Sunday, January 24 2021 | ASIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL - Reporting the Business that Matters in Asia
AN ECONOMIC crunch has seen
retail rents drop by as much as half in Hong Kong, creating new opportunities for SMEs to establish a physical foothold in a city importing huge quantities of food and beverages for its tourism and hospitality sector . . .
CHINA’s reforms have done more to liberalise economic activity —
creating markets and freedom to compete -— than to impose disciplines and hard budget constraints on borrowers, warns the IMF’s David
Lipton . . .
THE TERM ‘covenant-lite’ has cropped into the lexicon of financing in Europe, where it is seen as a manifestation of competition among non-bank lenders. They are filling the void left by banks . . .
THE Great Recession of 2008-2009 marked a turning point for trade. Restrictive trade measures introduced by G20 countries between October 2008 and October 2015 covered 4.8 per cent of world merchandise exports, valued at $851.8 billion . . .
BUSINESS LEADERS have entered their first direct dialogue with the World Trade Organisation to
hammer out an agenda of contemporary challenges needing WTO action. Disruptive technologies,
E-commerce, freer people movement and finance for SMEs are on the list . . .
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY has become more
central to the economies of developing countries as creative industries emerge in increasing numbers. They sell access, which is copyright, and regulators are struggling to define how the digital value chain
works . . .
ASIA is still plagued with excess capacity, especially in China, and a
V-shaped recovery is unlikely any time soon, despite a glimmer of hope in the latest Singapore figures. Consumers are not opening their wallets . . .
FOR most of the countries of Asia, growth in their trade with Europe has provided a most welcome source of diversification away from China. That trade may now be threatened, along with investment flows . . .
Florence Chong
Editor, ATI Magazine
LONG-TERM planning has allowed GHD to build itself into one of the world’s largest private companies and the largest private Australian company servicing the engineering, architecture and environmental
consulting sectors. Reflecting on his eight years as Chief Executive, Ian Shepherd, who is retiring after three decades with the firm, explores GHD’s extraordinary growth in recent years . . .
THE combined forces of the emergence of the Asian middle class and ageing have converged to give some companies a huge lift in export sales, primarily to China, says Peter Osborne, Managing Director, Asia, of the Australian nutraceuticals company Blackmores. The challenge is to diversify into other markets to provide sustainable future growth . . .
Tourists, students and entrepreneurs are believed responsible for up to six times Blackmores' direct cross-border sales into China.
INVESTMENT of up to US$1 trillion may be needed to allow India to meet growing energy needs over the next 15 years, says Piyush Goyal, the man charged with implementing India’s One Nation, One Grid
policy, which aims to ensure that power can be made available at any point in time at one price across the country . . .
MELBOURNE — Cyber security will be a key area of mainstream risk for corporate Australia and government in 2016, according to Perspectives On Cyber Risk, a report released by lawyers MinterEllison.
Partner Paul Kallenbach, a specialist in cyber security and data protection, signals that the increasing focus on cyber security, including the expected introduction of mandatory data breach legislation in Australia in 2016, will
increase the potential for Board members to incur personal liability as a result of a data breach.
THE risks of cross-border business remain, with red tape continuing to be a very real frustration, Indian service companies are finding approvals processes too slow in Australia . . .
IF life-span increases by three years, pension-related costs could increase by 50 per cent in both advanced and emerging econmies, according to the Managing Director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde . . .
HAVING steamlined its listing rules, the Singapore Stock Exchange is starting to spread the message that it is open for business to companies seeking a dual or secondary listing . . .