egypt 2,697
38 Korea, South 2,000
39 Bahrain 1,999
40 Gabon 1,807
41 Botswana 1,698
42 Yemen 1,690
43 Indonesia 1,636
44 Peru 1,515
45 Israel 1,643
46 Uzbekistan 1,410
47 Burma 1,247
48 Republic of the Congo 1,215
49 Vietnam 1,029
50 Ecuador 727
51 Bolivia 688
52 Papua New Guinea 661
53 Namibia 572
54 Ivory Coast 460
55 Cameroon 419
56 Morocco 389
57 Bangladesh 339
58 Turkmenistan 321.2
59 Equatorial Guinea 175
60 British Virgin Islands 134.3 (1999)
61 Kazakhstan 113
62 Cook Islands 26.67 (2005)
63 Palau 15.09 (2004)
64 Tuvalu 2.323 (1998)
65 Samoa -2.428 (2004)
66 Tonga -4.321 (2005)
67 Comoros -17 (2005)
68 Kiribati -19.87 (2004)
69 Swaziland -23.13
70 São Tomé and Pr íncipe -24.4
71 Vanuatu -28.35 (2003)
72 Federated States of Micronesia-34.3 (2005)
73 Anguilla -42.87 (2003)
74 Cape Verde -44.43
75 The Gambia - 54.61
76 Burundi -57.84
77 Haiti -58..72
78 Tajikistan -73.95
79 Lesotho -75.44
80 Seychelles -78.59
81 Antigua and Barbuda -83.4 (2004)
82 Guyana - 84.3
83 Rwanda -104.1
84 Honduras -160
85 Zambia -165.4
86 Republic of Macedonia -167
87 Belize -173.4
88 Malawi -186
89 Ghana -219
90 Armenia -247.3
91 Togo -261.9
92 Zimbabwe - 264.6
93 Kyrgyzstan -287.3
94 Paraguay -300
95 Chad -324.1
96 Benin -342.7
97 Guinea -344
98 Cambodia -369
99 Mexico -400.1
100 Uganda -423
101 Eritrea -440.5
102 Mozambique -444.4
103 Fiji -465.8
104 Panama -467
105 Madagascar -504
106 Laos -404.2
107 Belarus -511.8
108 Syria -529
109 Moldova -561
110 Uruguay -600
111 Burkina Faso -604.6
112 Mauritius -651
113 Albania -679.9
114 Georgia -735
115 Tunisia -760
116 Slovenia -789.2
117 Nicaragua -883
118 Senegal -895.2
119 Thailand - 899.4
120 Tanzania -906
121 Malta -966.2
122 Jamaica -970
123 Cyprus -1,051
124 El Salvador -1,059
125 Sri Lanka -1,118
126 Kenya -1,119
127 Dominican Republic -1,124
128 Costa Rica -1,176
129 Cuba -1,218
130 Guatemala -1,533
131 Bosnia and Herzegovina -1,730
132 Estonia -1,919
133 Ukraine -1,933
134 Colombia -2,219
135 Serbia -2,451 (2005)
136 Latvia -2,538
137 Lithuania -2,572
138 Jordan -2,834
139 Croatia -2,892
140 Iceland -2,932
141 Ethiopia -3,384
142 Slovakia -3,781
143 Czech Republic -4,352
144 Sudan -4,510
145 Poland -4,548
146 Bulgaria -5,100
147 Lebanon -5,339
148 Pakistan -5,486
149 New Zealand -7,944
150 Hungary -8,392
151 Ireland -9,450
152 Romania -12,450
153 South Africa -12,690
154 Portugal -16,750
155 Greece -21,370 ????
156 Italy -23,730
157 Turkey -25,990
158 India -26,400
159 France -38,000
160 Australia -41,620
161 United Kingdom -57,680
162 Spain -98,600
163 United States -862,300

Saving is sin, and spending is virtue...
Interesting article written by an Indian Economist

Japanese save a lot. They do not spend much. Also Japan exports far more than it imports. Has an annual trade surplus of over 100 billions. Yet Japanese economy is considered weak, even collapsing.

Americans spend, save little. Also US imports more than it exports. Has an annual trade deficit of over $400 billion. Yet, the American economy is considered strong and trusted to get stronger.

But where from do Americans get money to spend?

