Saturday, April 27 2024 | ASIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL - Reporting the Business that Matters in Asia
MANILA – ICTSI’s Australia unit, Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT), today signed a syndicated loan facility worth AUD398 million with seven leading global financial institutions to support the on-going construction and development of VICT at Webb Dock East at the Port of Melbourne.
HO CHI MINH CITY - The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and the Hanoi Stock Exchange plan to introduce a new index - the VNX Allshare Index. - in October, to include 388 selective stocks from both bourses based on each stock’s status, free float and liquidity.
HONG KONG – China’s June export growth numbers, showing a fall of 4.8% year-on-year, were roughly in line with expectations as demand slowed across-the-board, notably more so in emerging markets, says HSBC. Imports fell more than expected by 8.4%, as ordinary imports such as commodity imports eased.
HONG KONG - Currency depreciation has had a knock-on impact on China’s headline export growth, which in CNY terms saw a contraction in June, reflecting about 8% y/y depreciation in the CNY against the USD during that month. Despite stabilising exports in June, Brexit will cloud China’s export outlook, says ANZ Bank.
KUALA LUMPUR - Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has unexpectedly cut the overnight policy rate for the first time in seven years to 3.00% from 3.25% in a move which ANZ Bank describes as pre-emptive.
SHANGHAI - China’s consumer inflation cooled further in June as factory gate prices continued to fall, pointing to continued weak domestic demand. The Consumer Price Index, the main gauge of inflation, in June grew 1.9% from a year earlier, down from 2% in May and 2.3% in April, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
PERTH - Combined exports from Australia’s three LNG hubs surged 18.5% in June, with total output climbing to 3.6 million tonnes (Mt) – a surge of 560,000t over the May total with strong contributions from North West Shelf (NWS) and Pluto plants in Western Australia and the QCLNG project at Gladstone on the Queensland coast.
HONG KONG - CIMIC Group company Leighton Contractors (Asia) Limited in joint venture with China State Construction Engineering (Hong Kong) Limited, has been awarded an AUD1.58 billion (HK$9 billion) contract by the HKSAR Government for construction of the Tseung Kwan O – Lam Tin Tunnel.
BEIJING – A subsidiary of Huawei Technologies has filed a third patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics at a regional court in China, fuelling its ongoing dispute with the world’s largest smartphone maker by sales.
BEIJING - The China Securities Regulatory Commission says the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, held in Beijing in June, confirmed that qualified foreign and joint-venture enterprises can be registered as private securities firms with the Asset Management Association of China. Registration of private securities firms with the Association means that they get licenses to invest in the Chinese stock markets. Previously, foreign companies were not allowed to be registered as private securities firms.
HONG KONG - The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague will on Tuesday announce its verdict on the South China Sea dispute between Philippines and China. China rejects the idea that the international court has jurisdiction over the dispute and has announced a military drill in the run-up to the decision, heralding an escalation of tensions in the coming months – even as the new President of Philippines displays more willingness to downplay the territorial dispute.
HONG KONG - Companies see huge opportunity in the ASEAN bloc and believe this will be accelerated by mega-regional trade initiatives - such as the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), China's One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that will work in tandem with the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to strengthen connectivity and the overall business environment.
TAIPEI - Passage of a resolution in the European Parliament urging the European Commission to immediately start talks with Taiwan on a bilateral investment agreement has been welcomed by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has urged the EC to initiate negotiations as soon as possible.
TAIPEI – Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs has launched a new website, Contact Taiwan, as the newest component of Government efforts to attract highly-skilled foreign talent to Taiwan. The new website has both Chinese and English access to opportunities with firms in Taiwan, plus information relating to visa applications, taxation and living environment.
PARIS – in its quarterly risk update, global credit insurer Coface says world corporate risk has reached peak levels with the average level of global risk now corresponding to B, ‘significant risk’. Coface says it has dropped its world growth forecast by 0.2 points to 2.5%. Increasing numbers of emerging markets have been included in "extreme" and "very high" risk categories.
BEIJING - China’s Ministry of Commerce said yesterday it is “highly concerned” with Indian trade remedy measures against Chinese steel products. India has launched an anti-dumping investigation into colour-coated steel sheets imported from China in the fifth probe against China by India this year, a record among WTO members, according to a statement on the Ministry’s website.