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The contrast was telling: there was India's central bank sending a strong signal that it will not tolerate high inflation by announcing a larger than expected increase in its key lending rate and threatening more measures to come. And there was US ratings agency; Standard & Poor's lifting China's credit rating one notch to A-plus from A, despite all the poor publicity about the Olympics.

The latest RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) global commercial property survey shows falling of tenant demand at a faster pace in the developed world in the second quarter of 2008. Tenant demand fell across all property sectors in the developed world. The retail market seeing the weakest tenant activities in the developed world, a pattern mirrored across most developing markets outside Emerging Asia where demand strengthened. Transaction volumes and capital values plummeted as the commercial property market suffered under financial liquidity constraints, says the RICS Global Commercial Property Survey.

China has been the cornerstone for many businesses operating in Asia. Increasing labour and commodity costs however, are causing those businesses to rethink their growth plans incorporating a phenomenon known as the 'China plus one' strategy, by which firms seek to distribute their operations more widely in the Asian region, in addition to their presence in China.

Xinhua Finance eziData China Consumer Confidence Index (CCCI) was updated today, with the survey results showing that, due to a series of negative factors such as the falling stock market and concerns on deepening subprime mortgage crisis, China consumer confidence index went down to 92 in July, which was 3.1 points down from that of June, or 4.8 points down from that of January 2008. Meanwhile, the US consumer confidence index released by the University of Michigan has been declining since January 2008, mainly affected by the subprime mortgage crisis.

Friday it was inflation hitting a high of 1.9%; last Wednesday it was June exports falling 1.7%, the first such decline for five years; yesterday it was news that Japan's unemployment rate had hit a two year high.

J.D. Power and Associates has reduced its forecast for passenger vehicle demand in China. The downward revision to 5.95 million units for 2008 marks a 4 percent decrease from the 6.2 million units forecasted at the beginning of the year.

Economic growth in emerging East Asia will moderate to 7.6% in 2008 and 2009 from 9.0% in 2007 as the region weathers a global economic slowdown, sharp rise in food and energy prices and volatility reigns in financial markets, says a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Economic integration in Asia is becoming increasingly important to global growth and managing shared risks in the region, according to a new Asian Development Bank (ADB) study.

China's actual growth rate is now irrelevant: like all statistics its essentially a backward looking system of measuring growth in Gross Domestic Product. China's growth remains solid, but it is slowing: the 10.1% annual rate in the June quarter was the slowest since 2005 and it had an immediate impact on global markets, pushing oil down to its lowest level in six weeks and under $US130 a barrel.

Where has the resources boom gone? I don't mean the one driven by iron ore or coal, nor oil, but by surging demand from China, India and the rest of the emerging world?