They borrow from Japan, China and even India. Virtually others save for the US to spend. Global savings are mostly invested in US, in dollars.
India itself keeps its foreign currency assets of over $50 billions in US securities. China has sunk over $160 billion in US securities. Japan's stakes in US securities is in trillions.

Result:

The US has taken over $5 trillion from the world. So, as the world saves for the US, Americans spend freely. Today, to keep the US consumption going, that is for the US economy to work, other countries have to remit $180 billion every quarter, which is $2 billion a day, to the US!

A Chinese economist asked a neat question. Who has invested more, US in China, or China in US? The US has invested in China less than half of what China has invested in US.

The same is the case with India. We have invested in US over $50 billion. But the US has invested less than $20 billion in India.

Why the world is after US?
The secret lies in the American spending, that they hardly save. In fact they use their credit cards to spend their future income. That the US spends is what makes it attractive to export to the US. So US imports more than what it exports year after year.

The result:

The world is dependent on US consumption for its growth. By its deepening culture of consumption, the US has habituated the world to feed on US consumption. But as the US needs money to finance its consumption, the world provides the money.

It's like a shopkeeper providing the money to a customer so that the
customer keeps buying from the shop. If the customer will not buy, the shop won't have business, unless the shopkeeper funds him. The US is like the lucky customer. And the world is like the helpless shopkeeper financier.

Who is America's biggest shopkeeper financier? Japan of course. Yet it's Japan which is regarded as weak. Modern economists complain that Japanese do not spend, so they do not grow. To force the Japanese to spend, the Japanese government exerted itself, reduced the savings rates, even charged the savers.

Even then the Japanese did not spend (habits don't change, even with taxes, do they?).. Their traditional postal savings alone is over $1.2 trillions, about three times the Indian GDP. Thus, savings, far from being the strength of Japan, has become its pain.

Hence, what is the lesson?

That is, a nation cannot grow unless the people spend, not save. Not just spend, but borrow and spend.
Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati, the famous Indian-born economist in the US, told Mamohan Singh that Indians wastefully save.. Ask them to spend, on imported cars and, seriously, even on cosmetics! This will put India on a growth curve. This is one of the reason for MNC's coming down to India, seeing the consumer spending.

'Saving is sin, and spending is virtue.'

But before you follow this neo economics, get some fools to save so that you can borrow from them and spend!!!

S'pore 'most competitive'

SINGAPORE has jumped ahead of Hong Kong and the United States to snatch the top spot in a closely watched global ranking of economic competitiveness.

The Republic edged ahead of its rivals to assume pole position for the first time in what the compiler of the annual rankings, Swiss business school IMD, is calling a photo finish.

The gap between the three in this latest assessment of the world's economies - which places Hong Kong second and the US third - is less than 1 per cent.

This year's rankings are an upset to what has become the traditional pecking order and mark the first time since 1994 that the US has failed to trounce the competition.

For most of the 1990s and early 2000s Singapore has ranked second, but in recent years it has alternated with Hong Kong for second and third place.

IMD said Singapore and Hong Kong 'displayed great resilience through the crisis... and are now taking full advantage of strong expansion in the surrounding Asian region'. It was particularly impressed with Singapore's 13 per cent growth in the first quarter of this year.

No cancer link to cellphones?

THE largest study to date of the safety of mobile phones has found no clear link to brain cancer, although it said further study is merited given their increasingly intensive use.

'The study doesn't reveal an increased risk, but we can't conclude that there is no risk because there are enough findings that suggest a possible risk,' the study's chief author, Elisabeth Cardis, told AFP.

The results of the Interphone study, which included 2,708 cases of glioma tumours and 2,409 meningioma tumours in 13 countries over a 10-year period, is due to be published on Tuesday in the International Journal of Epidemiology. It found no increased risk of glioma or meningioma tumours after 10 years of using a mobile phone, although it found 'suggestions of higher risk' for the heaviest users.

The heaviest users who reported using their phones on the same side of their heads had a 40 per cent higher risk for gliomas and 15 per cent for meningiomas, but the researchers said 'biases and errors' prevent making a causal link.

Given that the heaviest users in the study talked an average of half an hour per day on their mobile phones, a figure which is not heavy by today's standards, the researchers recommended further research.

