KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s state energy company Petronas on Tuesday (Aug 30) reported a surge in second-quarter profit, boosted by higher oil and gas prices and said that it would double its dividend to the government this year. The world’s fourth-biggest LNG exporter said profit for the April-June period totalled 23Continue Reading
China’s search engine giant Baidu beat quarterly revenue estimates on Tuesday (Aug 30), underpinned by demand for its cloud and artificial intelligence-powered offerings. US-listed shares of the company rose 3.2 per cent in pre-market trade. Even as Baidu’s core advertising sales continue to be soft, customers are signing up forContinue Reading
INTERNATIONAL HELP The disaster could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan, where the economy is in free fall. Appealing for international help, the government has declared an emergency. Aid flights have arrived in recent days from Turkey and the UAE, while other nations including Canada, Australia andContinue Reading
BEIJING: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the world’s largest commercial lender by assets, said soured lending to the real estate sector in the first half of this year rose 15 per cent. The lender reported 38.8 billion yuan of non-performing loans (NPL) at the end of June, comparedContinue Reading
SHANGHAI: China’s central bank issued draft rules on Tuesday (Aug 30) to regulate related transactions of financial holding companies. Such transactions must conform to rational commercial principles, be backed by genuine businesses and be priced fairly, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement. In addition, the transactions shouldContinue Reading
The Government will repeal Section 377A of the Penal Program code and amend the particular Constitution of Singapore to protect the definition associated with marriage from becoming challenged constitutionally in the courts. What does this method entail? And how lengthy will it take?Continue Reading
SYDNEY: The particular Solomon Islands government has told the United States that it will create a moratorium on navy blue vessels entering the ports, the US charge in Canberra mentioned on Tuesday (Aug 30). The notice comes after an incident last Wednesday any time an US Coast Guard vessel, theContinue Reading
Earlier, the United States embassy in Canberra, the Australian capital, had said the Solomon Islands had notified it of a moratorium on navy vessels entering its ports. “On Aug 29, the United States received formal notification from the government of Solomon Islands regarding a moratorium on all naval visits, pendingContinue Reading
Deputy Excellent Minister and caretaker prime minister Prawit Wongsuwon chaired his first weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday, but the prime minister’s seat normally busy by Prayut Chan-o-cha was left clear in his honour.Continue Reading
TOKYO – As US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell rocks and roils global markets, he may have an unlikely but pivotal ally in Seoul.
Markets everywhere are still quaking over Powell’s August 26 speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he warned that higher interest rates will cause “some pain” and that the Fed’s tightening cycle may persist “for some time.”
Yet Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong seems less shaken than most. That’s an intriguing crouch given how the Fed’s last big rate-hike campaign in 1994 and 1995 devastated South Korea’s economy, along with those of Indonesia and Thailand.
But Korea’s economy has changed radically since the 1997-98 Asian Financial Crisis. And more recently, the BOK has accepted inflationary realities and utilized its brake pedal well before the Fed decided to act.
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