TAIPEI: Taiwan shut down ahead of the arrival of strong Typhoon Kong-rey on Thursday (Oct 31) with all cities and counties declaring a day off, financial markets closed and domestic flights cancelled for what is expected to be the largest storm by size in 30 years. The storm is forecastContinue Reading
JAKARTA: A minister who served under former President Joko Widodo during the latter’s first term in office was on Tuesday (Oct 29) named as a suspect in a corruption case involving sugar imports that was alleged to have caused state losses worth some 400 billion rupiah (US$25.5 million).
Local media reported that former Trade Minister Thomas Lembong was arrested by the authorities for his suspected involvement in a graft case involving sugar imports managed by his then-ministry between 2015 and 2016.
Mr Thomas served as Indonesia’s Trade Minister between August 2015 and July 2016.
He was accused by the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) of issuing an import permit for 105,000 tonnes (105 million kilograms) of red sugar crystals in 2015. This, they allege, was despite him knowing that there was a domestic surplus of the commodity, local media reported.
The move was said to have violated a 2004 trade and industry ministerial regulation which stated that only state-owned enterprises (SOE) are allowed to import raw sugar.
The AGO has since also denied claims that Mr Thomas’s arrest was politically motivated.
An investigations director from the AGO, Mr Abdul Qohar, said that the process was carried out in accordance with relevant procedures.
“Whoever the perpetrator is, when solid evidence is found, the investigator will designate the individual as a suspect,” he was quoted as saying by local media Tempo.
Mr Thomas’s arrest was made following an investigation that started in October last year, involving 90 witnesses. The former minister was detained at the Salemba Detention Centre in Jakarta on Oct 29 along with another suspect, known to be the business development director of a state trading firm PPI.
“At the time, the suspect, as trade minister, granted the import license without first coordinating with the relevant state agencies,” Mr Abdul Qohar said, as quoted by The Jakarta Globe.
In January 2016, Mr Thomas allegedly signed a letter, ordering PPI to become a state-owned firm (SOE) in order to fulfil the national sugar needs and stabilise the commodity’s price in the country.
PPI was also tasked to work with national sugar producers to produce 300,000 tonnes of white sugar. It worked with at least eight private sugar companies despite the 2004 ministerial regulation.
Both Mr Thomas and PPI’s business development director are suspected to have known about the PPI’s cooperation with these private companies.
AGO investigators also claimed that PPI had bought refined sugar from private firms, despite these companies selling the commodity directly to consumers for 16,000 rupiah per kilogram, higher than the highest retail price of 13,000 rupiah per kilogram, resulting in state losses in the sale.
“We estimated the state loss incurred, (it was) done by experts which took a long time because it is not a simple and ordinary case,” Mr Abdul Qohar said at a press conference in Jakarta on Oct 29 which was also broadcasted on the AGO’s Youtube channel.
The alleged corruption by the suspects amounted to 400 billion rupiah (US$25.5 million) in state losses. The profit obtained by the private companies should have gone into state trading firm PPI, the AGO said.
The prosecutor added that the import licence was granted to a private company identified as PT AP, although only state-owned companies are authorised to procure the commodity from foreign sources under the 2004 trade and industry ministerial regulation. This was also done despite a ministerial coordination meeting concluding that the national stock of the commodity was already in surplus.
Local media reported that Mr Thomas was a close ally of Mr Widodo, and was said to have been an economic advisor and speechwriter for the former president at one point.
SINGAPORE: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has set up a global network to strengthen Singapore’s position as a fintech hub and improve connections with other countries.
The Global Finance and Technology Network (GFTN) will support the central bank’s efforts to develop and grow Singapore’s fintech ecosystem, MAS said on Wednesday (Oct 30).
The network’s mission is to “harness technology and foster innovation through global partnerships”.
Former MAS managing director Ravi Menon will be the chairman of the GFTN board of directors.
When asked why he was appointed to GFTN’s board and how it relates to his role as Singapore’s Ambassador for Climate Action, Mr Menon said the latter is still his main job.
“But as a retiree, I have a little bit of bandwidth, so I can also do this,” he said at a briefing on Wednesday.
He said the connections he made during his time in MAS led to his appointments in both roles and that he remains interested in technology.
“Both are actually issues that are very close to my heart – sustainability and innovation, the planet and people,” he said.
GFTN replaces Elevandi, a non-profit set up by MAS to foster dialogue related to fintech. It organised fintech conferences in several countries, including Japan, Switzerland and Ghana.
Elevandi’s people and assets will move to GFTN, where the work will be scaled up, said Mr Menon.
Besides organising forums, GFTN will offer advisory services, partnerships with digital platforms and investments into technology start-ups with the potential for positive social or environmental impact.
“We will provide these portfolio companies with patient capital, but more importantly, access to a global network of potential partners, buyers and suppliers through our existing platforms,” said Mr Menon.
He said Elevandi’s forum business was doing well, and had more invitations than it could handle. At the same time, it was starting to do some “adjacent” work as people were asking for advice on digital infrastructure.
“We’ve been doing some of this pro bono, we’ve been doing some of this informally, not with the full complement of staffing and capabilities,” he said.
GFTN will have four distinct businesses to grow, and it wants to expand its global footprint.
“It is basically Elevandi on steroids, without the negative connotations of course,” he said. There are currently 40 staff members, but that number is set to grow to “much more than 40 people”.
AI is already everywhere, ready to change the way we work and play, how we learn and how we are looked after. From hospitality to healthcare, entertainment to education, AI is transforming the world as we know it.
But it’s developing at a different pace in different parts of the world. In the West, it seems, there is a tendency to aim for perfection, with companies taking their time to refine AI systems before they are implemented.
China, on the other hand, has taken a more pragmatic path, on which speed and adaptability are prioritized over flawless execution. Chinese companies appear more willing to take risks, accept AI’s current limitations and see what happens.
And China’s desire to be the world leader in AI development seems to be working. Here are three important lessons the west can learn from China’s economic strategy towards AI.
Many Chinese companies have adopted a “good enough” mentality towards AI, using it even when the technology is not fully developed. This brings risks, but also encourages fast learning.
For example, in 2016, Haidilao, a popular Chinese restaurant chain, introduced “Xiaomei”, an AI system which dealt with customers calling up to make reservations. While Xiaomei is not the most sophisticated AI system (it only understands questions about reservations), it was effective, managing over 50,000 customer interactions a day with a 90% accuracy rate.
It’s not perfect, but it provides a valuable service to the business, proving that AI doesn’t need to be flawless to make a big impact.
A key distinction between AI strategies in China and the West is the focus on practical, problem-solving applications. In many Western industries, AI is often associated with cutting-edge technology like robot-assisted surgery, or complex predictive algorithms.
While these advances are exciting, they do not always bring immediate impact. China, by contrast, has made significant strides by applying AI to solve more basic needs.
In China, some hospitals use AI to help with routine – but very important – tasks. For instance, in April 2024, Wuhan Union Hospital introduced an AI patient service which acts as a kind of triage nurse for patients using a messaging app.
Patients are asked about their symptoms and medical history. The AI then evaluates the severity of their needs and prioritizes appointments based on urgency and the medical resources available at that time. The results are then relayed to a human doctor who makes the final decision about what happens next.
By helping to ensure that those with the most critical needs are seen first, the system plays a crucial role in improving efficiency and reducing waiting times for patients seeking medical attention.
It’s not the most complex technology, but in its first month of use in the hospital’s breast clinic, it reportedly provided over 300 patients with extra consultation time – 70% of whom were patients in urgent need of surgery.
China’s rapid adoption of AI hasn’t come without challenges. But failures serve as critical learning experiences.
One cautionary tale over AI implementation comes not from China, but from Japan. When Henn na Hotel in Nagasaki became the world’s first hotel staffed by robots, it received a great deal of attention for its futuristic concept.
But the reality soon fell short of expectations. Churi, the hotel’s in-room assistant robot, frequently misunderstood guest requests, leading to confusion. One guest was reportedly woken up repeatedly because a robot in his room mistakenly understood the sound of his snoring to be a question.
In contrast, many Chinese hotels have taken a more measured approach, opting for simpler yet highly effective robotic solutions. Delivery robots are now commonplace in hotel chains across the country, and while not overly complex, they are adept at navigating hallways and lifts autonomously, bringing meals to guests.
By focusing on specific, high-impact problems, Chinese companies have successfully integrated AI in ways that minimize disruption and maximize usefulness.
The Chinese restaurant chain I mentioned earlier provides another good illustration of this approach. After the success of its chatbot, Haidilao introduced “smart restaurants” equipped with robotic arms and automated food delivery systems. While innovative, the technology struggled during peak hours and lacked the personal touch many customers valued.
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Instead of abandoning the project, Haidilao continued to adjust and refine its use of AI. Rather than adopting a fully automated restaurant model, it went for a hybrid approach, combining automation with human staff to enhance the dining experience.
This flexibility in the face of setbacks represents a crucial willingness to pivot and adapt when things don’t go as planned.
Overall, China’s pragmatic approach to AI has enabled it to take the lead in many areas, even as the country lags behind the West in terms of technological sophistication. This is driven by a willingness to embrace AI’s imperfections, and then adapt where necessary.
Where speed and adaptability are critical, companies can’t afford to wait for perfect solutions. By embracing AI’s imperfections, focusing on practical applications, and real-world feedback, Chinese companies have unlocked the economic value of AI in a way that others are too timid to emulate.
Jialu Shan is research fellow at the TONOMUS Global Center for AI and Digital Transformation, International Institute for Management Development (IMD)
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The Chinese government expressed diplomatic discontent to the United States after the Biden administration finalized a set of rules to restrict American individuals and companies from investing in China’s three high technology sectors.
The Final Rule, which aims to implement the Executive Order signed by US President Joe Biden in August 2023, will limit US investments in the semiconductor, artificial intelligence and quantum computing sectors in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, the Treasury Department said Monday. The rules will take effect on January 2.
US investors will also be required to inform the Treasury about their investments in some less advanced technologies that may lead to the threat to the national security of the US, according to the Treasury Department.
“China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the United States’ announcement of investment restriction rules against China,” Lin Jian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a media briefing on Tuesday.
Lin said China has lodged representations with the US and will take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.
“It once again shows that American politicians seek their own political interests, undermining normal investment and trade, the free market and economic order. This will harm the global supply chain,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said Tuesday.
“This harms the interests of others,” he said, as well as those of “the US as a nation, its people and its companies. They will reap what they sow.”
The Hong Kong government on Monday issued a policy statement, which clearly sets out the government’s policy stance and approach to promote the development of AI adoption by the financial services sector.
Washington’s Final Rule, officially called “Addressing US Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products in Countries of Concern,” specifically directs the Treasury Secretary to issue regulations that prohibit US persons from engaging in certain transactions involving certain technologies and products that pose a particularly acute national security threat to the US.
It prohibits US investment in transactions related to China’s development of:
If the transactions in the three categories are not covered by the prohibited transaction definition, US investors will be subject to the notification requirement.
”US investments are often more valuable than their capital alone, because they can also include the transfer of intangible benefits,” said the Treasury Department’s Office of Investment Security (OIS).
“Intangible benefits that often accompany US investments and help companies succeed include: enhanced standing and prominence, managerial assistance, access to investment and talent networks, market access, and enhanced access to additional financing.”
The OIS said certain investments by US persons into a country of concern can be exploited to accelerate the development of sensitive technologies or products – including military, intelligence, surveillance, or cyber-enabled capabilities – in ways that negatively impact the national security of the US.
”The US has taken frequent actions to suppress and slow the rapid growth of China’s high technology sectors,” Li Haidong, director of Center for American Studies, China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times.
“This deviates from the United States’ basic stance of maintaining stable relations with China, and also deviates from the American public’s hope that political elites will focus their energy on domestic issues, instead of creating external conflicts,” Li said.
His comments came ahead of the US presidential election, which will take place on November 5.
On August 9 last year, President Biden signed an Executive Order to declare a national emergency to address the threat to the US posed by countries of concern that seek to develop and exploit sensitive technologies or products critical for military, intelligence, surveillance or cyber-enabled capabilities.
On June 21 this year, the Treasury Department proposed a set of rules on outbound investment screening. It said it would set the AI computing power thresholds for a prohibited transaction and a notifiable transaction.
The Final Rule now sets the AI computing power’s speed threshold for a prohibited transaction at 1025 floating point operations (FLOPs) for an AI system generally, and at 1024 FLOPS for an AI system using primarily biological sequence data.
It also sets the threshold for a notifiable transaction involving the development of AI systems at 1023 FLOPS. All these thresholds are the lowest in the government’s proposed ranges, meaning that the Final Rule has broad coverage.
Jack Clark, former policy director of OpenAI, writes in his blog that the notifiable threshold general-purpose AI systems is set at 1026 FLOPS in the US and 1025 FLOPS in the European Union.
To illustrate what this means in practice, he said H100 SXM, Nvidia’s latest graphic processing unit, can train AI systems at different speeds but the cost for training at a speed of 1026 is 10 times that for 1025.
He said A100, a slower AI chip, can also run at a speed of 1026 but it would cost even more.
He said the 1025 threshold in the EU will eventually hit more companies than regulators anticipated.
Read: Beijing: new Treasury rules amount to ‘decoupling’
Follow Jeff Pao on X: @jeffpao3
This article was orginally published by Pacific Forum. It is republished with permission.
Just days away from what appears to be an extremely close US election, pundits are hastily trying to make sense of both major candidates’ potential foreign policy platforms. In the battle between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, each has sought to portray the other as somehow weak on China in an effort to out-hawk the opposition.
Trump has called for 60% tariffs on all of Chinese imports, thereby threatening global financial markets that are still reeling from Covid-19 pandemic recovery and struggling to adjust to US-China decoupling in critical technology sectors.
Harris has insisted that her goal as president would be “making sure the United States of America wins the competition for the 21st century.”
To some national security commentators watching from Asia, there is little difference between two candidates. Both, after all, view American power as indispensable and see their country locked in zero-sum competition with China.
That view is at odds with and keeps them and their political parties from coming to terms with two difficult truths, recognition of which is prerequisite to construction of a more successful Asia strategy:
True, by most objective measures the United States’ position in Asia at the end of 2024 is more secure than it was in 2020.
The Biden administration has secured access to nine bases in the Philippines as part of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement put on hold under Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022). In the span of one month in 2023, the administration established a new US-Japan-South Korea trilateral with its two East Asian allies and concluded a double upgrade in the US-Vietnam Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
The Lowy Institute’s newly released Asia Power Index confirms this positive trendline, finding that the United States remains the most powerful country in Asia, and that while Beijing continues to chip away at Washington’s lead, “China’s power is plateauing” rather than surpassing that of the United States.
Despite those noteworthy accomplishments, however, the longer-term trendline for the United States is concerning.
As Washington continues to project a strategy that implicitly assumes American primacy while it abstains from the evolving regional economic architecture by rejecting free trade deals, the United States is increasingly losing influence in Asia.
Official inattention and inconsistency are largely to blame for the current situation and can be corrected – but time is running out.
While US policymakers frequently make the point that the United States is the largest source of foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia, this is only true if you consider total investment stocks. According to new data from the Lowy Institute, over the last decade China has invested significantly more in the region than has the United States ($218 billion to $158 billion).
Wary of alienating a country that is their biggest trading partner and an inescapable geographic reality, Southeast Asian states are unwilling to join what they perceive as US-led efforts to contain China.
According to a recent survey by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, more Southeast Asian states now say that they would choose China over the United States if forced to pick between the two, the first time Beijing has eclipsed Washington as the partner of choice.
Increasingly bellicose anti-China rhetoric in Washington – never more evident than in an election year in which each party seeks to outbid the other as tougher on China – has not been balanced by a positive vision for regional stability that embraces economic statecraft or conventional tools of diplomacy.
Whether Democrat or Republican, the next administration has an opportunity to reframe Washington’s Asia policy in response to regional demand for a more active and balanced US role in the region. The incoming president should consider three guiding principles to get the balance right.
First, Asian states want a more benign and sustainable US presence, one not simply predicated on security partnerships and military bases but capable of delivering much needed public goods such as economic investment and development finance to meet the needs of Asia’s rapidly growing middle classes.
Asia’s middle class is expected to grow to 3.5 billion by 2030, making it the largest in the world. A 2019 report by the Asian Development Bank estimated that the infrastructure needs of developing countries in the Indo-Pacific would amount to $1.7 trillion a year through 2030 when climate change adaptation was factored in.
Yet according to one recent study, official development finance to Southeast Asia in 2022 was at its lowest level since 2015 in real terms.
Secondly, it’s not necessary for the United States to be the single most powerful player for it to make positive contributions to regional order. Washington policymakers are deluding themselves if they are crafting regional strategy from an assumption that the US still enjoys unchallenged primacy in Asia.
Primacy should no longer be the lodestar of US strategy and is an unrealistic goal anyway. A foreign policy based on primacy squanders scarce resources and overstretches policymakers at a time when American voters are most concerned with the economy and healthcare.
Third, smaller states want options. While it has become cliché, the reality is that Asian states do not want to be forced to choose between China and the US. China has been the dominant economic partner for the entire region for some time, and it isn’t going away.
By contrast, the United States is seen as fickle and often a source of instability. In Indonesia and Malaysia, citizens have boycotted American companies such as McDonald’s and Starbucks to express their outrage over US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
Indonesia and Malaysia are both significant regional partners for Washington and proverbial “swing states,” whose populations frequently put pressure on their political leaders to distance their countries from the United States. Policymakers in Washington therefore need to be more cognizant of how their country is perceived in the region.
In light of these limitations on US power and influence, the next president should recognize the value of America’s alliances and partnerships across the globe, which act as a force multiplier when rowing in the same direction. Washington should continue to empower partners and allies that are willing to play constructive roles in preserving a rules-based (not necessarily liberal) international order.
Ultimately, neither candidate is likely to follow these prescriptions to a tee. Neither party shows any sign of abandoning the current trajectory, which privileges rivalry with China at all costs with a vaguely defined goal of “winning” that competition.
