China ship detected ‘pulse signals’ are consistent with MH370 aircraft black box

This photograph taken on July 24, 2013 shows crew members standing on the deck of the vessel "Haixun 01"

Chinese patrol ship picks up signal in Indian Ocean

China’s patrol ship, the Haixun 01, has picked up pulses with a frequency of 37.5 kilo hertz in the ...

MH370 search: Signal detected 'consistent' with black box, says Australian ex-military chief

Chinese aircraft spots new floating objects in search of MH370

A Chinese air force plane searching for missing Malaysian passenger jet MH370 spotted a number of white floating objects in the search area Saturday.

Ships sent to verify suspicious pulse signal Xinhuanet 2014-04-05

Verification underway after Chinese ship detects suspicious ... Xinhuanet 2014-04-06

Shared publicly

Planes and ships continue criss-cross search grid fo flight MH370 in Indian ocean | Watch News Videos Onlinehttp://globalnews.ca/video/1252652
 
PERTH, Australia — A Chinese ship involved in the hunt for the missing Malaysian jetliner reported hearing a “pulse signal” Saturday in southern Indian Ocean waters with the same frequency emitted by the plane’s data recorders, as Malaysia vowed not to give up the search for the aircraft.

The Australian government agency coordinating the search for the missing plane said early Sunday that the electronic pulse signals reportedly detected by the Chinese ship are consistent with those of an aircraft black box. But retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the head of the search coordination agency, said they “cannot verify any connection” at this stage between the electronic signals and the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

Military and civilian planes, ships with deep-sea searching equipment and a British nuclear submarine scoured a remote patch of the southern Indian Ocean off Australia’s west coast, in an increasingly urgent hunt for debris and the “black box” recorders that hold vital information about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370′s last hours.

After weeks of fruitless looking, the multinational search team is racing against time to find the sound-emitting beacons in the flight and cockpit voice recorders that could help unravel the mystery of the plane’s fate. The beacons in the black boxes emit “pings” so they can be more easily found, but the batteries only last for about a month.

A Chinese ship that is part of the search effort detected a “pulse signal” in southern Indian Ocean waters, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. Xinhua, however, said it had not yet been determined whether the signal was related to the missing plane, citing the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center.

Xinhua said a black box detector deployed by the ship, Haixun 01, picked up a signal at 37.5 kilohertz (cycles per second), the same frequency emitted by flight data recorders. Malaysia’s civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, confirmed that the frequency emitted by Flight 370′s black boxes were 37.5 kilohertz and said authorities were verifying the report.

Earlier Saturday, Xinhua reported that a Chinese military aircraft searching for the missing aircraft spotted “white floating objects” not far from where the electronic signals were detected.

Finding floating wreckage is key to narrowing the search area, as officials can then use data on currents to backtrack to where the plane hit the water, and where the flight recorders may be.

Houston said the Australian-led Joint Agency Coordination Centre heading the search operation could not yet verify the Chinese reports and had asked China for “any further information that may be relevant.” He said the Australian air force was considering deploying more aircraft to the area where the Chinese ship reportedly detected the sounds.

“I have been advised that a series of sounds have been detected by a Chinese ship in the search area. The characteristics reported are consistent with the aircraft black box,” Houston said, adding that the Australian-led agency had also received reports of the white objects sighted on the ocean surface about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from where the electronic signals were detected.

“However, there is no confirmation at this stage that the signals and the objects are related to the missing aircraft,” Houston said.

Still, Malaysia’s defense minister and acting transport minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, was hopeful. “Another night of hope – praying hard,” he tweeted in response to the latest discoveries.

There are many clicks, buzzes and other sounds in the ocean from animals, but the 37.5 kilohertz pulse was selected for underwater locator beacons on black boxes because there is nothing else in the sea that would naturally make that sound, said William Waldock, an expert on search and rescue who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.

“They picked that (frequency) so there wouldn’t be false alarms from other things in the ocean,” he said.

Honeywell Aerospace, which made the boxes in the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, said the Underwater Acoustic Beacons on both the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder operate at a frequency of 37.5 kilohertz plus or minus 1 kilohertz.

Waldock cautioned that “it’s possible it could be an aberrant signal” from a nuclear submarine if there was one in the vicinity.

If the sounds can be verified, it would reduce the search area to about 10 square kilometers (4 square miles), Waldock said. Unmanned robot subs with sidescan sonar would then be sent into the water to try to locate the wreckage, he said.

