LABOR
Bali woos digital nomads
Indonesia plans to issue a special five-year visa for remote workers and business-leisure travelers to lure visitors back to Bali and other destinations. About 95 percent of surveyed “digital nomads” have said Indonesia is their “top of mind” destination for remote work and they are ready to travel, Tourism Minister Sandiaga Uno said in an interview with Bloomberg Television yesterday. Indonesia has scrapped most of its travel restrictions, allowing fully vaccinated visitors to enter without testing or quarantine requirements, as COVID-19 cases stay low and booster doses are rolled out.
THAILAND
Retail inflation quickens
Thailand’s retail inflation quickened last month to its highest in nearly 14 years, a level that may test the central bank’s resolve to stand pat on borrowing costs. Consumer prices rose 7.1 percent from a year earlier, accelerating from 4.7 percent a month ago, official data showed yesterday. That is faster than the median 5.9 percent gain predicted by economists in a Bloomberg survey and the highest since July 2008. The uptick in the inflation rate was driven mostly by energy and food items, and inflation may accelerate this month, Trade Policy and Strategy Office Director-General Ronnarong Phoolpipat said.
FRANCE
Le Maire undaunted
The French economy will grow this year despite soaring inflation and uncertainty over the war in Ukraine, Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday. The minister declined to give an estimate, saying he would update the country’s growth forecast once a revised budget bill is presented following the legislative elections later this month. “It was 4 percent, it’s obvious that with the war in Ukraine, inflation, all that will call the outlook into question, but we will have positive growth in 2022,” Le Maire said in an interview with CNews TV and Europe1 radio.
OIL
Vitol eyes more from Iran
Vitol Group said the US may allow more sanctioned Iranian oil onto global markets even without a revival of the 2015 nuclear accord that the EU sees as increasingly unlikely. Vitol, the world’s biggest independent crude trader, said Washington might turn more of a blind eye to sanctioned barrels flowing from Iran if US midterm elections are dominated by the need to reduce gasoline prices. “Uncle Sam might just allow a little bit more of that oil to flow,” Vitol Group head of Asia Mike Muller said on Sunday on a podcast produced by Dubai-based Gulf Intelligence.
RETAIL
Sainsbury’s to vote on wages
Shareholders in Sainsbury’s will get to vote on a resolution at next month’s annual meeting calling for Britain’s second-biggest supermarket group to commit to paying the so-called real living wage to all its workers by July next year. Responsible investment group ShareAction, which coordinated the filing of the resolution in March by an investor coalition that includes Legal & General and Nest, said yesterday negotiations with Sainsbury’s had reached an impasse and the resolution would definitely go to a vote at the July 7 meeting. ShareAction said the first living wage shareholder resolution to be filed at a British company “will be a litmus test for investors’ Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments to protect workers amid a spiralling cost of living crisis.”
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
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