Primacy may be too baked into the cake for any US leader to let go of. In a climate of great power competition globally and political brinkmanship at home, no candidate sees anything short of US dominance as a viable platform.
However, the next American leader may be forced to reconcile with shifting voter preferences. While foreign policy is never a priority issue in any US election, a large percentage of Americans say that it ranks relatively high on their list of concerns: 62% of all voters indicate that foreign policy is very important in determining whom they will vote for (that breaks down to 70% of Trump supporters and 54% of Harris supporters).
Each candidate has sought to be seen as the candidate of change. While the rest of the world is unlikely to view this election that way (both are incumbents to varying degrees), change is precisely what US Asia strategy needs. The election provides a valuable opportunity to reimagine US goals in light of 21st-century global realities.
Hunter Marston (@hmarston4), a PhD candidate at Australian National University, is a Southeast Asia associate with 9DASHLINE and an adjunct research fellow with La Trobe Asia.
This article was originally published by Pacific Forum. It is republished with permission.
In the September presidential debate, former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris had sharply contrasting views on issues ranging from energy to immigration to policy toward China and the Middle East.
Yet, both agreed that tariffs were useful for US foreign policy.
The debate started with tariffs, and the two candidates went back and forth on the likelihood that the new tariffs would cause inflation. By the end of the debate they returned to their discussion on tariffs, where they disagreed on the sectors where they thought tariffs should be imposed and on which countries should be targeted – but agreed that tariffs are useful.
Regardless of the detrimental consequence of tariffs, including inflation, the candidates emphasized the need to impose them to protect critical sectors and spur domestic manufacturing.
The debate clearly demonstrated the arrival of a new era in the United States, one in which the two parties are recalibrating the balance between national security and economics.
The United States has a growing list of grievances about Beijing’s mercantilist practices. These include
To protect domestic industries vital to national security and incentivize China to change its practices, both the Trump and Biden administrations have imposed tariffs on Chinese products.
In March 2018 President Trump announced the administration would impose a 25% tariff on imported steel and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum. Following the announcement, the Trump administration imposed several rounds of tariffs on steel, aluminum, washing machines, solar panels as well as goods specifically from China, impacting more than $380 billion worth of trade at the time of implementation and amounting to a tax increase of nearly $80 billion.
President Biden said in a 2019 speech: “President Trump may think he’s being tough on China, but all he has delivered is more pain for American farmers, manufacturers, and consumers.”
Yet, the Biden administration has largely upheld existing tariffs, with some exceptions. These include suspending certain tariffs on European Union imports, replacing tariffs with tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on steel and aluminum from the EU and UK, as well as steel from Japan, and allowing tariffs on washing machines to expire after a two-year extension.
In May 2024, the Biden administration announced additional tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese goods, resulting in a tax increase of $3.6 billion.
President Biden’s trade policy differs from the former president’s in that he seeks to increase production and jobs in a select group of emerging high-tech industries. Additionally, he has tightened trade restrictions with China under the “Small Yard, High Fence” approach, limiting the sale of American technology to Beijing while directing federal subsidies to US manufacturers competing with Chinese manufacturers. Another key difference in President Biden’s trade policy is that his strategy relies on bringing international allies together to counter China through a mix of domestic incentives and potentially coordinated tariffs on Chinese goods.
Among the reasons countries impose tariffs are:
The Trump and Biden administrations both stated they imposed tariffs for the first two reasons.
The Trump administration argued that tariffs were “imposed to encourage China to change its unfair practices” as they “threaten United States companies, workers, and farmers.”
Similarly, after the Biden administration announced tariff hikes on May 14, the White House announced tariff increases were designed “to protect American workers and American companies from China’s unfair trade practices,” including forced technology transfers and theft of intellectual property. The administration also pointed out China’s “growing overcapacity and export surges that threaten to significantly harm American workers, businesses, and communities.”
The biggest problem with the latest round of tariffs imposed in May is that it cannot resolve the problems the Biden administration sought to tackle. Rather than focusing on changing China’s forced technology transfers and protecting intellectual property rights, the tariff increases were more about boosting US industries.
Furthermore, doubts persist about whether tariffs truly benefit the US economy. By raising the cost of parts and materials, tariffs increase consumer prices, and reduce private sector output. This will eventually reduce the return to labor and capital, incentivizing Americans to work less and invest less.
There are numerous studies claiming the negative economic consequences of tariff policy. In August 2019, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the negative GDP effects of recent tariff increases had outweighed the positive ones and were decreasing real output by 0.3%. Meanwhile, the Tax Foundation estimated in July 2023 that the long-run effects would bring GDP down by 0.2% and total employment down by 142,000 jobs.
Another issue with the extended tariff policy is that China has evaded its impact. The US-China trade war and rising risks of investing in China prompted global companies to adopt a “China Plus One” strategy, diversifying production into ASEAN countries. These nations became attractive alternatives to replace China for their relatively young populations, free trade agreements with key players, and prime geographical locations.
However, it wasn’t just American firms relocating to Southeast AsiaChinese manufacturers also shifted operations there. Currently, Chinese firms attempt to bypass tariffs by selling components to manufacturers in ASEAN, where the final goods will not be regulated by the US. In the electric vehicle industry, Chinese companies are rapidly expanding into Southeast Asia, making it difficult to regulate them under current trade policies.
Successive administrations have pursued protectionism, from Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act subsidies. Unfortunately, these protectionist policies are also hurting friendly countries. The steel and aluminum tariffs also affect the European Union and Japan, while the subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act have created challenges for US allies trying to conduct business in the US.
In response, countries like Japan, the EU, Canada, Australia, and others have adopted their own domestic subsidies.
If the new administration aims to achieve the stated goal of changing China’s unfair trading practices, the new president should consider reviewing its trade-distorting policies and reigniting a policy of market-driven economic integration with its allies.
To regulate China’s non-market, export-driven model of growth, the administration should work through international organizations and institutions, just as it did during the recent G7 meeting in Italy. Through channels such as the G7, the WTO and the OECD, the US could build an international coalition demanding that Beijing change direction. If those efforts should prove ineffective, the administration could authorize collective action to rein in China’s exports while simultaneously revitalizing the market economy.
Su Hyun Lee ([email protected]) is a researcher focusing on US-China relations and economic security at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. Previously, she was a 2021-22 resident Korea Foundation fellow at the Pacific Forum.
Revenue in 2024 now forecast to exceed pre-pandemic total
PUBLISHED : 29 Oct 2024 at 19:52
Tourism revenue in Phuket this year is likely to exceed the total in 2019, with almost as many visitors as in the year before the Covid pandemic, according to Thanet Tantipiriyakit, president of the Phuket Tourist Association.
“Phuket has now transformed into a destination for quality tourists, as total spending of tourists has risen above the amount recorded in 2019 despite the overall number of visitors falling slightly,” he said on Tuesday.
According to the Department of Tourism, revenue generated by visitors to the island reached 246 billion baht in the first half of this year. Spending is expected to reach 50 billion baht a month during the busiest months of November and December. Therefore, he said the full-year revenue target of 500 billion baht is achievable.
He said Phuket would also welcome more direct flights during the last quarter of this year, including inaugural flights from Astana, Kazakhstan on Sunday; Kolkata and Chennai, India on Monday; and Siem Reap, Cambodia on Tuesday. In addition to direct flights now linking Riyadh to Phuket, there will also be direct flights from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, starting on Dec 2.
“There will be quite a lot of direct flights from many airlines to Phuket this year. It is good news for our people and local businesses,” Mr Thanet said.
He predicted that the total number of tourists this year would be between 13 million and 14 million, which would be similar to 2019. Last year Phuket welcomed about 11 million visitors.
Tourists from China are still the largest group of visitors, followed by travellers from Russia and India. The European and Australian markets have grown, but the number of tourists has not increased significantly.
Mr Thanet said he believed Phuket could reach new heights next year with international events, including the Thailand Biennale Phuket 2025, an international contemporary art festival that will run from November 2025 to April 2026.
In a related development, Phuket governor Sopon Suwannarat on Monday welcomed Masazumi Gotoda, the governor of Tokushima prefecture in Japan, along with representatives of nine companies. They discussed a memorandum of understanding on trade and tourism between the cities.
Mr Gotoda said Tokushima, in Japan’s Shikoku region, has unique natural and cultural charms, including the Iya Valley and the Awa Odori Dance Festival.
“This discussion is an important step in building good relations in terms of tourism and promoting local culture,” he said.
Afghanistan’s Taliban faces growing opposition to its three-year post-conflict rule, rising threats that are gnawing at the stability the one-time insurgent group has sought to impose on the nation.
The Islamist regime appeared to be riding high just recently in celebrating the third anniversary of its second time in power with a military parade showcasing fighter aircraft and weapons seized after the US-led coalition withdrew in chaos in August 2021.
But behind the celebration and military flexing, the Taliban is contending with potent challenges on multiple fronts. Crucially, the Taliban has wholly failed to rein in the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) jihadist group, which seeks to create a caliphate across South and Central Asia.