John Goglia, a former U.S. National Transportation Safety Board member, called the report “exciting,” but cautioned that “there is an awful lot of noise in the ocean.”

“One ship, one ping doesn’t make a success story,” he said. “It will have to be explored. I guarantee you there are other resources being moved into the area to see if it can be verified.”

The Boeing 777 disappeared March 8 while en route from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing with 239 people aboard. So far, no trace of the jet has been found.

Hishammuddin, the Malaysian defense minister, told reporters in Kuala Lumpur that the cost of mounting the search was immaterial compared to providing solace for the families of those on board by establishing what happened.

EPA/ABIS JULIANNE CROPLEY/AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCEA handout picture made available by the Australian Department of Defense (DOD) on 02 April 2014 shows the HMAS Success searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, at sea in the southern Indian Ocean, 31 March 2013. 

“I can only speak for Malaysia, and Malaysia will not stop looking for MH370,” Hishammuddin said.

He said an independent investigator would be appointed to lead a team that will try to determine what happened to Flight 370. The team will include three groups: One will look at airworthiness, including maintenance, structures and systems; another will examine operations, such as flight recorders and meteorology; and a third will consider medical and human factors.

The investigation team will include officials and experts from several nations, including Australia – which as the nearest country to the search zone is currently heading the hunt – China, the United States, Britain and France, Hishammuddin said.

Officials have said the hunt for the wreckage is among the hardest ever undertaken, and will get much harder if there are no confirmed debris sightings and the beacons fall silent before they are found.

If that happens, the only hope for finding the plane may be a full survey of the Indian Ocean floor, an operation that would take years and an enormous international operation.

Hishammuddin said there were no new satellite images or data that can provide new leads for searchers. The focus now is fully on the ocean search, he said.

Two ships – the Australian navy’s Ocean Shield and the British HMS Echo – carrying sophisticated equipment that can hear the recorders’ pings returned Saturday to an area investigators hope is close to where the plane went down. They concede the area they have identified is a best guess.

Up to 13 military and civilian planes and nine other ships took part in the search Saturday, the Australian agency coordinating the search said.

Because the U.S. Navy’s pinger locator can pick up signals to a depth of 6,100 meters (20,000 feet), it should be able to hear the plane’s data recorders even if they are in the deepest part of the search zone – about 5,800 meters (19,000 feet). But that’s only if the locator gets within range of the black boxes – a tough task, given the size of the search area and the fact that the pinger locator must be dragged slowly through the water at just 1 to 5 knots (1 to 6 mph).

Australia’s Houston acknowledged the search area was essentially a best guess, and noted the time when the plane’s locator beacons would shut down was “getting pretty close.”

The overall search area is a 217,000-square-kilometer (84,000-square-mile) zone in the southern Indian Ocean, about 1,700 kilometers (1,100 miles) northwest of the western Australian city of Perth.

-  Nick Perry and Eileen Ng, Associated Press
Ng reported from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Associated Press writers Gillian Wong in Kuala Lumpur, Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, Kristen Gelineau and Rohan Sullivan in Sydney, and Joan Lowy in Washington contributed to this report.

Related posts:

Search for missing MH370 jet could turn on robot subs

This 2011 photo provided by Sylvain Pascaud shows the ship Alucia and the REMUS 6000 robot sub during the search for Air France Flight 447....

• 
  
  

  • Searching the vast seabed of jet hunt zone mostly flat with one trench for MH370

  • Chinese families stage mass walkout, demanded China's inquiry into mysterious Flight MH370
• Black box scanners arrive Australia as search for MH370 pins hope on new satellite images 

•  Families filing lawsuits over MH370 while new 122 objects identified by a French satellite

• Flight MH370 ended in southern Indian Ocean! All 239 lives lost, British Inmarsat & AAIB cited, no evidence 

• Chinese satellite spots large new object could be related to missing MH370

Search for missing MH370 jet could turn on robot subs

This 2011 photo provided by Sylvain Pascaud shows the ship Alucia and the REMUS 6000 robot sub during the search for Air France Flight 447. Unmanned subs, also called autonomous underwater vehicles or AUVs, played a critical role in locating the wreckage of the lost Air France jet, two years after it crashed in the middle of the south Atlantic. The find allowed searchers to recover the black boxes that revealed the malfunctions behind the tragedy. Sylvain Pascaud, Associated Press

Two miles down or more and darker than night, the ocean becomes a particularly challenging place for human searchers.

