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Soaring inflation in Pakistan has cast a shadow on the country’s second-hand clothing trade, as the plummeting value of the rupee national currency pushes up the price of imported goods. Customers and storekeepers alike say they will no longer be able to afford the skyrocketing prices if the rupee remains weak.
Hong Kong will end its indoor and outdoor mask requirements from March 1, 2023, according to the city’s leader. Chief Executive John Lee announced the move on February 28, the day after neighbouring city Macau dropped its general rule on mask-wearing in outdoor areas. Lee said the move was because Hong Kong’s epidem…
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un kicked off a meeting with officials of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea on February 26, 2023, to discuss improving the country’s economy and agricultural sectors, according to state-run media KCNA. The meeting came amid foreign suspicions of a worsening food shortage and humanitaria…
Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said on February 27, 2023 that the Capital Investment Entrant Scheme will have a higher threshold than the S$2.5 million (US$3.7 million) criteria for Singapore’s policy, aiming to entice the world’s wealthiest 5 per cent to come to Hong Kong. He added that a task force has been e…
Philippine police announced on February 24, 2023, that they have identified one of two suspects involved in an armed robbery on a suburban street in Manila’s financial district on February 19, 2023. A New Zealand tourist, Nicholas Peter Stacey, 37, was killed after being robbed by two men on a motorcycle.
Facebook’s parent company Meta launched a week-long test run of their paid subscription service on February 24, 2023. For a monthly service fee of up to US$14.99, “Meta Verified” subscribers on Instagram and Facebook are offered verification badges on their accounts, as well as added safeguards to prevent impersonat…
Think tank founder and former Executive Councillor Franklin Lam Fan-keung said that the new Hong Kong government budget, unveiled on February 22, 2023, “drew on all the tools and invented more in the toolbox” to explore new growth engines for the city’s Covid-battered economy. But Vera Yuen Wing-han, a University of…
The latest 66 per cent electricity price increase announced on February 16, 2023, has pushed Sri Lankan bakery owners to the edge. Sanjula Peiris, the owner of a small family-owned bakery chain in the country’s capital Colombo, had to lay off staff and shrink their scales to lower operating costs. Analysts said the …
Amid a rapidly ageing population and soaring operating costs, subway systems in South Korea's metropolises are increasingly grappling with snowballing losses from free rides for the elderly. Seoul's local government says the influx of free riders is creating a massive financial burden. Park Gyung-sun is among a grow…
Onion prices in the Philippines are now some of the highest in the world after a shortage of the vegetable and inflation sent prices skyrocketing. But local farmers say they aren't benefiting from this because the president and agriculture secretary Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has approved onion imports, an ill-timed move …
At the end of a decade-long battle for justice, Indonesian Kartika Puspitasari was awarded HK$868,607 (US$110,647) in compensation on February 10, 2023, for the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her former Hong Kong employer. It was the biggest settlement to date for abuse of a foreign domestic worker in t…
China’s three years of strict pandemic controls have seriously hurt businesses across the country, leaving thousands of migrant workers unemployed or stuck at home. China began dropping its pandemic-control measures in early December 2022, but the economic recovery has been slow since the country’s reopening, and th…
Tourists have returned to Macau after the casino hub reopened its borders on January 8, 2023. As the main pillar of Macau’s economy, the gambling industry has generated over 70 per cent of the government's income from 2014 to 2019. While the Chinese central government and the Macau administration have been making ef…
Japanese consumers faced another round of food price increases starting February 1, 2023, as more than 5,400 products will become costlier, according to a survey by Teikoku Databank, a credit research company. Japanese officials said core consumer prices in Tokyo rose 4.3 per cent in January year on year, marking th…
Shan Weijian, executive chairman of PAG Asia Capital, led the team that scored the first and only takeover of a Chinese bank by a foreign fund in 2005. San Francisco-based Newbridge Capital turned Shenzhen Development Bank from virtual insolvency into one of the country’s best-run and most innovative banks, ultimate…
Shan Weijian, executive chairman of PAG Asia Capital, led the team that scored the first and only takeover of a Chinese bank by a foreign fund in 2005. San Francisco-based Newbridge Capital turned Shenzhen Development Bank from virtual insolvency into one of the country’s best-run and most innovative banks, ultimate…
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The recent rise in imported petrol and diesel prices has taken a toll on residents in Pakistan as the country’s rupee plummeted 12 per cent a week earlier. Government officials have said the move aims to combat the higher cost of energy in the global market. But many Pakistanis fear that the fuel price hike could un…
February 1, 2023, marks two years since Myanmar’s military staged a coup and seized control of the popularly elected government. Since the takeover, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing’s junta has remained embroiled in a bitter civil war with opposition groups across the country, resulting in thousands of casualties and …
Pakistan lifted a cap on its currency’s exchange rate on January 26, 2023, causing the value of the rupee against the dollar to fall 10 per cent in a single day. The move was an attempt to supply an influx of dollars to an ailing economy and comply with terms set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari marked the opening of a US$1.5 billion, Chinese-funded deep seaport on January 23, 2023, in Lagos. Authorities expect the Lekki Deep Sea Port will help grow the West African nation’s ailing economy. The facility is 75 per cent-owned by Singapore-based Tolaram Group and Chinese sta…
Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on January 23, 2023, that the country must take urgent steps to address the country’s shrinking population. Plagued by low birth rates and a rapidly ageing society, Japan’s population has been in continuous decline for 14 years. Kishida’s pledge came after his government app…
New Zealand's incoming prime minister Chris Hipkins said at a press conference on January 22, 2023, his administration will prioritise the economy and manage the “pandemic of inflation” sweeping the globe. The 44-year-old was tapped for the post by the Labour Party after Jacinda Ardern abruptly stepped down, saying …
Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan released a video on his Facebook page on January 20, 2023, showing that he was promoting Hong Kong as a tourist destination in his foreign business trips. In the video, he said “Hong Kong is back” and he encouraged people to tell more stories and show the strengths of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po has revealed that companies from the Middle East and Asean countries may visit Hong Kong in 2023 to explore opportunities to list in the Hong Kong stock market. Chan also vowed more aggressive action to reconnect the city with the world, citing the formation of a new tas…
China’s economy grew by 3 per cent in 2022, the National Statistics Bureau announced on January 17, 2023. The figure for GDP growth was the second-lowest recorded since 1976, and it comes as China recovers from a year ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic amid lockdowns and later a rise in infections as the nation ste…
Valerie Baudson, CEO of Paris-headquartered Amundi, said China’s reopening is very good news for the economy in the region and worldwide. China’s reopening will spark economic growth to reach 4.5 per cent in 2023, she said. The target will be far higher than the US and Europe, which may experience a short recession …
China is struggling to contain the fallout from suddenly ending its draconian Covid-control regime. How bad is the situation and what’s next for the world’s second-largest economy?