IS-K was responsible for the deadly attack outside of Kabul’s airport on August 26, 2021, that killed 170 Afghans and 13 US military personnel amid the chaotic withdrawal of Western forces.
IS-K continues to carry out destabilizing terror attacks, including an attack on the Hazara neighborhood of Dasht-e-Barchi in Kabul in January, a shooting that killed six Shiite minority members at a mosque in Herat in late April and the murder of three Spanish tourists in Bamiyan in May.
Many also suspect IS-K was responsible for an explosion last week that injured 11 people in a crowded market in Kabul.
IS-K is growing in strength. The United Nations warned in June it was recruiting disaffected Taliban members and has reportedly infiltrated the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) and government ministries, as seen in the arrest of 20 members of the GDI in July over suspected links to the terror group.
The Taliban’s desire for international legitimacy has been mocked by IS-K, which has accused the regime of bowing to the West, a message that has resonated with many disaffected Afghans.
Concurrently, the regime’s inability to defeat IS-K has made it look weak in the eyes of many Afghans, failing to provide the stability and security it promised when it returned to power.
Armed resistance is growing elsewhere, with the anti-Taliban group the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF) – led by former General Yasin Zia – becoming increasingly emboldened in carrying out attacks on Taliban forces throughout the country.
In the last fortnight, the AFF has carried out more than 15 attacks on the Taliban across seven provinces, including an attack on a military compound in Faryab province that killed two Taliban fighters and a rocket attack on the military section of Kabul’s airport, both last week.
The AFF also attacked the Taliban’s interior ministry in Kabul on October 18, killing four Taliban fighters and issuing a statement saying it was “shattering the false illusion of the Taliban’s security.”
The AFF is cooperating with the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), led by Ahmad Massoud, son of anti-Soviet military leader and Afghan hero Ahmad Shah Massoud.
The NRF is also growing more confident, carrying out two attacks last Thursday (October 24) in Kabul and Faryab that killed six Taliban fighters, while on October 22 an operation in Farah province that killed one Taliban member.
By all accounts, the confidence of these anti-Taliban groups is rising. The AFF used the third anniversary of the Taliban’s return to call for better “unity, cohesion, and alignment” among all anti-Taliban groups, while veteran warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum has recently called a government in exile to overthrow the Taliban with the backing of the international community.
While the Taliban still currently outguns the opposition, it lacks legitimacy internationally, seen in the UN’s enduring refusal to hand over Afghanistan’s seat to it in the General Assembly, an ongoing humiliation for the regime.
No country is willing to officially recognize the regime, with neighbors India and China using this week’s BRICS summit to call on the Taliban to improve its treatment of women and the country’s security situation before it is recognized.
As long as the Taliban lacks international legitimacy, it will look weak among emboldened resistance groups. If the international community decides to fund and arm this resistance – like the support it gave to anti-Taliban groups in 2001 – the Taliban could be in real trouble.
The regime is responding by doubling down on its brutality. The Taliban has created new societal tensions with its recent edict banning images of living things. Videos and photos on television, computers and mobile phones are forbidden, with media companies now forced to run audio-only TV programs. This comes after the Taliban outlawed music last year.
The Taliban continues to target journalists and civil society, arresting and detaining 141 journalists since 2021 according to Reporters without Borders, a press freedom advocacy group.
This includes arresting three radio journalists in Khost province for broadcasting music and receiving calls from female listeners and banning of media companies Noor TV and Barya TV for not respecting “national and Islamic values” in April. Amnesty International has stated civil society has been “shattered” under the Taliban.
For women, Taliban control over their lives is almost total, with almost all denied an education or jobs in most sectors. After banning women from beauty parlors and national parks, the Taliban has implemented a new morality law imposing severe restrictions on a woman’s appearance, behavior and movement, and has gone so far as to ban women from speaking to each other.
Violence against women is also widespread, with the regime now using stoning as punishment and gender-based violence commonplace. The UN has declared the situation for women in Afghanistan the “worst globally.”
The Taliban’s rising repression is sparking new resistance from everyday Afghans, including an attempted assassination of a Taliban official in broad daylight in Herat province this week.
More subtle forms of protest have also become commonplace, seen by a protest by elderly Afghans outside of the Taliban’s finance ministry on Saturday over unpaid salaries, and marches and social media campaigns by women and girls over the continued oppression they face.
Even former President Hamid Karzai has recently risked the wrath of the Taliban by recently speaking out on the need to lift the ban on women’s education.
Critics say the Taliban needs to understand that brutality and fear are not substitutes for good governance, and that there is a limit to how much oppression Afghans will tolerate. Resistance will grow stronger the more the Taliban clamps down.