If the wreckage of a missing Malaysian airliner rests somewhere in the Indian Ocean's depths, then investigators will likely need to entrust the hunt at least partly to robot submarines and the scientists who deploy them to scan remote swaths of the seafloor.

Such unmanned subs, called autonomous underwater vehicles or AUVs, played a critical role in locating the carcass of a lost Air France jet in 2011, two years after it crashed in the middle of the south Atlantic. The find allowed searchers to recover the black boxes that revealed the malfunctions behind the tragedy.

That search keyed off critical information: The search area for the Air France jet was much smaller than that for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, and the first pieces of wreckage were recovered within days of the crash.

Even then, it required two years and four deep water search missions before a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, using an AUV equipped with side-scan sonar, located the jet about 12,800 feet (3,900 meters) underwater.

"Air France 447 is a bit different from Malaysian Air 370 in that we had a few more clues to work with," said Dave Gallo, who led the search team from Woods Hole, located on Massachusetts' Cape Cod. The independent research institution has offered its services to investigators but has not been asked to join the current search effort.

Before unmanned subs can be sent down to look for the Malaysian jet, the search zone must be narrowed considerably. That depends on finding wreckage on the surface. Officials cautioned Wednesday that search planes, which have scoured the ocean for more than three weeks without finding any sign of the downed jet, aren't certain to find any wreckage and that investigators may not be able to determine the reason for its disappearance.

The size of the search area changes daily because of factors such as currents; on Wednesday it was 85,000 square miles (221,000 square kilometers).

But if investigators can zero in on an approximate crash location, they will likely turn to AUVs to begin the methodical task of tracking back and forth across miles of ocean floor in search of anomalies that might be wreckage.

"I like to think of it as mowing the lawn. You want to cover every bit of it," Gallo said.

"You need a little bit of luck and a lot of prayer that the oceans are going to cooperate, and then off you go."

The unmanned subs used by the Woods Hole team were developed as tools to research and monitor relatively shallow coastal waters, measuring variables like salinity and temperature over wide areas for hours on end. But AUVs are increasingly harnessed to perform some of the most demanding underwater jobs.

The U.S. Navy uses them to search for underwater mines because they can stay below the surface of even very cold water much longer than any diver, without the worry of exposing a human to danger. Energy companies employ unmanned subs to survey the floor at underwater drill sites.

In 2009, California's Waitt Institute sent down a pair of AUVs that surveyed more than 2,000 square miles of South Pacific ocean bottom over 72 days in an unsuccessful search for Amelia Earhart's plane.

The area off western Australia where search planes and aircraft are looking for the Malaysian jet slopes from about 2,600 feet (800 meters) to about 9,800 feet (3,000 meters) deep. But part of the zone drops into the narrow Diamantina trench, about 19,000 feet (5,800 meters) down.

"Let's hope the wreck debris has not landed over this escarpment. It's a long way to the bottom," said Robin Beaman, a marine geologist at Australia's James Cook University.

The U.S. Navy last week sent a Bluefin-21 autonomous sub to Australia to prepare for an eventual deep water search. That sub can dive to about 14,800 feet (4,500 meters). The largest unmanned subs used by Woods Hole researchers are built to reach depths of about 19,700 feet (6,000 meters).

Searchers can also use tethered submersibles, towed by ships from cable that allows for real-time data transmission to the surface and a continuous supply of power to the vehicle. But it is a very slow process. AUVs can scan a larger area more quickly, without being affected by conditions on the surface. But they must be brought back to the surface to recharge, and for researchers to download and analyze their data.

Even so, they are much better suited to the job of deep water search than any manned sub, whose descents are limited by air, light and power, as well as safety concerns, said William Sager, a professor of marine geophysics at the University of Houston.

Sager recalled that in 2000, when he climbed aboard a sub and ventured 5,600 feet (1,700 meters) down to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, all those factors limited time on the sea floor to just four hours, moving at a crawl. A researcher looking out a porthole into even the clearest water with a very bright light can't see beyond 100 feet, he said.

Unmanned subs are far more flexible. When Woods Hole engineers built their first REMUS 6000 sub a little more than a decade ago, they tested it off the Bahamas by driving it down a trench the scale of the Grand Canyon, said Chris von Alt, who led the team that developed the craft and then co-founded Hydroid Inc., the Massachusetts manufacturer of the subs.

The REMUS sub — nearly 13 feet long, 1,900 pounds and mustard yellow — is equipped with sonar that can be programmed to capture images of vast stretches of seafloor and the objects resting there. Powered by a lithium battery, the unmanned subs stay below the surface for 20 to 24 hours. Scientists on the surface are now able to modify instructions to the sub via an acoustic link that allows them to look at bits of data gathered by the vehicle, von Alt said.

