Oooh you rich guy, you. A whole million. And a lunch offer to boot. Nop thanks...I only hang out brits who have atleast 10 mil in the bank. That way I know that they have atleast had their teeth fixed. Be a little charitable to yourself and find out what does having FX reserves mean. :)
You mean like what GREAT China has, over $286billion 
^ What does that mean $2B. ?
Silly boy 2b, surely you mean over $339 billion as of May 2003. Ah, Great China just got GREATER
$2B chanda, the $336 B for China maybe worth less than what India has. Ask me how. Hint- It has to do with the makeup of the economy. Why would a country need 1/3 of it’s GDP in foreign reserves? 
Enjoy 
GLOBAL VIEW
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB...s
%255Fhs
China’s Economy Is a Paper Tiger
By HUGO RESTALL
Americans seem to be fixating these days on the idea of China stealing away American jobs. The timing is puzzling because fear of China among its developing-country neighbors, who had much more plausible reasons to worry about the impact of this rising competitor in the same economic niches, has peaked and started to fade. Instead, Asians seem to have realized that not only is the China threat overrated, but the country is an engine of growth that benefits them.
It’s perhaps understandable that Americans are very aware of their country’s trade deficit at a time when our economy, while growing, isn’t producing many new jobs yet. And China is the natural scapegoat, since bilateral trade was $103 billion out of balance last year in favor of Chinese exporters, the biggest deficit America has with any single country.
In the world of public perception, it doesn’t matter that the goods the Americans are buying from China are largely low-tech commodities that we were already buying from other countries at higher prices. Or that the goods the U.S. is selling to China are on the whole more sophisticated products, and the American companies which make them need to capture a significant share of this new and growing market in order to maintain an edge over global competitors.
In fact, U.S. and Chinese economic interests are quite closely aligned, because the two economies are so complementary. You might even say that China is an economic colony of the U.S., with its currency so tightly pegged to the dollar and American companies using it as a base for their low-cost manufacturing.
That might seem like a strange idea given how nationalistic the Beijing regime is. But consider the government’s actual behavior, and it’s not hard to imagine that if Paul Bremer were running China instead of Hu Jintao, he’d be accused of exploiting the country’s economy to benefit the U.S. and other Western countries.
First of all, the most productive sector of the economy is largely run by foreigners, for the benefit of foreigners. China may boast of being the largest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world, but it got that way in part by offering preferential tax treatment and other incentives to multinational companies. Those ventures in turn export not only their products, but also their profits, often hidden by manipulating the prices used for transactions within the companies.
The Chinese government, meanwhile, has been burning through its people’s savings like an Internet company, to provide employment to hundreds of millions of workers. While a few state-owned companies are well run, they are the exception to the rule. Officially, the state sector is profitable, racking up $31.8 billion in net profits last year. But much, if not all of that is an illusion, the result of government investment and bank loans being booked as profit.
This happens because the true cost of capital to a state-owned company in China is effectively zero. Officially, the state-owned banks charge interest, but it’s understood that they will continue to lend increasing amounts of money to the companies for the foreseeable future. Since Chinese continue to save at a high rate and have nowhere to put their nest eggs beside accounts at state banks, this is sustainable for now, but not forever.
The financial open vein is particularly debilitating as it means private entrepreneurs have trouble staying in business. In almost every industry there is overcapacity because the state companies pile into product categories where there are profits to be made until there are no more profits. Then they continue producing, even at a loss. As a result, private companies which are concerned with making a return on their investment are driven out. Some are nimble enough to keep finding new niches, but by and large the only reliable way to recoup one’s cost of capital is to be in an industry with high barriers to entry, natural or regulatory.
This is reminiscent of South Korea right before the Asian Crisis. The chaebols had the same “if we build it, the demand will come” mentality about continuously expanding capacity. By the eve of the crisis, the top 50 business groups in South Korea, whose sales accounted for over 97% of GDP, were making a net loss. At least South Korea had already achieved developed country status, with companies that had proven records of entrepreneurial success and global brands, not to mention reserves of human capital to draw on. China has to face the challenge at a much earlier stage, albeit with one big advantage, a low national debt.