During the US occupation, a Taliban commander famously told his captors “you have watches, we have the time”, a reference to the fragility of power in Afghanistan, which has seen local rulers and foreign empires come and go for centuries. It’s the Taliban that’s now on the clock and time may be running down on its rule.
Khazanah Nasional Bhd today launched its RM1 billion national fund-of-funds, Jelawang Capital Sdn Bhd, with Bryan Lim as its CEO, following the consolidation of Malaysia Venture Capital Management and Penjana Kapital in July and pursuant to the announcement of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s third MADANI Budget 2025 speech.
Amirul Feisal Wan Zahir, Khazanah Managing Director, said, “Jelawang Capital signifies our commitment to the growth of Malaysia’s venture capital (VC) ecosystem. Through this catalytic initiative, Jelawang Capital will continue to grow Malaysian fund managers while attracting regional fund managers with expertise and capital.”
He noted that while the VC industry is an important source of innovation, economic growth and job creation for the nation, based on research by Startup Genome, only 1.5% of startups in the best US VC hubs enjoy meaningful financial returns on their investment i.e. a successful exit of US$50 million or more, illustrating the high inherent risk and challenges associated with this asset class.
“As such, nothing short of an all-of-nation approach will be needed for us to increase the odds of success. While capital is a key building block to a vibrant VC ecosystem, other critical success factors include the ease of doing business, availability of talent, and deepening of technology and know-how. As innovation is borderless, it is this combination of capital, effective regulation, talent and technology that will determine the future of Malaysia,” Amirul stressed.
Bryan (pic), who is also Khazanah’s Head of Dana Impak, said, “Jelawang Capital is named after the tallest waterfall in Malaysia (pic). Our vision for the local VC ecosystem begins with the provision of capital to fund managers. In turn, we envision this capital and expertise of the managers to cascade to high-potential startups. Like a waterfall flowing into rivers that nourishes the local flora and fauna, we hope these high-potential investments will enrich the wider VC “rainforest” (ecosystem) with innovation and quality jobs. As with any healthy forest, success will depend not just on the availability of water (capital), but also on the abundance of sunlight and nutrients. In shoring up this ecosystem, we look forward to working with like-minded partners and investors.”
Other senior executives at Jelawang Capital are Looi Wen Jie and Syed Husain Albar who serve as co-head of Investments; Radin Faizal Baidrul Ikram, Head of Transformation, and Nurlisa Hussin, Head of Strategic Relationship Management & Special Projects.
To accelerate the growth of Malaysia’s venture capital ecosystem, Jelawang Capital will spearhead two initiatives:
The EMP aims to nurture promising Malaysian VC fund managers to raise their first, second or third fund.
Open to Malaysian General Partners based in Malaysia or abroad, the EMP seeks to support Malaysian fund managers to establish their track record and increase their competitiveness in the VC ecosystem.
Jelawang Capital will act as an anchor for Malaysian GPs to gain traction and crowd-in further capital from other local or international investors. Aside from capital support, the EMP aspires to support GPs to develop crucial areas such as fund management, investment operations and talent management. In turn, this is expected to gradually institutionalise and improve the capabilities of GPs.
Interested applicants can learn more about the qualifying criteria and download the application forms at www.jelawangcapital.com. The EMP is open for proposals until 31 Dec and completed applications are to be submitted to [email protected]. Further opportunities to participate in EMP will be available in the second half of 2025.
RMI aims to elevate Malaysia’s startup ecosystem through strategic partnerships with regional VC firms.
The RMI represents Jelawang Capital’s effort to attract international fund managers who are committed to enrich the ecosystem. This includes supporting the growth of Malaysian startups to be regional and global players, as well as facilitating the redomiciling of global companies in Malaysia to expand local job capabilities, attract talent and deepen innovation. In addition, Jelawang Capital welcomes established venture generators to unearth new entrepreneurs and support the growth of existing ones in Malaysia.
Regional managers aligned with these strategic objectives are invited to submit their proposals to [email protected].
Both the EMP and RMI initiatives will enable the fusion of local and international expertise, perspectives and knowledge to spur a vibrant ecosystem that fuels progress that Advances Malaysia.
As the national fund-of-funds, Jelawang Capital forms part of Dana Impak, a key pillar of Khazanah’s Advancing Malaysia strategy anchored by ‘A Nation that Creates’ framework which aims to boost national productivity and competitiveness. Dana Impak initiatives aim to empower Malaysian business of all sizes and across different life cycles, including startups, small to mid-tier as well as large companies, with the objective of improving livelihood of communities.