World

The Bank of Japan said Thursday it would buy an unlimited amount of 10-year government bonds at 0.25%, underscoring its resolve to prevent rising global yields from pushing up domestic borrowing costs too much. This is the first such operation since July 2018 as yields creep closer to its tolerated level under its yield curve control (YCC) policy. The offer will be made Monday, the central bank said in a statement posted on its website after the Japanese Government Bond (JGB) market closed Thursday. Stubbornly hot inflation in the West and growing hawkishness from other major central banks such as the U.S. Federal Reserve had spurred some bets that the BOJ would need to taper its ultraloose monetary policy soon, pushing JGB yields to multiyear highs. But inflation in Japan, while edgin...

SINGAPORE: Singapore on Wednesday (Jan 26) signed a free trade agreement with the Pacific Alliance, a bloc made up of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru and a combined gross domestic product of more than US$2 trillion, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) on Thursday. Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong and his counterparts from the member states signed the free trade deal as well as a joint declaration at the 16th Pacific Alliance Summit in Colombia. The deal is a "modern and comprehensive" agreement that complements Singapore's network of free trade agreements and builds on existing agreements that the country has with the Pacific Alliance countries, said MTI in a press release. It will enable Singapore companies to enjoy greater market access to the Pacific Alliance,...

HONG KONG :The China Securities and Regulatory Commission (CSRC) met this week with executives at top western banks and asset managers to reassure them about the country's economic prospects after regulatory crackdowns in 2021, three sources said on Friday. CSRC Vice Chairman Fang Xinghai hosted the virtual meeting with more than a dozen foreign financial institutions on Tuesday, said the sources, who had direct knowledge of the meeting, declining to be identified as they were not authorized to speak to the media. Senior executives from firms including BlackRock, Credit Suisse, Fidelity International, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS attended the meeting, said two of the sources. Fang reassured the meeting participants that China will achieve "respectable growth" in 2022,...

JAKARTA : Top Indonesian economic officials on Wednesday backed the expanded use of local currencies in trade and investment, instead of the U.S. dollar, to help maintain stability in global financial markets as pandemic-era stimulus is withdrawn. Indonesia, which holds the presidency of the Group of 20 major economies this year, and a number of Asian countries have bilateral deals to settle transactions in domestic currencies, known as local currency settlement (LCS) arrangements, which cut demand for the dollar. Bilateral currency swaps among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, Japan and South Korea have reached $380 billion, according to the People's Bank of China. Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said LCS arrangements should be repl...

NEW DELHI :Opener Rohit Sharma was named India's test captain on Saturday, succeeding Virat Kohli as the team's leader in all three formats ahead of the home series against Sri Lanka. Kohli, India's most successful test captain, resigned from the role in a shock move last month after seven years in charge. "Rohit is the number one player in the country. We spoke to him and he's absolutely OK (to lead the team in all formats)," selection committee chairman Chetan Sharma told a virtual news conference. "Under a player as experienced as Rohit, we can also groom future leaders of the team." India play Sri Lanka in three Twenty20 internationals starting on Thursday, before the two-test series next month. Fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah is Rohit's deputy in both the squads. The opening test in ...

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations said destruction caused by Typhoon Rai in the Philippines had been "badly underestimated" in initial assessments, tripling the number of people "seriously affected" to 9 million. A UN campaign to raise US$107.2 million in aid for victims was launched a week after the storm ravaged southern and central regions of the archipelago on Dec 16, leaving 406 people dead and hundreds of thousands homeless. But UN Resident Coordinator in the Philippines Gustavo Gonzalez said Thursday (Jan 20) the target would be revised after more than 66 field assessments showed the destruction was far worse than initially thought. "One month since the first landfall of Super Typhoon Rai we realise that we have badly underestimated the scale of devastation," Gonzalez told a vir...

Singapore’s desire to shift to renewable sources of energy is running up against its geographic limitations. It hasn’t got enough space for large solar installations, there are no major rivers for hydropower and what little breeze the tropical city-state gets isn’t sufficient to push a wind turbine. That’s forced the Southeast Asian financial and transport hub to rely on imports in its plans to transition away from fossil fuels. It’s a common strategy for small places — Hong Kong, Monaco and Bahrain are in a similar position — but it’s dependent on nearby countries being willing to export carbon-free power. For Singapore, its plan to bring in enough clean energy from overseas to meet 30% of its needs by 2035 has already hit a snag. Neighboring Malaysia banned renewable electricity sales ...

Olympic sponsor Airbnb has hundreds of listings in Xinjiang and Tibet, two regions where China stands accused of widespread human rights abuses and forced cultural assimilation, new research reveals. Beijing is hosting the Winter Games amid international alarm over rights violations against minority groups, particularly its mostly Muslim Uyghur population. Airbnb is one of the Olympics’ biggest backers with a reported $500 million sponsorship deal running until 2028. The online platform’s steady growth in China is partly driven by around 700 accommodation listings in the troubled far west, according to data compiled by the London-based nonprofit Free Tibet that was exclusively obtained and verified by AFP. They include about 380 listings in the northwestern Xinjiang region, where Beiji...

BENGALURU: Thailand's central bank will wait for at least a year before raising interest rates from record lows to support the tourism-dependent economy hit hard by coronavirus-related travel restrictions, a Reuters poll found. Economic growth in the Southeast Asian nation is yet to return to pre-pandemic levels and the recovery continues to be fragile due to an outbreak of the Omicron coronavirus variant that crippled the crucial tourism industry. Although inflation breached the Bank of Thailand's (BOT) target range of 1-3per cent in January, it was expected to fall back within that range in the coming months, giving the central bank the space to maintain an accommodative stance as long as necessary to revive growth. That comes despite multi-decade highs for inflation in many countries...

NEW DELHI :OPEC's share of Indian oil imports fell in 2021 to the lowest in more than a decade despite a 4per cent rebound in annual crude purchases by the world's third biggest oil importer, data obtained from industry sources showed. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), mainly from the Middle East and Africa, saw their share of the pie in India shrinking to 70per cent in 2021, from a peak of 87per cent in 2008, a Reuters analysis of the data from 2007 to 2021 showed. India's crude imports rebounded 3.9per cent to 4.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2021, the data showed, but remained below pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Imports are expected to rise further this year as fuel demand is recovering, with the government resisting lockdowns despite surging...