An official from China's immigration bureau said on January 13, 2023, that 1.35 million people had applied for passports as well as Hong Kong and Macau visas since January 8, the date the country opened its borders after three years. The reopening was one of the last steps in China's dismantling of its zero-Covid re…
Hong Kong’s oldest outdoor fabric market is closing on January 31, 2023 after 45 years in business. Also known as “Pang Jai”, the historic Yen Chow Street Hawker Bazaar in Kowloon’s Sham Shui Po district has been open since 1978. But it will soon be torn down to make way for a new public housing estate despite attem…
Thousands of protesters amassed in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka and other major cities across the country on January 11, 2023, to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and fresh elections. The rallies staged by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) took place against the backdrop of a rising cost …
Hundreds of people in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan protested against Tesla on January 6, 2023, for slashing prices on its China-made cars. Similar protests also took place in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Angry buyers said they missed out on the reduced prices because Tesla sales staff had misled them into thin…
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Executives of three of the five companies that listed for the first time on December 30, 2022, struck the ceremonial gong at the Hong Kong stock exchange to mark their trading debut. The executives at the event included AustAsia Chairman Tan Yong Nan and AustAsia CEO Edgar Collins. Also on hand were Kingsoft Cloud’s…
Built in 1994, the Sao Luiz is one of dozens of ships rusting away in Brazil’s iconic Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro. Once home to vast mangroves and thriving marine life, the bay is now polluted by the “graveyard of ships”. Along with dwindling local biodiversity, the environmental crisis threatens the economy whi…
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Alibaba sees growth in cloud as China doubles down on digitalisationChina will be spending more on cloud computing, as the nation accelerates its digitisation process, pushing the revenue in the public cloud computing market to grow at over 20 per cent per annum from 2019 to 2024, according to Bernstein.
Deaths from consuming illicit alcohol in the eastern Indian state of Bihar have been on the rise since state authorities imposed a complete ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol in 2016. A black market for fake alcohol is flourishing, but the toxic concoctions have killed several hundred people since the contro…
Japan announced its biggest defence build-up in decades on December 16, 2022, after labelling China as the “greatest strategic challenge ever” to the country’s security. The Japanese government plans to raise its defence spending to 2% of its GDP by 2027, funding initiatives that include acquiring new missiles to ta…
Lay-offs have swept through Vietnam’s manufacturing hubs as Western countries experience a drop in consumer demand. The purchasing power of shoppers in the United States and Europe, the two major Western markets for goods produced in Vietnam, has plummeted due to inflation and soaring energy costs caused by the war …
A pair of white Pungsan dogs given to then-South Korean president Moon Jae-in by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018 were sent to a zoo in Gwangju, South Korea. Moon gave up the dogs in November, citing a lack of financial support from the current government led by President Yoon Suk-yeol.
Bank for International Settlements (BIS) chief Agustin Carstens said the US economy might be able to avoid falling into recession in 2023, after recent figures related to the job market and general economic activity have "surprised on the upside". In an exclusive interview with the Post on December 6, 2022, the gene…
Cracks in China’s housing market have been widening since some of the nation’s major developers collapsed, pushed by the government’s “three red lines” policy to define borrowing thresholds. Over the past year, there have been unprecedented plunges in home sales and price figures. Heading into 2023, will the real es…
State-owned aerospace manufacturer the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China delivered China’s first domestic passenger jet to China Eastern Airlines on December 9, 2022. The C919 plane took off for a 15-minute flight in the ceremony, marking a milestone in the country’s aviation ambitions. The narrow-body passen…
Frozen food was selected as Japan’s “dish of the year” for 2022 by the Gurunavi Research Institute on December 6. It’s easy to prepare and can be stored for a long time, which made it popular as more people worked from home because of the pandemic. Many restaurants in Japan are now trying to break into the frozen fo…
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