Thursday, April 25 2024 | ASIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL - Reporting the Business that Matters in Asia
MUMBAI - Hoping for stable and reform-oriented Government after the general elections, foreign institutional investors pumped in Rs96,000 million in Indian stocks in April, the eighth consecutive month of positive inflows. The strong performance in recent months has taken the net investment of FIIs to US$5.3 billion in Indian equities.
BEIJING – A new rule that took effect from May 1 requires foreign dairy companies to ensure that their products are consistent with China’s safety standards and registered with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. The measure is regarded as a fresh effort by the Government to further regulate China’s dairy market for better product quality.
TAIPEI - Taiwan’s export growth rose 6.2% y/y in April, compared with 2.0% in March, and beat market expectations of 5.5%. Electronics remained the key driver for exports as the shipments increased 14.7% y/y. Chemical and plastic products also saw strong growth of 11.9% and 9.3% respectively. The widened trade balance was also consistent with the currency strength we observed last month.
~BEIJING – One of Taiwan’s most experienced politicians, James Soong, who is now Chairman of Taiwan's People First Party, has urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to understand the desire of the Taiwan people to be masters of their own fate. During a meeting with Xi at the Great Hall of the People, Soong said Taiwan has recently undergone changes that Beijing must understand when engaging with Taipei, including the rise of a more autonomous civic consciousness.
HONG KONG - Business conditions in China continued to deteriorate in April, with output and new orders contracting at slower rates, staff numbers being cut for a sixth month in a row, and a solid reduction in both input and output prices, according to the HSBC Flash China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).
BEIJING – China’s Ministry of Commerce has proposed establishing a working group to study the feasibility of an Asia-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTAAP), a pact first proposed in 2006. The matter is scheduled to be discussed during the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic C-ooperation (APEC) forum year.
JAKARTA - Indonesia’s Q1 GDP came in below expectations, at 5.21% year-on-yeaar compared with 5.72% in Q4 2013, but ANZ Bank points out that the moderation in growth was led by the external sector and Government spending. “Private consumption expenditure and investment growth picked up in Q1 2014, despite election uncertainty and lagged monetary tightening effects (higher borrowing costs),” ANZ says.
BEIJING - Genetically modified organism (GMO) research groups in China will strengthen supervision of GMO samples following an alleged case of theft at a research base in Hainan province. A notice from the Ministry of Agriculture said stealing the country's GMO technology and seed samples could cause irreparable damage, and that research organisations must pay close attention to this threat.
MANILA - Leighton Asia, India and Offshore (LAIO) has won a US$201 million contract from Manila North Tollways Corporation to construct Segment 10 of the North Luzon Expressway in the Philippines, involving 5.6 km of elevated highway in northwest Metro Manila, linking the MacArthur Highway in Valenzuela City and C3 Road in Caloocan City near the port area.
BRISBANE - The Queensland Dairyfarmers’ Organisation (QDO) has welcomed an initiative by farmer-owned co-operative Norco which slashes the time taken to land fresh milk in China from between 14 and 21 days (which consumed most of the milk’s effective shelf life) down to as little as seven days. Processor Norco is working in conjunction with industry group Dairy Connect NSW, and international exporting company PGS on the project.
MANILA – Philippines-headquartered International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) and Anglo Ports, through its Australian subsidiary, Victoria International Container Terminal Limited (VICTL), have won a tender with Port of Melbourne Corporation for the design, construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance and financing of the Port’s new international container terminal and empty container park at Webb Dock.
HONG KONG – International lawyers Baker & McKenzie have issued a Client Alert after representing a number of clients who have fallen victim to similar but unrelated scams targeting multinational companies with subsidiaries around the globe. “The patterns are so strikingly similar that we are issuing this Global Alert to minimise the risk of other clients falling prey to this fraud,” B&M says.
TAIPEI - The Administration's decision to "mothball" Taiwan's fourth nuclear power plant is neither a u-turn of Government policy nor an exclusion of nuclear energy, Premier Jiang Yi-huah said, drawing a distinction between stopping work on the project, which is the Administration's policy, and scrapping the project altogether, as demanded by anti-nuclear groups and the main Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
SHANGHAI - The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has announced it will resume reviewing IPO applications after a moratorium – an announcement that caused the Shanghai Composite Index to fall 1.6%, its largest fall since March 10, due to investors’ fears that new IPOs will dilute the market by redirecting investor attention and money away from existing listed companies.
BEIJING - More than 45% China’s of domestic steel companies have reported losses as growth hits an 18-month low of 7.4%. Total losses stood at RMB2.33 billion against almost RMB8 billion in profits in the same period last year, according to the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA). At the end of March, inventories amounted to 19.4 million tons, up 43.5% on the start of the year.
HONG KONG - Leighton Asia, in joint venture with the Hong Kong construction company Chun Wo, has secured a contract worth AUD1.16 billion to construct the Passenger Clearance Building for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities.