Friday, August 14 2020 | ASIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL - Reporting the Business that Matters in Asia
SINGAPORE - Due to the severity of measures being taken to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the US and euro area, ANZ Bank is now estimating that GDP will probably run at 20% below normal for the next couple of months.
HONG KONG - Standard and Poors has lowered its stand-alone credit profile (SACP) for Hong Kong' s MTR Corporation to 'a' from 'a+' because it expects the metro operator to face an increasingly volatile operating environment amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Hong Kong's social unrest, and a generally weaker economic environment. S&P says it has also revised its assessment of MTRC's liquidity to adequate from strong to reflect its expectation of weaker cash flow in 2020.
HONG KONG - Compared to their Asian peers, Singapore banks have been seeing more deposits - they increased by 23% YoY from non-residents in January 2020, according to the French banking group Natixis. In Hong Kong, net foreign portfolio inflows reduced in February and turned negative in March, driven by the escalated global coronavirus outbreak and the recent oil shock.
HONG KONG -- S&P Global Ratings said today that Swire Pacific Ltd. (A-/Stable/-) had built up greater balance sheet flexibility to weather increasing macro uncertainties in the coming year. This should support the company's credit standing, but its financial cushion would be compressed over the next 12 months, the agency said.
BEIJING -- Beijing Municipality will donate protective supplies including medical isolation gowns and gloves to the cities of Seoul, Tehran, Tokyo and Yokohama to help with their novel coronavirus control. Xinhua, China's State newsagency, says hand sanitizers, nucleic acid testing kits, intelligent thermometer equipment and ventilators are also among the items to be donated.
HANOI - While Vietnam has been able to contain the spread of COVID-9, initial measurable impacts of the outbreak on its economy have shown up in growth figures for several sectors in the first two months of 2020. Aviation and the tourism industry are those most badly hit. Vietnam's overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and manufacturing IIP in 2M2020 slowed to 6.2% YoY and 7.4% YoY vs. 9.2% and 11.4% in 2M2019, respectively.
HONG KONG - Looking beyond the human tragedy of the coronavirus, the global banking group, Natixis, says the epidemic has exposed the downsides of depending too heavily on China to power global manufacturing - and predicts a continuation of the diversification trend by manufacturers to move away from China.
BEIJING - China' s three major telecom operators have told a symposium that more than 550,000 5G base stations are expected to be put into operation nationwide by the end of this year - and that 80% of the country's 5G network construction was on schedule in the first two months of 2020.
HONG KONG -- S&P -Global Rating said today that MTR Corp. Ltd.'s (MTRC; AA+/Stable/A-1+) stand-alone credit profile (SACP) faces immense strain in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the aftershocks of Hong Kong's protest movement. Both events have hit transit numbers and retail sentiment in Hong Kong in 2019-2020.
SINGAPORE - The recent surge of coronavirus cases outside of China is a rising risk to global economies and credit markets, S&P Global Ratings says in an update on the impact of COVID-19.
SINGAPORE - In its latest Global Macro Insight, ANZ Bank has downgraded notably its growth forecasts for G3, saying that COVID-19 is presenting itself as a substantive supply and demand shock to the global economy.
SINGAPORE - Ratings agency Standard and Poors is predicting that growth across Asia-Pacific will slow to 4.0% in 2020, the lowest since the Global Financial Crisis, due to the coronavirus outbreak. A U-shaped recovery should start later in 2020, but, by then, overall economic damage is likely to reach US$211 billion, S&P says.
NEW DELHI - At 4.7%, India's Q3 (September-December 2019) FY20 GDP print has slowed, compared with an upwardly-revised print of 5.1% (from 4.5% earlier) in the previous quarter.
BEIJING - China's State newsagency Xinhua is quoting the Ministry of Commerce as saying that consumer prices in China are going to stabilise and fall as market supplies improve and multiple Government measures pay off.
SINGAPORE -- Malaysia's economic stimulus package announced on Thursday is unlikely to materially affect S&P Global Ratings' outlook on the country's fiscal performance and has a limited impact on the sovereign credit ratings, S&P said today.
SINGAPORE -- S&P Global Ratings today affirmed its 'AA+' long-term and 'A-1+' short-term foreign-currency issuer credit ratings on the New Development Bank (NDB), a multilateral lending institution (MLI) established by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). "We affirmed the ratings on NDB to reflect our opinion that the institution will establish itself as a catalyst in reducing infrastructure deficits faced by its BRICS members," S&P said.