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An LRP Aqua Series Report
The Emergence of Brand Korea:
Five Key Milestones
In January 2009, the government of South Korea implemented an aggressive plan for developing the country's identity and promoting that identity abroad. While this top-down program has made some notable strides, its potential for boosting long-term GDP growth appears limited. Meanwhile, Brand Korea is emerging from the global economic crisis much stronger than it went in, a result of rapid and spectacular bottom-up achievements having little to do with official efforts. (Coming Soon)
 
An LRP Aqua Series Report
The Nation-Brand Ecosystem:
A New Approach
Nation-branding emerged as a professional discipline in the late 1990s. Since then, its development has been haphazard and the quality of its practice has been inconsistent at best. Most recently, nation-branding has been invaded by product brand managers sensing a new growth opportunity, and LRP is generally underwhelmed by the results. In this report, LRP redefines the nation-brand ecosystem and provides a new approach to nurturing nation brands and optimizing GDP growth. (Coming Soon)
 
 
Economy
+ US Q2:10 GDP up 2.4 pct SAAR; sharp slowdown from Q1:10 3.7 pct puts H2:10 in doubt (Los Angeles Times)
+ Japan June unemployment 5.3 pct SA, up 10 bp from May 5.2 pct; unemployed count down 1.1 pct YoY (RTT)
+ Japan June factory output down 1.5 pct MoM; marks biggest fall in more than one year (Reuters India)
+ Japan June core CPI - excludes fresh food - falls 1.0 pct YoY; sixteenth straight month of decline (Nikkei)
+ OPEC July compliance hits lowest level since current supply targets adopted in December 2008 (Maktoob)
+ US St. Louis Fed president Bullard ups specter of Japan-style deflation (The Washington Post) (Exec Summ)
+ Japan June retail sales up 3.2 pct YoY on autos, clothes, petrol; sixth straight gain (San Francisco Chronicle)
Asia
+ China urbanization to fuel growth; urban population to account for 50.0 pct of total by 2015 (Zhongguo Ribao)
+ Korea Samsung Electronics reports 83.0 pct YoY jump in Q2:10 profit on memory-chip demand (Bloomberg)
+ Korea PM Chung to resign on failure to get parliament approval for science-business hub (The Korea Times)
+ North Korea Kim Jong-Il secret bank accounts to be frozen by US on Liechtenstein tip (The Chosun Ilbo)
+ Japan Nissan Motor aims for 20.0 pct SoM of global electric vehicle market by 2020 (The Japan Times)
Social Media
+ Personal details of 100 M Facebook users collected and published online by security consultant (BBC)
+ Japan Yahoo to use Google search tech; tie-up looks to deal domestic blow to Microsoft (The Japan Times)
+ Facebook reaches 500.0 M users; current trajectory implies 1.0 B by year-end 2010 (Los Angeles Times)
+ Facebook hits traffic record in US in June; 141.0 M unique visitors, up 11.0 M MoM, up 64.0 M YoY (Forbes)
+ Google cloud computing engineering effort to be led by centers in Bangalore, Hyderabad (The Times of India)
Homeland Defense
+ Germany plays down leaked Afghanistan intelligence files, but plans investigation (Deutsche Welle)
+ France PM Fillon declares war on al-Qaeda on execution of France hostage Michel Germaneau (France 24)
+ Japan advisory panel urges tougher defense stance on China, North Korea, weakened US (Asahi Shimbun)
+ Germany, Israel fail to agree on sale of submarine by Germany to Israel on discount request (Ha'aretz)
+ Iraq calls on oil companies to act on contracts; aims for 2016 output of 12.0 MB/D (The Mainichi Shimbun)
Entertainment
+ US runaway film, TV productions cost California 36,000 jobs, US$2.4 B lost wages since 2000 (Renmin Ribao)
+ Iran government-linked studio plans to make TV movie about "abducted" Iran nuclear scientist (Maktoob)
+ Vietnam control of online gaming to be tightened; list of permitted games due in September (Vietnam Net)
+ India Bollywood film Lamhaa, hard hitting story of life in Indian Kashmir, banned in five Gulf states (Maktoob)
+ KSA billionaire to launch 24-hour Arab news channel; will compete with Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya (Maktoob)
 
 

Laguna Research Partners
Core Languages

The primary geographic markets served by Laguna Research Partners are Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the United States, and our firm's primary language is English.  In order to

 

maximize reach and impact, we provide our research and consulting services in  ten additional languages... Arabic (MSA), Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.  LRP's  11 core languages provide our firm with exposure to a total native speaker (L1) population of 2.478 billion. Mandarin, the world's leading L1 language,...
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LRP Data Focus (Archive)
United States of America
New Privately-Owned Housing Units Started
Monthly, Change versus Previous Year
January 2008 through June 2010
Percent, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Not Annualized

Source: Census Bureau, USA.

The chart above shows the year-on-year change in the monthly number of new, privately-owned housing units on which construction was started during January 2008 through June 2010. The chart below shows the monthly number of total starts for the same period. This data is not seasonally adjusted and not annualized.

United States of America
New Privately-Owned Housing Units Started
Monthly
January 2008 through June 2010
Thousands of Units, Not Seasonally Adjusted, Not Annualized

Source: Census Bureau, USA.

US June housing starts - SAAR, or seasonally adjusted annual rate, not shown above - dropped 5.0% MoM and 5.8% YoY to 549,000 units. On a raw, non-adjusted and non-annualized basis, shown above, US June starts fell 4.9% MoM and 8.3% YoY to 54,200 units. For both data sets, the decline in starts was particularly pronounced in the multi-unit structure market. LRP focuses primarily on the non-adjusted, non-annualized data set as being most reflective of real-time, on-the-ground realities regarding both builder and lender confidence.

In the view of LRP, US June housing start data sets reflect a US economic recovery that is currently stagnant.

 
LRP Data Focus Archive
 
 
 
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