VIETNAM
PM eyes sustained growth
Vietnam seeks to sustain economic growth next year at about 6.8 percent amid a projected 7 percent rise in exports, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said. Inflation should stay below 4 percent next year, Phuc told legislators in a speech in Hanoi aired live on television. Overseas sales are set to gain 7.9 percent this year, while inflation will likely average 2.7 to 3 percent this year, he said. Growth in the Southeast Asian economy accelerated to 7.31 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, surpassing expectations to reach the fastest pace since the start of last year. Vietnam is benefiting from rising foreign investment in manufacturing as businesses shift production from China to bypass higher tariffs.
ECUADOR
Oil exports resume
Ecuador on Sunday said it had resumed crude oil exports curbed by violent protests that forced several wells in the Amazon to halt operations. The country was hit by 12 days of demonstrations, led by indigenous groups, against fuel price hikes until President Lenin Moreno reached a deal with protest leaders on Oct. 13. “Oil production has recovered, so the operation of the Trans-Ecuadorian Oil Pipeline System has been standardized,” Petroecuador, the national oil company, said in a statement. “All suspended exports will be rescheduled in the coming days.”
RIDE-HAILING
Gojek announces new CEOs
Indonesian ride-hailing and payments company Gojek said two senior officials would jointly take over running operations of the US$10 billion firm after chief executive officer and cofounder Nadiem Makarim resigned to join Indonesia’s Cabinet. Gojek president Andre Soelistyo and the other cofounder, Kevin Aluwi, would be the joint CEOs, the company said. It had “planned for this possibility and there would no disruption to its business,” it said in a statement. Soelistyo has been at the firm since 2016 and previously headed Singaporean private equity firm Northstar Group, while Aluwi runs the company’s data science and analytics teams.
OIL RIGS
Temasek plans takeover
Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte plans to take control of Keppel Corp for about S$4 billion (US$3 billion) and undertake a review of the oil-rig builder’s business that could involve a board shakeup. The state-backed investor, which already owns about one-fifth of Keppel, offered to buy an additional 30.6 percent stake at S$7.35 a share, according to a statement yesterday. That is 26 percent higher than what Singapore-based Keppel traded at before its shares were halted. Temasek said it plans to keep Keppel traded on the Singapore stock exchange. Keppel also has businesses involved in real estate and infrastructure.
AIRLINES
Strike cancels flights
Cabin crew at four Lufthansa subsidiary airlines staged a day-long strike on Sunday, causing dozens of cancelations at German airports in a battle for better pay and conditions. The walkout, called by the UFO cabin crew union, at Eurowings, Germanwings, SunExpress and Lufthansa CityLine led to more than 100 flight cancelations, mainly hitting short-haul journeys at Hamburg airport, Munich, Berlin-Tegel, Cologne and Stuttgart, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. Frankfurt airport, the country’s busiest, reported “only a few” cancelations, affecting CityLine flights.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last