Singapore’s financial regulator will stick with its plans to award digital banking licences by the end of the year, undeterred by tightening scrutiny in China and the US that is hitting major Chinese applicants.“Regulatory tightening that’s happening in China will not have an impact on the digital banks here,” Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said in a recent interview. “It’s not our job to try to guess what the geopolitical situation might be like, what…
UK government launches bidding process for freeports
The bidding process expected to create up to seven new ‘freeports’ in England has opened after the UK government published a prospectus last week outlining the requirements for designation as a freeport.
China and Japan race to dominate future of high-speed rail
Japan and China are racing to build a new type of ultra-fast, levitating train, seeking to demonstrate their mastery over a technology with big export potential.Magnetic levitation, or maglev, trains use powerful magnets to glide along charged tracks at super fast speeds made possible by the lack of friction. A handful of short distance and experimental maglev trains are already in operation, but Asia’s two biggest economies are vying to develop what would be the world’s first long-distance…
1MDB scandal: I warned Goldman Sachs about Jho Low, ex-banker Roger Ng claims in US filing
Former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng asked for the foreign bribery case against him to be dismissed, saying he “warned” the bank not to do business with Malaysian financier Jho Low.Ng, who says he told Goldman that Low was “not to be trusted”, is facing trial next year on charges of bribery and money-laundering conspiracy. He is accused of helping Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak and others embezzle at least US$2.7 billion from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund, known as 1MDB…
UAE foreign ownership and investment laws reformed
An increase in foreign investment to the UAE will follow from reforms announced to company ownership laws, Middle East experts in corporate transactions have said.
In Thailand, tourism’s decline keeps ‘sea gypsies’ afloat amid coronavirus pandemic
Coronavirus has wreaked havoc across the world, but for Thailand’s “sea gypsies” it brought a welcome respite from the threat of mass tourism.Since the pandemic began, life has been easier for Sanan Changnam and his people – there’s an abundance of fish to eat and real estate projects on their ancestral land in the tourist hotspot of Phuket have come to a standstill.Thailand economy: has hope come too late for its crippling debt crisis?In the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea, connected to…
Singapore’s economy shrinks less than expected in third quarter, with ‘glimmer of light near end of tunnel’
Singapore’s economy recorded a milder contraction than expected in the third quarter, the trade ministry said on Monday, thanks to the easing of coronavirus lockdown measures and an uptick in manufacturing activity.In its fifth revision this year, the Ministry of Trade and Industry forecast that full-year gross domestic product would contract by 6-6.5 per cent versus its previous forecast of 5-7 per cent. It also projected full-year growth for 2021 to come in at a range of 4-6 per cent…
Coronavirus India: as online sex harassment against working women rises, some demand action
Remote working during the coronavirus pandemic has been traumatic for Sameera Kumar, a young executive with a financial services company in Gurgaon, India.She was a victim of virtual sexual harassment at work, which started with regular phone calls after office hours from her male team leader that went on for three months during the lockdown that started in March. Finally, she decided she had had enough and stopped responding to him.The tack backfired, however, as her manager then started…
The Philippines wants to outlaw child marriage. But in Muslim-majority Bangsamoro, change will be hard
Ayesha Merdeka wants child marriages to be a thing of the past. They aren’t an abstract concept to her – they are the reality she has lived with for more than three decades after her grand wedding at the age of 15 made a splash in newspapers and magazines across the Philippines.She is a member of a politically influential clan in what is now the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) – where most of the 3.8 million residents are Muslim, in contrast with the rest of the…
Coronavirus: why are Western countries like the US and Britain still not learning from Asia’s success?
While the French and English are barred from leaving their homes except for essential work, medical reasons, grocery shopping and exercise, South Koreans frequent restaurants, sing karaoke and drink at bars.As the United States watches daily Covid-19 cases near 200,000, Vietnam reports infections in the single digits.And as one Western country after another struggles to recover from its worst recession on record, Taiwan expects to exit 2020 without experiencing any economic contraction at all…