Assets under management (AUM) may climb higher in emerging Asian economies this year on the back of improved sentiment and low penetration, analysts said.
The region has a large and growing middle class with a low penetration of managed products, 5 percent of total financial assets on average, compared with 15 percent in Western countries, Fitch Ratings said.
Emerging markets, including China, Malaysia and Thailand, could see faster growth than mature markets such as Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, the international ratings agency forecast.
However, China has suffered from its equity focus in a five-year bear market and an underdeveloped debt market until recently. The stabilizing equity markets and recent regulatory initiatives to expand capital markets would allow China to close the gap in the next few years, Fitch said.
Fubon Asset Management Co (富邦投信) aims to be overweight in China now that political uncertainty has settled, senior portfolio manager Kevin Hsu (許興豪) said.
Vice president of the local fund house Mark Wang (王世芳) said that equities may recover some of their popularity with investors amid the improving global economy.
While East Asia represents a growth opportunity for international asset managers, distribution in the region is not straightforward, Fitch said.
The cross-border wealth management and institutional segments are highly competitive, while in retail, large consumer banks dominate distribution in most countries — making distribution agreements critical, Fitch said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained