Saturday, August 19 2017 | ASIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL - Reporting the Business that Matters in Asia
SINGAPORE - India's public sector banks will need substantial capital to make large haircuts on loans to unviable stressed projects and to meet rising Basel III requirements, according to an S&P Global Ratings published today.
SEOUL – South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, has called for a "stern response to North Korea’s ceaseless provocations with nuclear missile test launches" to be put into action, "not just words alone”.
His remarks came during an emergency meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) held immediately after the North’s launch in Mupyong-ri, Jagang-do Province, of what is believed to have been an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
MELBOURNE – A new business networking organisation focussing on Thailand, the Thai Australia Network (TAN), has been formally launched in Melbourne with the support of the Thai Government.
GUANGZHOU - LG’s planned Guangzhou display-panel factory will be 30% owned by joint-venture partner Guangzhou-Kaide Technologies Development Co., sources close to the matter told Caixin. The South Korean home-appliances giant announced on Tuesday that it would build a facility to produce large-panel organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays in Guangzhou’s Economic and Technological Development Zone.
GENEVA - Surveyed in early-July for IATA’s quarterly business confidence index, more than three-quarters of airline CFOs and heads of cargo indicated that profitability increased in Q2 2017 compared to the same period of 2016. IATA said the survey results suggest that Q1 may have marked the bottom of the industry’s profitability cycle.
MELBOURNE - Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT), a subsidiary of Philippines’ headquartered port developer and manager ICTSI, has named 18 not-for-profit community organisations within the Port Phillip and/or Hobsons Bay communities as this year's recipients of grants from the VICT Community Investment Fund.
SHANGHAI – Game industry revenue in China surged more than 20% to almost RMB100 billion (USS14.5 billion) for the first time between January and June, amid a booming mobile Internet development and cross-industry integration, industry officials told a Chinajoy forum.
HANGZHOU - The Central Chinese Government approved the establishment of the first cyberspace court in China. The Cyberspace Court has been established in Hangzhou, capital of China's Zhejiang province and home to many technology companies, to cater to an increasing number of internet-related disputes.
SYDNEY – Negotiations between Hong Kong and Australia for a formal Free Trade Agreement are under way, the Director of Hong Kong’s Economic and Trade Office, Arthur Au, told guests at a dinner celebrating Hong Kong’s 20th anniversary of 1997, when British rule ended.
SEOUL - The narrative on growth in South Korea changed in Q2 2017. The most important change was that exports declined 0.1% y/y (-3.0% q/q sa) – this marked the first contraction in eight quarters, says ANZ Bank.
SINGAPORE - The credit quality of Indian companies is stabilising and is likely to improve over the next two years. Sectoral differences continue to be significant, but the broad trend is toward a recovery, says global ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. Its analysis considers the top 100 Indian companies based on market capitalisation.
MUMBAI - NTT Communications Corporation (NTT Com), the ICT solutions and international communications business within Japan’s NTT Group, is to launch international data network services in India through its affiliate, NTT Communications India Network Services (NTTCINS). NTT pla o invest more tha n US$160 million into the Indian market.
BEIJING - China has launched a crackdown on websites, online stores, mobile applications and social media that distribute pirated or illegal publications. The State newsagency Xinhua says the nationwide campaign aims to protect the intellectual property rights of publications of the press, publication and media industry, and of e-commerce platforms and mobile applications.
BEIJING - India is likely to launch an anti-dumping investigation against Chinese solar panels soon, potentially adding to similar sanctions from the U.S. and Europe. “I’m expecting that, in the next few days, India will officially issue a statement triggering the probe,” said Zhang Sen, general secretary of the solar division of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Machinery & Electronic Products.
BEIJING - The International Monetary Fund has revised upwards its China growth forecasts for 2017 and 2018 to 6.7% and 6.4% respectively, with the better China prospects expected to drive global expansion.
HONG KONG - China’s outbound mergers and acquisitions rebounded in the second quarter of 2017 with deal value surging 148% quarter on quarter. Chinese investors returned to the deal table in the April-June period after a lukewarm first quarter and were the second most acquisitive cross-border nation by value with 94 deals totalling US$ 35.9 billion, according to international law firm Baker McKenzie’s Cross-Border M&A Index.