World

Japan, which is keeping in step with the United States and European countries in maintaining strong sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, also wants Southeast Asian nations to join the effort in order to ratchet up the pressure and prevent Moscow from finding loopholes that allow it to circumnavigate the punitive measures. But the task to expand a united front against Russia is proving to be difficult as some countries in Southeast Asia traditionally have strong relations with Moscow. In Tokyo on Saturday, Japan and the Philippines, a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, held the first two-plus-two security talks among their foreign and defense ministers. On the Ukraine crisis, the ministers said in a joint statement that they “shared the view that aggression...

An oil well pump jack operated by Chevron Corp. in San Ardo, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 27, 2021. Oil prices fell more than $5 on Monday as fears over weaker fuel demand in China grew after its financial hub of Shanghai launched a planned two-stage lockdown on Monday to contain a surge in COVID-19 infections. The market kicked off another week of uncertainty, buffeted on one side by the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, the world's second-largest crude exporter, and the expansion of COVID-related lockdowns in China, the world's largest crude importer. [nL2N2VU0G0] Brent crude futures traded $5.27, or 4.4%, lower at $115.44 per barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures slid 4.8%, or $5.48, to trade at $108.42. Both benchmark contracts rose 1.4% on Friday, ...

TOKYO : Japan's central bank on Thursday pledged to ramp up scheduled bond purchases in the second quarter, signalling it will continue to aggressively defend its yield cap against the global tide of higher interest rates. In a closely-watched bond buying schedule for April-June, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) said it will increase purchases for government bonds across the yield curve compared with the current quarter. The announcement came after the BOJ maintained its offer to buy unlimited amounts of 10-year Japanese government bonds (JGB) at a fixed rate of 0.25per cent for four straight days this week. "We decided to increase bond purchases for a wide range of durations, from short- to super-long zones, as the yield curve remained under upward pressure," a BOJ official told Reuters. The 1...

Concerns have been spreading in recent years regarding the human rights situation in China, amid such allegations as forced labor and birth control in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. However, Beijing has denied such criticism from abroad, labeling it “false information,” and is propagating that the region has maintained social stability and has continued to develop as a hub for the Belt and Road initiative. Why do Beijing and the rest of the world have completely different views concerning China’s ethnic minorities and human rights issues? The issue represents an important point in considering how China will face the world in the future and how we should handle the relationship between diversity and conformity in human society as a whole. First of all, we must note that there ar...

Indonesia's stocks are among the top picks of JPMorgan Asset Management and Goldman Sachs for 2022. Dimas Ardian | Bloomberg via Getty Images Geopolitical tensions around the world have been on the rise, but Southeast Asia's markets may offer relative safety to investors, according to top investment banks. As we enter the next quarter of 2022, CNBC asked analysts from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Asset Management which Southeast Asian markets were their top picks. Southeast Asian stocks have underperformed and been "largely ignored by global investors for a decade," said Timothy Moe, Goldman's chief Asia Pacific equity strategist. Indonesia is a top Southeast Asian pick for both Wall Street banks. Indonesia: Banking and commodity plays "In Indonesia, we are structurally positive on the ba...

JAKARTA: Indonesia's biggest tech firm GoTo Group is testing investors' appetite with a public offering that is set to raise up to 17.992 trillion rupiah (US$1.3 billion) this month, marking the second-biggest domestic offering in the booming sector. Goto was formed last year through the merger of ride-hailing-to-payments firm Gojek and e-commerce leader Tokopedia in Southeast Asia's largest economy, just as regional rival Grab Holdings expanded furiously in Indonesia. The widely-expected IPO comes after Goto, which counts Alibaba Group, SoftBank Group Corp and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC among its many backers, secured over US$1.3 billion in a pre-IPO funding exercise in late 2021. "GoTo is still in early adoption, with market penetration rates relatively lower than developing ...

Global bond markets have suffered unprecedented losses since peaking last year, as central banks including the Federal Reserve look to tighten policy to combat surging inflation. The Bloomberg Global Aggregate Index, a benchmark for government and corporate debt total returns, has fallen 11% from a high in January 2021. That’s the biggest decline from a peak in data stretching back to 1990, surpassing a 10.8% drawdown during the financial crisis in 2008. It equates to a drop in the index market value of about $2.6 trillion, worse than about $2 trillion in 2008. That’s a blow to money managers accustomed to years of consistent gains, backstopped by loose monetary policy. The slump also poses a particular threat to the expanding elderly population in many major economies, given retirees ar...

SINGAPORE: Bookings for flights out of Singapore, as well as overseas accommodation, more than doubled as of Friday (Mar 25), just a day after the country announced that it would reopen its borders to all fully vaccinated travellers. Among the slew of border measures announced - which take effect from 11.59pm on Mar 31 - all fully vaccinated travellers, as well as children aged 12 and below, will be able to enter Singapore with just a pre-departure COVID-19 test. In addition, fully vaccinated travellers from Malaysia entering Singapore via private vehicles through the land borders are not required to do pre-departure or on-arrival tests. The new simplified framework will replace the existing vaccinated travel lanes (VTLs) and unilateral opening arrangements and instead, classify countri...

Sky-high fertilizer prices have farmers worldwide scaling back its use and reducing the amount of land they’re planting, in fallout from the Ukraine-Russia conflict that has some agricultural industry veterans warning of food shortages. Western sanctions on Russia, a major exporter of potash, ammonia, urea and other soil nutrients, have disrupted shipments of those key inputs around the globe. Fertilizer is key to keeping corn, soy, rice and wheat yields high. Growers are scrambling to adjust. The pivot can be seen in agricultural powerhouse Brazil, where some farmers are applying less fertilizer to their corn, and some federal legislators are pushing to open protected indigenous lands for the mining of potash. In Zimbabwe and Kenya, small farmers are reverting to using manure to nourish...

BEIJING :Activity in Chinese manufacturing and services simultaneously contracted in March for the first time since the height of the country's COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, adding to the urgency for more policy intervention to stabilise the economy. The official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 49.5 from 50.2 in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Thursday, while the non-manufacturing PMI eased to 48.4 from 51.6 in February. The last time both PMI indexes simultaneously were below the 50-point mark that separates contraction from growth was in February 2020, when authorities were racing to arrest the spread of the coronavirus, first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. The world's second-largest economy revved up in January-February, w...