But they don't know what the sub has found until it surfaces and its data is fully downloaded to a computer.
The task requires patience and, for researchers whose livelihoods are focused on ocean life, a willingness to harness their expertise in a grim but necessary pursuit of answers.

"That's why you do it," von Alt said. "One of (the reasons) is, 'Why did it happen?' But the other is to get closure for the families who have suffered through the tragedy."

- Contributed by AP writers Adam Geller and Nick Perry in Wellington, New Zealand and videographer Steve Andrada in Woods Hole, Mass.

Related:

• Malaysian police: Missing plane mystery may never be solved  

  
  Related posts:

  
  
  

  • Searching the vast seabed of jet hunt zone mostly flat with one trench for MH370

  • Chinese families stage mass walkout, demanded China's inquiry into mysterious Flight MH370
• Black box scanners arrive Australia as search for MH370 pins hope on new satellite images 

•  Families filing lawsuits over MH370 while new 122 objects identified by a French satellite

• Flight MH370 ended in southern Indian Ocean! All 239 lives lost, British Inmarsat & AAIB cited, no evidence 

• Chinese satellite spots large new object could be related to missing MH370

•  DigitalGlobe: Large area slowing search, the satellite images found might not be related to the MH370 

• DigitalGlobe, the satellite co that provides the image of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370; Australian plane fails to locate debris 
  
  

  • Flight MH370: two satellite objects spotted in southern Indian Ocean

US Fed tapering of bond purchases, a new economic boom or bust cycles?

Is a new economic crisis at hand?

The two-day sell-off of currencies and shares of several developing countries last week raises the question of whether this is the start of a new financial crisis.

AT the end of last week, several developing countries saw sharp falls in their currency as well as stock market values, prompting the question of whether it is the start of a wider economic crisis.

The sell-off in emerging economies also spilled over to the American and European stock markets, thus causing global turmoil.

Malaysia was not among the most badly affected, but the ringgit also declined in line with the trend by 1.1% against the US dollar last week; it has fallen 1.7% so far this year.

An American market analyst termed it an “emerging market flu”, and several global media reports tend to focus on weaknesses in individual developing countries.

However, the across-the-board sell-off is a general response to the “tapering” of purchase of bonds by the US Federal Reserve, marking the slowdown of its easy-money policy that has been pumping billions of dollars into the banking system.

A lot of that was moved by investors into the emerging economies in search of higher yields. Now that the party is over (or at least winding down), the massive inflows of funds are slowing down or even stopping in some developing countries.

The current “emerging markets sell-off” is thus not explained by ad hoc events. It is a predictable and even inevitable part of a boom-bust cycle in capital flows to and from the developing countries, coming from the monetary policies of developed countries and the investment behaviour of their investment funds.

This cycle, which is very destabilising to the developing economies, has been facilitated by the deregulation of financial markets and the liberalisation of capital flows, which in the past was carefully regulated.

This prompted bouts of speculative international flows by investment funds. Emerging economies, having higher economic growth and interest rates, attracted investors.

Yilmaz Akyuz, chief economist at South Centre, analysed the most recent boom-bust cycles in his paper Waving or Drowning?

A boom of private capital flows to developing countries began in the early 2000 but ended with the flight to safety triggered by the Lehman collapse in September 2008.

The flows recovered quickly. By 2010-12, net flows to Asia and Latin America exceeded the peaks reached before the crisis. This was largely due to the easy-money policies and near zero interest rates in the United States and Europe.

In the United States, the Fed pumped US$85bil (RM283bil) a month into the banking system by buying bonds. It was hoped the banks would lend this to businesses to generate recovery, but investors placed much of the funds in stock markets and developing countries.

The surge in capital inflows led to a strong recovery in currency, equity and bond markets of major developing countries. Some of these countries welcomed the new capital inflows and boom in asset prices.

Others were angry that the inflows caused their currencies to appreciate (making their exports less competitive) and that the ultra-easy monetary policies of developed countries were part of a “currency war” to make the latter more competitive.

In 2013, capital inflows into developing countries weakened due to the European crisis and the prospect of the US Fed “tapering” or reducing its monthly bond purchases.

This weakening took place just as many of the emerging economies saw their current account deficits widen. Thus, their need for foreign capital increased just as inflows became weaker and unstable.

