World

Singapore's goods and services tax will be raised to 8% in January 2023. Ore Huiying | Bloomberg | Getty Images Come Jan. 1, Singapore will raise its goods and services tax, otherwise known as the GST, from 7% to 8%. It's the first of two scheduled hikes of the GST, with the second slated to take place in January 2024, when the GST will be raised from 8% to 9%. The GST is a consumption tax imposed on nearly all goods and services in Singapore. Starting Jan. 1, 2023, GST will be imposed on imported low-value goods valued up to S$400. Currently, only imported goods valued above S$400 are subjected to the GST. With the change, all goods and services imported into Singapore, including imported goods purchased online, will be subject to the tax. Businesses based in Singapore with an annual tur...

watch now Preaching a message of financial education and financial freedom, John Hope Bryant is galvanizing America's top business leaders in the battle for "silver rights," a term he coined to describe the economic empowerment of minority and low-income communities. "I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired," Bryant said earlier this month during the Hope Global Forums, an annual meeting for his nonprofit Operation Hope. "Our goal is that by the time your kids grow up, financial literacy is in school — kindergarten through college — as a requirement so that everyone learns the language of money." To that end, Operation Hope in 2021 launched Financial Literacy for All, a joint initiative with businesses such as Walmart, Bank of America, Disney and many others...

A US military spokesperson said the Chinese jet came within 3m of the plane's wing, but 6m from its nose, which caused the US aircraft to take evasive manoeuvres. The United States has raised the issue with the Chinese government, a separate US official said. The Chinese embassy in Washington DC did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the past, China has said that the United States sending ships and aircraft into the South China Sea is not good for peace. US military planes and ships routinely carry out surveillance operations and travel through the region. China claims vast swathes of the South China Sea that overlap with the exclusive economic zones of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines. Trillions of dollars in trade flow every year through th...

SINGAPORE :China's CNOOC Ltd has raised its 2023 production target by around 8 per cent to a record 650 million to 660 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), it said on Wednesday. The state-controlled offshore oil and gas company produced about 620 million boe last year, exceeding its goal of 600-610 million boe, CNOOC said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange outlining its annual strategic outlook. CNOOC is aiming for 6 per cent average annual production growth by 2025 when output is forecast to hit 2 million boe a day, Chief Executive Officer Zhou Xinhuai told reporters following the release. Under its stated strategy to boost the share of natural gas in its portfolio, CNOOC is stepping up the development of large domestic finds like Baodao 21-1 in the Qiongdongnan basin of S...

From catching Covid-19 to getting caught in a blizzard, traveling can be risky business these days. But just how risky often depends on the destination — and how you define the risks. Safest cities: people's perceptions A report published by the U.K.-based insurance company William Russell ranked the "safest cities in the world," according to people's perceptions. On this list, which relied on perceived crime rates on the crowdsourced global database Numbeo, Asia and Europe dominated the rankings of "safest" cities. Taiwan's Taipei scored the highest, while Buenos Aires, Argentina, ranked the lowest (score: 36.7), according to the report. Safest cities: health and politics But the top five places for "health and safety" in Euromonitor International's "Top 100 City Destinations Index 2...

WASHINGTON : When the Biden administration unveiled aggressive export controls in October aimed at blocking China from becoming a global leader in advanced semiconductors it was missing a key ingredient: agreement from U.S. allies to impose their own matching restrictions. Persuading Japan to join the U.S. effort, which limits Chinese access to U.S. chipmaking technology and cuts China off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world, will be high on U.S. President Joe Biden's to-do list when he meets with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington on Friday. American officials, touting an ever-closer strategic alignment with Japan, are praising Tokyo's plan for the biggest Japanese military buildup since World War Two as rivalry with China in the region grows. B...

WASHINGTON: US authorities said on Wednesday (Jan 18) they have arrested the majority shareholder and cofounder of Hong Kong-registered virtual currency exchange Bitzlato Ltd for allegedly processing US$700 million in illicit funds. Anatoly Legkodymov, a Russian national living in China, was arrested in Miami on Tuesday on charges that he operated the exchange as an unlicensed money exchange business that "in his own words, catered to 'known crooks'", a top Justice Department official said. Prosecutors said Bitzlato exchanged more than US$700 million in cryptocurrency with Hydra Market, which they described as an illicit online marketplace for narcotics, stolen financial information, fraudulent identification documents and money laundering services that US and German law enforcement shut...

SYDNEY: Asian shares rallied on Monday as hopes for less aggressive US rate hikes and the opening of China's borders bolstered the outlook for the global economy. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 2.0 per cent to a five-month top, with South Korean shares gaining 2.2 per cent. Chinese blue chips added 0.7 per cent, while Hong Kong shares climbed 1.4 per cent. China's yuan also firmed to its highest since mid-August under 6.8000. Japan's Nikkei was closed for a holiday but futures were trading at 26,215, compared with a cash close on Friday of 25,973. S&P 500 futures added 0.2 per cent and Nasdaq futures 0.3 per cent. EUROSTOXX 50 futures gained 0.6 per cent, while FTSE futures firmed 0.3 per cent. Earnings season kicks off this week with the major US bank...

HONG KONG: As casinos in Macao begin new licenses to operate in the world’s biggest gambling hub on Jan 1, the stakes are high on whether they will be able to successfully deliver on a government mandate to diversify away from their cash-cow: Gambling. For the last 20 years, Sands China, Wynn Macau, MGM China, Galaxy Entertainment, MGM China and SJM Holdings, have raked in billions of dollars from their casinos in the Chinese special administrative region, turning the once sleepy fishing village into a glitzy boomtown. But their 10-year, shortened contracts come at a time when COVID-19 restrictions have decimated Maca0’s gambling revenues, with 2022 the worst annual performance on record. Industry net debt is surging and operators face a new era of government oversight and control over t...

KUALA LUMPUR :Malaysian palm oil prices are set to fall for the first time in three years in 2023 amid a mild recovery in production, but will likely remain above pre-pandemic levels as Indonesian policies constrict global supplies, Reuters poll showed. Benchmark palm prices will average 3,800 ringgit a tonne in 2023, down 23 per cent from last year's record average of 4,910 ringgit, according to the median estimate of a poll of 18 analysts and those in the industry. "The Russia-Ukraine conflict and economic affects of the pandemic will continue to impact the market in 2023. However, we feel that the severity of the volatility will be less as compared to the last year," Malaysian Palm Oil Council marketing director Faisal Iqbal said. SLOW PRODUCTION Top producers Indonesia and Malaysia...