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Pork and chicken will join beef on the menu of expensive meats as drought and US ethanol policy combine in a corn "disaster", the head of the world’s largest pork producer has said.

The cost of the main ingredients in animal feed, corn and soyameal, have set records this month as the worst drought in half a century and extreme heat damages crops in the US, the world’s main surplus producer.

Prices of passenger vehicles in China fell the most in about two years because of a worsening glut at car dealerships, the top economic planning agency said.

Average retail prices last month fell 1.1 percent from April, the steepest sequential drop since June 2010, Cheng Xiaodong, head of car price monitoring at the National Development and Reform Commission, said last Tuesday. Carmakers were overstocking vehicles at a time when dealers were pessimistic about their sales prospects, he said.

While making payments for consumers in a developed market can be as easy as waving their mobile phones in front of a reader, thanks to the contactless payment solution, there seems to be a great number of people who haven't taken advantage of the latest technology of mobile commerce and banking – more than one billion consumers without a bank account have a mobile device in emerging economies. Realising the huge market opportunity, Visa in November launched a new mobile prepaid product for developing countries.

Chinese consumer demand has not been affected by the gloomy global economic situation – it is still blooming and boosting the retail sector in Hong Kong and China. Retailers are competing with each other to open their shops first in both markets and are facing many new challenges that they have not experienced before. Retail in Asia recently caught up with retail expert, Jonathan Moore, head of property- Asia from EC Harris, to learn about the current retail challenges – from property issues to consumer behaviour.