Saturday, April 20 2024 | ASIA TODAY INTERNATIONAL - Reporting the Business that Matters in Asia
MANILA – Philippines’ Q3 GDP came in at 6.0% y/y, shy of market expectations of 6.3%, although an upward revision to Q2 growth leaves year-to-date growth broadly as expected. But consumption growth is enjoying firm momentum despite disappointing remittance growth, supporting ANZ Bank’s our view that the economy is slowly diversifying away from its traditional reliance on remittances.
SYDNEY - Investors seeking a balanced perspective on risk and opportunity in China should set aside outdated perceptions of the country as a manufacturing juggernaut and think of it instead as “two Chinas”, according to global asset manager AllianceBernstein (AB).
HONG KONG - Will China benefit from inclusion in the SDR basket alongside the U.S. dollar, the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen? Global asset manager Nataxis says it would have been much better for China to consolidate domestic and external financial reform before becoming an SDR currency.
HONG KONG – Global asset manager Nataxis says detailed analysis based on the 250 largest corporations in ASEAN confirms that Indonesian corporates are the most vulnerable to debt leveraging, ahead of Singapore and Malaysia, with Philippines and Thai corporates following at a distance.
SINGAPORE - The nascent market for rupee-denominated offshore bonds, colloquially called "masala" bonds, holds good promise for diversifying the funding for Indian issuers, says Standard & Poor's, which expects Government-owned entities, finance companies and corporate entities in stable, domestic-focussed sectors such as utilities to lead the process for gauging investor interest.
SINGAPORE - Growth in Asia-Pacific in 2016 and 2017 is likely to be sluggish but still better than that in the rest of the global economy. But the drivers for growth in the region are changing, says ratings agency Standard & Poor’s in a report titled: "Can Asia-Pacific Capitalise On Its New Growth Drivers?
HONG KONG - Asia is poised to ignite a decade of global trade growth and be the starting point for a quadrupling of worldwide exports to an estimated US$68.5 trillion by 2050, according to new forecasts in HSBC’s Trade Winds report.
HONG KONG - China's property developers are largely on the road to recovery, according to Standard & Poor's, which says that residential housing sales increased in the first 10 months of 2015 by a healthy 18% on-year (National Bureau of Statistics figures. Average selling prices in many cities moved into positive month-on-month growth.
LONDON - Barclays Corporate Banking has released a White Paper which predicts global oil prices recovering to US$50 per barrel by end-2015 and to US$60 per barrel in 2016, spurred on by a sustained doubling of growth in global demand up to four million barrels per day. “Such a price rise would be sufficient to incentivise US shale growth and is supported by consumer sensitivities and storage link buying,” the White Paper says.
BEIJING - Standard and Poor’s believes that over the next two to three years China will lower its reliance on credit-driven investment spending to maintain a strong economic performance. S&P today affirmed its 'AA-/A-1+' sovereign credit ratings and 'cnAAA/cnA-1+' Greater China regional-scale ratings on China.
MANILA - Taiwan and the Philippines have signed off on an Agreement that is expected to effectively reduce fisheries disputes in their overlapping exclusive economic zones, and to protect the rights and interests of fishermen from both countries operating legally.
TAIPEI - Taiwan’s export orders contracted 5.3% y/y in October, compared with a 4.5% drop in the previous month. Sequentially, orders saw a small gain of 0.7% m/m after seasonal adjustment. Other than ICT, orders for all major products continued to contract.
MANILA - Asia Pacific CEOs believe prospects for business growth over the next 12 months are dimming fast. Ahead of the annual APEC Leaders Meeting this week, business leaders express a number of concerns in PwC’s fifth annual APEC CEO Survey.
HONG KONG - Although the headline number for Hong Kong GDP is better than expected, the details show a much weaker picture, says global asset manager Nataxis. Lower consumption and investment, coupled with a decline in exports, in sinking the city’s growth prospects. And imminent monetary policy normalisation by the FED is starting to have an impact on housing prices.
BEIJING – Having blamed the recent stock market crash on poor co-ordination between regulatory agencies, senior leadership figures within the Communist Party of China are considering bringing together banking, insurance and securities regulators in a single “super-commission” as part of a broader goal of reforming China’s financial markets.
HONG KONG - Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing Limited (HKEx) will introduce two new stock option classes and 34 new stock futures contracts in batches on Monday, November 30 and Monday, December 7. The two new option classes and 18 of the new stock futures contracts will be rolled out on November 30.