They also cited the need for the study of the impact of mobile phone use among young people, who have rapidly become intensive users, and who were not included in the Interphone study. The researchers noted, however, that the latest mobile phones have lower emissions, and the popularity of hands-free devices and texting reduce exposure to the head.

S'pore, China will remain different

CHINA will take at least another 10 or 15 years before it can catch up with Singapore, and even when it does, the two countries will not be quite the same, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew last night.

He also said that while he expects the connections between the two nations to grow, he believes that Singapore will remain quite different from China because of the city state's ties to the rest of the world.

He told about 140 Singaporeans during a reception in Beijing: 'Singapore is a very different place and it has to be different because we are connected to the world in a way they have not yet been connected to the world.

'And I don't think they ever will be because the foreign intrusion in their economy is marginal whereas the foreign intrusion into our economy is massive, across the board.'

He observed that the nature of the two societies is different. 'We are more rule-based, we do not depend on guanxi (connections). We are more meritocratic, we are more open.

'And we have the advantage of being bilingual,' he said at the event organised by the Singapore Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China.

Going nuts in your diet can cut cholesterol

Going nuts in your diet can be good for your health, according to a study published Monday, which showed that eating nuts helps to lower blood cholesterol levels.

People who ate an average of 67 grams (2.4 ounces) of nuts a day saw a 5.1 per cent fall in total cholesterol concentration and a 7.4 per cent drop in low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) - sometimes referred to as bad cholesterol - concentration compared to no-nut eaters, the study showed.

People with high triglyceride levels who ate nuts saw a 10.2 per cent fall in those blood lipid levels, said the study, which analysed data from 25 trials conducted in seven countries, involving 583 men and women aged 19-86 with high or normal cholesterol levels.

All the trial data that were analysed for the study compared nut-eaters to a control group that did not eat nuts. None of the participants were taking medication to lower their blood lipids.

Researchers led by Dr Joan Sabate of Loma Linda University in California found in the study published Monday in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine that the benefits to health were the same no matter what nut is eaten.

A person's weight and baseline LDL cholesterol levels did, however, influence whatever benefits might be derived from eating nuts.

The higher the starting LDL-C, the greater the cholesterol-lowering effects of nuts, the study found.

And the lower a patient's body mass index -- in other words, if the patient was not overweight or obese -- the greater the effects of nuts on lowering cholesterol levels, the study found, urging more research to determine why nuts are less effective in lowering the blood cholesterol levels of obese people.

A person's diet also played a role in the effect nuts have on blood cholesterol levels.

Consumers of Western diets, which are high in saturated fat, got more benefits from nut-eating than those who already ate a healthy diet, high in monounsaturated olive oil, fish and fresh fruit and vegetables, the study found.

And there's more good news: the data analysed for the study showed that the benefits of eating nuts remain with us for a long time; that nut consumption appears to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes; and, in spite of their high fat content, nuts don't necessarily make us fat.

"Research has shown that frequent nut consumption does not lead to weight gain," said the study.

"Increasing the consumption of nuts as part of an otherwise prudent diet can be expected to favourably affect blood lipid levels... and have the potential to lower coronary heart disease risk," it concluded.

Can Malaysia go the way of Greece becoming a bankrupt country and can Sarawak be spared if Malaysia is bankrupt?

The diagnosis as to how the great nation of Greece ended as a financial “basket-case” are:

Bureaucracy: Greece’s bureaucracy is famous in the whole of Europe ! To open a cafe or pub there are 25 processes to go through! This is a country of rules and regulations.

Bloated civil service: There are 1.05 million civil servants (excluding police and armed forces) . The population of Greece is only 10 million! More than 10% are govt servants! Salary increases every year and benefit for civil servants in Greece is one of the best in Europe! More and more money is needed to upkeep this bloated civil service . The retirement age is 62 yrs old.

Corruption: Greece is the most corrupted nation in the Eurozone. Citizens pay “under table ” money to:

# admit into a public hospital

# pass a driving licence

# to enter public service

# renovate your business premises or your home

# avoid income tax

Every govt project is awarded to political cronies and at hugely inflated prices! Transparency International compared the prices of the construction costs of stadiums built for the Athens Olympics recently with similar structures in China –500% more expensive than the Chinese , compared to Los Angeles and Sydney — 50 % more expensive!! All these with tax payers money and borrowings!