In May to June 2013, the Fed announced it could soon start “tapering”. This led to sudden sharp currency falls, including in India and Indonesia.

However, the Fed postponed the taper, giving some breathing space. In December, it finally announced the tapering — a reduction of its monthly bond purchase from US$85bil (RM283bil) to US$75bil (RM249bil), with more to come.

There was then no sudden sell-off in emerging economies, as the markets had already anticipated it and the Fed also announced that interest rates would be kept at current low levels until the end of 2015.

By now, however, the investment mood had already turned against the emerging economies. Many were now termed “fragile”, especially those with current account deficits and dependent on capital inflows.

Most of the so-called Fragile Five are in fact members of the BRICS, which had been viewed just a few years before as the most influential global growth drivers.

Several factors emerged last week, which together constituted a trigger for the sell-off. These were a “flash” report indicating contraction of manufacturing in China; a sudden fall in the Argentini­an peso; and expectations that a US Fed meeting on Jan 29 will announce another instalment of tapering.

For two days (Jan 23 and 24), the currencies and stock markets of several developing countries were in turmoil, which spilled over to the US and European stock markets.

If this situation continues this week, it may just signal a new phase of investor disenchantment with emerging economies, reduced capital inflows or even outflows. This could put strains on the affected countries’ foreign reserves and weaken their balance of payments.

The accompanying fall in currency would have positive effects on export competitiveness, but negative effects on accelerating inflation (as import prices go up) and debt servicing (as more local currency is needed to repay the same amount of debt denominated in foreign currency).

This week will thus be critical in seeing whether the situation deteriorates or stabilises, which may just happen if the Fed decides to discontinue tapering for now. Unfortunate­ly, the former is more likely.

 Contributed by Global Trends  Martin Khor
> The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.

Related posts:
1. TPPA negotiations hot up in early 2014
2. Winds of change blowing in Asia

Fed Slows Purchases While U.K. Growth Picks Up: Global Economy   

The global economic expansion is speeding up, data this week are projected to show. In the U.S., a gain in fourth-quarter gross domestic product probably completed the strongest six months of growth in almost two years for the world’s largest economy. The pickup combined with progress in the labor market means Federal Reserve policy makers meeting this week may ease up again on the monetary accelerator.

Across the Atlantic, the U.K. economy may have grown over the past 12 months by the most in almost six years, while in Germany, business confidence probably improved to the highest level since mid-2011.

This week also includes central bank meetings in Mexico and New Zealand. In Mexico, monetary officials may keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged as more government spending reduces the need for stimulus. Such a decision is less clear in New Zealand, where odds of an interest-rate increase have climbed.

U.S. ECONOMY

-- Gross domestic product advanced at a 3.2 percent annualized rate in the fourth quarter as spending by American consumers climbed by the most in three years, economists forecast the Jan. 30 figures will show. Combined with a 4.1 percent inventory-fueled gain in the prior period, GDP in the second half of the year was the strongest since the six months ended March 2012.

-- “A substantial acceleration in private sector demand led by stronger consumer spending and a significant pickup in exports after weakness through the first part of the year should drive a second straight quarter of near 4 percent real GDP growth even with an expected drag of 0.5 percentage point from federal government spending, largely reflecting lost work hours during the government shutdown,” Ted Wieseman, an economist at Morgan Stanley in New York, wrote in a Jan. 17 report.

-- “The first cut of Q4 GDP will be more about the internals of the report than the headline,” economists at RBC Capital Markets LLC, led by Tom Porcelli, wrote in a research note. “While we look for a 2.8 percent annualized advance in top-line growth, the details should seem even brighter with real personal consumer consumption rising 4 percent. We anticipate that the inventory swing will hold growth back a full percentage point.”

FOMC MEETING

-- Ben S. Bernanke will chair his final meeting of Federal Reserve policy makers on Jan. 28-29 before handing over the reins of the world’s most powerful central bank to Janet Yellen. Bernanke and a different cast of regional Fed bank presidents who’ll vote on the Federal Open Market Committee are projected to reduce the pace of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases by a total of $10 billion to $65 billion as the economy improves.

-- “We expect the Fed to announce another $10 billion taper and possibly strengthen its guidance,” Michael Hanson, U.S. senior economist at Bank of America Corp., said in a research note. “The Yellen-led Fed will see numerous personnel changes in 2014, but we still expect a patient and very accommodative policy stance.”