So Beijing is monopolizing the hard-earned capital of its people, which could have been devoted to building globally competitive companies, and is instead throwing it down thousands of state-owned ratholes so that Chinese workers can produce cheap products for American consumers to enjoy. The Chinese government then takes away the dollars earned by selling these products and loans them back to the U.S. at low rates so that those American consumers can keep on buying and American companies can keep investing.
There’s still time for China to get wise. But the point here is that Americans should be sanguine about China’s development model. Thanks to Beijing’s own policies, China is giving us cheap capital, cheap manufactured goods sold without profit and a market for sophisticated, high value-added goods. At the end of the day, China will be left with uncompetitive companies, depleted savings and a balance-sheet recession. It will have to sell off the distressed assets of its failed banking system, at which point Western companies can buy up even more of the economy at fire-sale prices.
Since the two economies are complementary, it’s ultimately not in the U.S. interest for Beijing to continue with its self-defeating policies. A sudden collapse would hurt the U.S. because the market for U.S. Treasurys might be disrupted, social unrest could damage American-owned factories and the market for U.S. goods could dry up. In short, Americans should be somewhat concerned about China, but not for the reason they think. The good deal they’re getting now can’t last forever.
Lookslike Great China is getting GREATER.
June 2003 reserves = $347 billion
China is engine of global economy: central bankers
"‘China is the engine of the global economy,’ Mr Trichet said after the meeting at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), adding that the economic prospects for the world’s most populous nation were ‘good’. "
http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/story/0,4567,93321,00.html
Factory output soars in booming China
“The industrial output retains its strong momentum and is expected to drive economic growth,” said Song Guoqing, chief economist at China Stock Exchange Executive Council, an independent think-tank.
He forecast gross domestic product (GDP) in the world’s sixth-largest economy would grow between eight and nine percent in the third quarter year-on-year, an extraordinarily robust rate compared with the floundering U.S. and Japanese economies."
balle balle indeed 
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*Originally posted by Faisal: *
Folks... pls keep the discussion progressively constructive. Lets not bring WA-like thrashing here. Know what I mean? :)
[/QUOTE]
A reminder.
Honeywell rejects China in favor of India for huge plant
Well Done Honey! TN Lures US Giant Away From China
KAVITHA VENKATRAMAN
CHENNAI, SEPT 26: US-based Honeywell International is planning to set up a Rs 300-crore greenfield factory in Tamil Nadu (TN) for manufacturing speciality fibres. The US giant has zeroed in on TN for setting up the project after it dumped its plans to set up the unit in China. Investment in TN will be Honeywell’s first commitment outside the US in the speciality fibre business.
Honeywell is a $22 billion business conglomerate with varied interests in lubricants and other petroleum products and by-products. It is a technology major manufacturer of aerospace products and services, control technologies for buildings, homes and industry, automotive products, power generation systems, speciality chemicals, fibres, plastics and advanced materials. The US company already has its electronics division in New Delhi and its software division is housed in Bangalore.
Sources close to the development told FE that Honeywell has “almost decided” to set up its speciality fibre manufacturing unit near Chennai. This will be the company’s first investment outside the US in this line of business. “They have zeroed in on Tamil Nadu for setting up the unit after rejecting several proposal to set up the unit in China. The company has shown interest in building their facility on the outskirts of Chennai. Team of experts including Mr Willam Hague, director, engineering, have visited the site twice and have expressed interest in investing in Chennai,” sources said. Another technical team from Honeywell had also visited the state recently, they added.
Honeywell, according to sources, would be investing over Rs 300 crore in the facility. The manufacturing unit would come up in about 40 acres of land the in the industrial estate permitted by the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamilnadu (SIPCOT) in Sriperumbudur near Chennai.
Now thass wa am talking about.
Nice one ford, China make more big $dollar$, This great nation is going from strength to strength, putting men into space, booming economy huge ongoing construction projects…the list is impressively endless.
**Ford Announces $1 Billion China Expansion **
U.S. auto giant Ford Motor Co F.N said on Friday it would boost investment by more than $1 billion over the next few years as part of ambitious expansion plans in the world’s fastest-expanding major car market.
“The automotive future of China is very bright and we are participating fully in its growth. I am pleased to reaffirm our long-term plans for China,” chief executive officer Bill Ford told reporters on his first trip to China.