Tax evasion: Officially 80% of its citizens are supposed to pay tax but only 37% are doing so. Big businessmen and corporations have refined tax evasion to a fine art (or have the tax men taken some coffee money?)

No transparency in governance: The politicians and bureaucrats falsified economic data and painted a rosy and manageable picture while the economy was rotting away.

Unabated borrowings: Meanwhile, the politicians and bureaucrats continue to issue government bonds to keep afloat, series after series. They were trying to cover up the financial mess they have created creating one big hole to cover up the previous!

Lacking political will power to reform: To keep hold on to political power, politicians are prepared to lie, commit economic and political fraud. If reforms were taken some five years ago, the country need not go bankrupt and its citizens need not suffer so much. Political expediency and greed to political power over-rides everything and hence Greece is now a bankrupt country. Luckily, it is part of the European Union and its currency is EUROs, otherwise Greeks will have to eat grass to survive!

Laid back attitude: Tourism is THE ONLY industry in Greece and over the years the Greeks have had an easy time. Many flocked to see the historical sites and enjoy summer vacation on the islands. But they forgot that not many tourists will return after visiting the sites –there are so many other tourists attractions in the world, maybe more exotic and perhaps cheaper! So once tourism wanes and coupled with higher costs of living, the Greeks could not and refused to adapt and transform – still partying and having a nice time; maybe the Greek Gods will bless them! Greece have no natural resources, no electronics industry, no R & D –no anything! They were so laid-back –cannot see what is coming and crashing down on them. Even now, the civil servants refused to take a pay cut — the world owes them a living!

Conclusion: The producer of the documentary had hired a taxi driver to go around while doing this documentary. The taxi driver had studied economics for four years in US and this was his parting words:

“My biggest mistake was returning 15 years ago, I should have stayed back in US. My nationalist instinct made me returned. The politicians screwed me. I loved my country but my country did not love me.”

Tomato protection

A compound found in dehydrated tomatoes may help quash prostate cancer tumours, new animal research suggests.

Researchers believe that FruHis, a form of carbohydrate found in dehydrated tomatoes, may inhibit the initial development of prostate tumours.

Past studies have come to conflicting conclusions as to whether tomatoes or lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomatoes, might offer prostate cancer protection, with one recent study finding no correlation between men’s blood levels of lycopene and their risk of prostate cancer.

However, the new findings, reported in the journal Cancer Research, suggest that the processing of the tomato may be a key factor.

Researchers found that a form of carbohydrate called FruHis, found in dehydrated tomatoes, appeared to protect rats from developing prostate tumours. The greatest protection came from dehydrated tomatoes that had been rehydrated into tomato paste and supplemented with additional FruHis.

The findings could aid in developing new, less toxic cancer therapies, said lead researcher Dr Valeri V. Mossine, of the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Mossine and his colleagues divided rats into four groups: one group was fed a diet of normal chow, while the other three groups were given chow supplemented with tomato powder, tomato paste, or tomato paste with added FruHis. All of the animals were treated with chemicals designed to induce prostate tumours.

Rats on the high-FruHis diet lived longer than the other three groups. What’s more, the researchers found prostate tumours in only 18% of these animals after death, compared with 63% of rats given normal chow, and 43% and 39% of animals given tomato powder and standard tomato paste, respectively.

Looking at FruHis activity in the lab dish, the researchers found that it might work in two ways.

First, the compound seemed to act like an antioxidant, protecting cells’ DNA from oxidative damage that can lead to cancer. Then, when combined with lycopene, FruHis was able to kill off prostate cancer cells.

So in theory, Mossine explained, FruHis may inhibit the initial development of prostate tumours and, in concert with lycopene, hinder the growth and spread of such tumours.

It’s too soon, however, for men to start eating tomato paste in the hopes of thwarting prostate cancer. "The most important next step would be conducting trials on humans," Mossine said.

Further lab work, he added, could also shed light on whether there are other compounds in dried vegetables or fruits that "work along" with FruHis.

"In my opinion, this study will make the cancer research community aware of a novel type of potential antioxidant and chemopreventive agent that may arise as a result of food processing," Mossine said.

"Hopefully, it will help to attract more attention and support to the prostate cancer prevention research area." –