-- “The FOMC will likely upgrade its summary of current economic conditions in its policy statement,” BNP Paribas’ Julia Coronado, a former Fed Board economist, said in a research note. “The Q4 performance is expected to be driven by final demand, in particular a surge in consumer spending on goods and services. The January FOMC statement could acknowledge this better performance by stating that ‘economic growth picked up somewhat’ of late.

‘‘The confirmation of their long-held optimistic expectation for stronger economic growth and tranquil financial markets will likely lead the Committee to announce another ‘measured step’ in the tapering process. We expect another $10 billion cut in the pace of QE asset purchases.’’

U.K. ECONOMY

-- Britain will be the first Group of Seven nation to report gross domestic product for the fourth quarter when it releases the data on Jan. 28. Economists forecast growth of 0.7 percent, close to the 0.8 percent expansion in the prior three-month period. From a year earlier, GDP probably rose 2.8 percent, driven by domestic demand, which would be the best performance since the first three months of 2008.

-- ‘‘To date, the recovery has been somewhat unbalanced, led by consumption, so we remain skeptical about the sustainability over the medium-term,’’ said Ross Walker, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. ‘‘Still, there is clearly sufficient momentum in the short-term data to underpin trend-like rates of growth.’’ Walker sees the economy expanding 2.7 percent this year, just above the Bloomberg consensus estimate of 2.6 percent.

GERMAN BUSINESS CONFIDENCE

-- German business confidence is heading for its highest reading in 2 1/2 years, underlining the strength in an economy that’s helping to power the euro-area recovery. Economists in a survey, set for release on Jan. 27, see the business climate index increasing to 110 in January from 109.5 last month. Germany will continue to outpace the euro area this year, with the International Monetary Fund forecasting 1.6 percent expansion, compared with 1 percent for the currency region.

-- Thilo Heidrich, an economist at Deutsche Postbank AG in Bonn, said the ‘‘mood in the German economy is likely to have brightened at the start of the year.’’

-- ‘‘The near-term outlook remains one of cautious optimism,’’ Bank of America economists including Laurence Boone said in a note. ‘‘Domestic demand, in particular, should support growth in coming years.’’

JAPAN TRADE

-- Japan’s trade deficit narrowed to 1.24 trillion yen ($12.1 billion) in December from a month earlier, even as import growth probably accelerated, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists before data due Jan. 27. A record run of monthly deficits shows the cost of the yen’s slide against the dollar and the extra energy imports needed because of the nuclear industry shutdown that followed a disaster in 2011.

-- ‘‘Throughout the year, few manufacturers believed that the yen would stay weak, let alone depreciate further,” Frederic Neumann, Hong Kong-based co-head of Asian economics at HSBC Holdings Plc, said in a research report. “As a result, (dollar) prices charged for goods sold overseas were not cut amid fears that such a move would have to be reversed once the currency strengthened again, something that few firms like to do. All this meant nice profits for Japanese firms (higher yen earnings for their shipments) but no gain in export market shares.”

NEW ZEALAND RATES

-- Economists and markets are split on whether the Reserve Bank of New Zealand will increase the official cash rate for the first time in 3 1/2 years at its Jan. 30 meeting. Governor Graeme Wheeler said late last year the RBNZ will need to raise interest rates in 2014 as growth and inflation accelerate and unemployment declines. While only three of 15 economists predict Wheeler will lift the rate by 25 basis points to 2.75 percent this week, markets are pricing in an almost 70 percent chance he will do so.

-- “The lists of reasons are long for both the ‘why wait’ and ‘why not’ sides of the fence,” Nick Tuffley, chief economist at ASB Bank Ltd. in Auckland, said in a research report. “The RBNZ can justify either outcome, and we put the chances of a rate hike as 1 in 4. That is to say, not our core view, but a significant risk.”

MEXICO RATE DECISION

-- Mexico’s central bank on Jan. 31 may keep the overnight interest rate unchanged at a record-low 3.5 percent in its first decision of 2014 as increased government spending stimulates the economy.

-- “There’s no need to reduce the rate any more” after 0.25 percentage-point reductions in September and October, Marco Oviedo, chief Mexico economist at Barclays Plc, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The economy has shown signs of recovery.”

-- Policy makers have “sent the message that they’re comfortable with the current level of interest rates,” said Gabriel Lozano, chief Mexico economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. With sales tax increases fanning inflation, “real interest rates are temporarily negative, but the central bank will be confident this is a transitory situation that will correct in the second half of the year” as inflation slows.

Contributed by Vince Golle Bloomberg