EL 5101 SCV 6 Ivan Tee M11506

Top News for the week (27/2/2011-5/3/2011)

Local:
No impact on tariffs after 1961 water agreement expires

The Minister for environment and water resources, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, has assured
Singaporeans that the water tariffs will not increase, and our water supply would not be
reduced although the expiry of the 1961 Water agreement is in August this year. Dr
Ibrahim also revealed that Singapore aims to be self-efficient in water by 2060, one
year before the second water agreement expires in 2061. As such, the government is
improving our other three ‘national taps’ of NEWater, desalination water and reservoirs
as well as reducing water usage as a whole on a corporate level and on a domestic
level.

New Sengkang hospital by 2020

A new general hospital will be slated to open in Sengkang by 2020 together with an
adjoining community hospital, modeling after Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH) in Yishun
and the new general hospital in Jurong, which is to be named Ng Teng Fong Hospital
(NTFH), after the late founding chairman of Far East Organisation. This new hospital in
Sengkang will serve Singapore’s northeast, and together with Tan Tock Seng Hospital
(central), Changi General Hospital (east), National University Hospital (southwest),
Singapore General Hospital (south), KTPH (north) and NTFH (west), they will help the
ministry achieve their vision of bringing healthcare close to each resident in Singapore.

Starhub cracks down on illegal setup boxes

Cable TV operator Starhub has reiterated their will to clamp down hard on consumers
who use an illegal setup box to receive their signals and watch their channels at a
cheaper price. While this is against the law, many people still commit this crime, and
Starhub has not only taken the wrongdoers to court, but also employed technological
methods to render these illegal setup boxes useless.

International:

Tension still high in the Middle East and North Africa

With the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passing down a resolution placing
sanctions and travel bans on Libya and freezing Gaddafi’s assets, Libya’s government
has rebutted the sanctions placed on them and called for them to be removed. Yet, with
an estimated 6000 deaths by human rights groups, it is hard to believe that the
government did respect ‘human rights’ and show ‘greatest restraint’ as so they argued.
Also, it is feared that Libyan arms might eventually end up in the hands of terrorists,
seeing how easily the rebels obtained them. Elsewhere in the region, in Yemen and
Bahrain, protests have began to show signs of violence, while in Egypt and Tunisia,
pressure is mounting on the interim governments for more reforms and for democratic
elections to be held soon. Nonetheless, analysts expect these protests to increase the
price of oil, especially after oil prices reached two-year high levels recently.

New iPad revealed

Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled the iPad 2, which is thinner and lighter than the first
version. iPad 2 has a front and rear-facing video camera to enable video chatting. The
iPad is available in white and black, and the price of one would be similar to that of the
first version. With the iPad, competitors in this industry of producing tablets for
consumers would have to go back and re-think their strategies to beat Apple.
Competitors such as Motorola and Samsung released their tablets- Xoom, Galaxy Tab

China increases spending on military

Premier Wen Jiabao has vowed to build up a strong and powerful military with a double
digit percentage increase in military spending. While this campaign has alarmed many
foreign powers, China has asserted that it would not attack other nations. Also, with the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) having the world’s largest army, the guess is that this
budget would be used to modernise the air and sea defence.

The Straits Times, Saturday, March 5, 2011

Chinese sports brands try to match big boys

Snapshot:
This article mainly talks about Chinese sports brands trying to bring their names
abroad, while fighting with established brands such as Adidas and Nike as they try
to break into the smaller cities’ market by offering cheaper shoes than they usually
do. The Chinese brands, such as Anta, Peak and Li Ning, on the other hand, are
trying to break out of the Chinese market into the global market by signing up
athletes, especially from the American National Basketball Association (NBA). This
will give them the cool factor that will allow them to expand overseas. However,
Peak, which has sponsored NBA stars and has recently gained popularity in the
United States, has a marketing strategy targeted at the Chinese audience. Li Ning
on the other hand, has been rather stale in the market with their orders decreasing
which analysts attribute to their in the ‘middle’- they are not as cool as Nike or
Adidas, but they are not as cheap as other Chinese brands as well. 166 words

Comment:
Previously, in the sports apparel market, only names like Nike, Adidas or Puma took
the centre-stage, as they were well established brands with big names endorsing
their products, and their products had a cool factor linked to it, thus attracting more
consumers to buy their products. The prices of their products were thus expensive
as well, with consumers paying for the brand appeal in addition to the product.

However, with the Chinese economy growing in power, more Chinese sports apparel
brands are starting to surface and spread their business abroad so that they can
have a share in the global market of the sports apparel industry. Yet, the
competition they face are not easy, and the playing ground is not leveled as Nike,
Adidas, Puma and other Western sports apparel brands have established names
worldwide, and for these Chinese brands to join them in that ‘club’ would be
difficult.

One of the reasons why these Chinese brands are still unable to be on the same
status as these established brands could be due to their lack of the ‘cool’ factor, as
stated in the article. This ‘cool’ factor involves the design of their products, the
endorsement deals with athletes and how their peers rate the brand itself. The idea
is, if a product, which in this case is the sport apparel, has people talking about how
cool it is, then there would be peer pressure to a certain extent, making more buy
the product, trying it, and recommending it to more people.

Another possible reason on why Chinese brands cannot be comparable to the

Western brands could be due to the stereotype of Chinese products being lousy in
quality. Then again, many forget that Nike and Adidas products are made in China
as well. The technology used in making the Adidas shoe and the Peak shoe might be
different, but unless you are a professional athlete, would it really matter whether it
is Adidas or Peak if both were of the same international reputation?

I have seen some Chinese brand basketball shoes, and have heard as well that they
are much cheaper than their Western counterparts. In some cases, the durability of
the Chinese brands’ shoes are much better than the Western brands’!

Since the quality is about the same, the next factor would be about endorsements
deals. With Chinese crazy over basketball more than any other sport, these Chinese
brands make use of this appeal by signing endorsement deals with NBA stars, and
while this tactic is mainly to appeal to their local population, it has also caught
many consumer’s eyes in the US as well. One example would be the recent NBA All-
Star Weekend which had an All-Star match and a dunk contest as well as other
contests. In the dunk contest, a player endorsed by Peak participated, and although
he did not go on to win the contest, he caught the attention of many Americans with
his unique shoe pairing. This made Peak noticed in the US, where it plans to
expand.

In Singapore, being the materialistic society we are, we would only go for ‘quality’
goods, and thus, sport shops in Singapore hardly sell the products of these Chinese
brands. Probably, it is time for us to look at them at a different light and put Li Ning
and Peak on the same level as Adidas and Nike. After all, who ever said they cannot
produce ‘cool’ products? 572 words

Vocabulary:
Vocabulary Word Guessed meaning Dictionary meaning
Headlong charge Giving it all Quick entrance
Snazzy Appealing Stylish
Resonate Match To be received or understood
Coup (business) Successful gain Brilliant and notable success
Street cred Attention Credibility among fashionable
street youths