Commentary: To bring back nightlife, Hong Kong needs to upgrade its night markets

By:
On:
In: Asia

REMEMBERING THE ICONIC NIGHT Businesses OF HONG KONG

Instead of starting from scratch, as visitors have argued, resources could be used to modernize Hong Kong’s aging day markets. & nbsp,

With its long history, Temple Street is probably the most well-known evening market in Hong Kong. The state has been urged to make the night market a current tourist destination by the Yaumatei Temple Street Association of Hawkers and Shop Operators.

With its fortune-telling companies, city appearances, and singing stalls, the Temple Street night market had a lot of local flavor, but the food selection was lacking. Additionally, the Hong Kong Hawkers Association acknowledged that foreign visitors are not likely to find the dry goods stable appealing because they primarily sell products made in China.

It will take time to invest in Temple Street to build a thriving day business. Details have not yet been disclosed, but the Hong Kong Tourism Board has stated that it is collaborating with trade associations and authorities organizations to prepare meals markets and colorful events to” enhance the overall feeling of Temple Street.”

Short-term promotion is one way to keep Hong Kong’s economy and entice residents and visitors back into the nightlife of the city.

Halloween celebrations and fireworks displays have been planned by Night Vibes Hong Kong, which is in keeping with the administration’s design. Even so, these monuments have been a yearly occurrence in Hong Kong for at least ten years, leaving locals and tourists wanting more.

Unlike Singapore, Hong Kong does not have an F1 race or Taylor Swift music to promote the town. To revive the town that was once dormant does require more ingenuity.

Award-winning columnist Jacky Leung has worked for numerous Hong Kong TV and radio news channels. Now, he resides in London.

Continue Reading

Flash Coffee’s employees owed salaries, CPF contributions after sudden closure of all Singapore outlets: Union

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

SINGAPORE: According to a union statement made on Friday( Oct 13 ), Flash Coffee’s employees who are affected by & nbsp, the sudden closure of the business’ operations in Singapore, are owed outstanding salaries, Central Provident Fund ( CPF ) contributions, and prevailing leave entitlements.

In Singapore, Flash Coffee has closed all 11 of its locations.

According to a statement released on Friday night by the Food, Drinks, and Allied Workers’ Union( FDAWU ), salaries owed to employees make up the remaining 75 % of their September salaries as well as wages for work completed up until October 12.

The federation added that it also includes the payment of any remaining keep days.

On Tuesday, employees were informed that Flash Coffee locations had shut down on Wednesday.

On Thursday night, they went to a meeting where it was announced that the business had been put on temporary settlement on Monday and that their employment with the company would end on Thursday.

The coalition claimed that it first learned about the salary owed to Flash Coffee people on Friday following the closing of the locations.

The FDAWU stated that the union’s employees” shared that there were no obvious plans to put up any planned activity following companies’ sharing of the situation at hand.”

A sign in one business at Jurong Point announced that employees were” on attack” due to past salary payments.

Flash Coffee told CNA on Friday afternoon that” Contrary to reports, our staff in Singapore are not on” strike.”

” We stopped operating at our 11 stores, so our staff are not required to report to operate ,” the statement reads.

It continued by saying that affected crew members were being” actively assisted.”

The majority of the employees in our Singapore mind office have received offers to work with our local team or in other markets. We are also actively attempting to link our staff to employment opportunities at other coffee bars, according to the business.

To inquire about the unpaid wages owed to employees, CNA has contacted Flash Coffee.

The coalition claimed that it is helping people who are affected with salary-related claims. Additionally, it will support work help by utilizing both its system of unionized businesses and the” wider labor movement network.”

” For employees that FDAWU had now hired, they had been linked to open positions in the service industry right away.”

It continued,” FDAWU will continue to keep an eye on the situation and provide any additional assistance to people as needed.”

With its recognizable golden shop, Flash Coffee, which was introduced in 2020, also sells in Indonesia, Thailand, and Hong Kong. & nbsp, it had nearly 30 outlets in Singapore in 2021.

Continue Reading

Flash Coffee shuts all 11 Singapore outlets, denies reports that employees are ‘on strike’

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

The Instagram comments on Flash Coffee Singapore’s site have vanished in the interim. The company next made an appearance on its Facebook section in Singapore in March. The Instagram websites for Flash Coffee in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Indonesia are also effective.

People at Flash Coffee apparently lost their jobs in various areas, including Singapore, in November of last year.

The business announced in May of this year that it had raised US$ 50 million( S$ 68 million ) through a White Star Capital-led financing round. & nbsp,

It stated at the time that the fresh funds would be used to achieve group-level success.

In order to assist customers in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and South Korea with high-quality specialist coffee, the company is” effectively expanding its step throughout the Asia Pacific region.” It also plans to double down on product and technology development and improve existing stores’ sales performance.

DealStreetAsia, however, reported earlier this month that Flash Coffee was ceasing activities.

According to Flash Coffee’s voice, the majority of its markets have” tremendous momentum on top of a healthy base.”

The company stated,” We remain steadfast in our quest to provide up high-quality espresso throughout Asia and likely some more markets in the medium term, and we remain committed to scaling our business effectively over the long term.”

Continue Reading

Kishida’s ‘economic realism’ de-coupling Japan from China

By:
On:
In: Asia

Years-long political and territorial disputes between Japan and China have coexisted strangely with intense economic cooperation in the areas of production, technologies, and financing. & nbsp, This has prompted Japan to forge economic ties with China through a seikei bunri policy that separates politics from economics.

Japan has grown more worried about its economic reliance on China as a result of intensifying US-China strategic competition, China’s history of economic force, and its long-term goals to secure its unique” main interests.”

Principles for economic engagement with China are giving way to Fumio Kishida’s new” economic realist” diplomacy in The & nbsp, seikei bunri.

Concerns about the effect of politics on Japan’s economic security can be addressed through a variety of policy measures, such as reshoring, & nbsp, friend-sholing, and national technological advancement.

Concerns about Japan’s susceptibility to economic coercion and supply chain weaponization have grown in Tokyo as a result of the seikei bunri & nbsp drift away.

By carefully diversifying supply stores and reducing rely on China, political leaders in Japan have already committed sizable corporate and financial resources to improving economic security. & nbsp,

Initiatives include the deployment of additional budgets for financial protection, such as securing bases for advanced semiconductor production at home. To help supply chains and motivate their diversification, supplemental budgets have concentrated on encouraging private investment.

The jointly dependent economic relationship is still largely intact, deepening, and very complement despite the political and security challenges. China will always be the largest marketplace for goods and services in Japan. & nbsp,

Especially in the technology, electronics, and automobile industries, Chinese businesses have made significant investments in China. For Chinese businesses, China is also a significant source of inexpensive products and parts. Due to this function, Chinese products are now more competitive in international businesses and prices have remained low.

The complex and varied shared dependency that defines the Japan-China economic relationship would need to be untangled in order to detach it.

East Asia, according to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, might become the next Ukraine. JiJi image

Based on an analysis of the difficulties brought on by China’s fall, Kishida prioritized financial security after taking business in October 2021. Kishida issued a warning that” East Asia could be the next Ukraine” in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which had an effect on inland strength and food safety.

Tokyo is encouraging reshoring by encouraging Chinese companies to either relocate their output from China back to Japan or look into new production facilities in Southeast Asia, India, and other nations. The government has implemented procedures, such as grants, tax breaks, and regulatory measures, to assist businesses that are thinking about reshoring.

Tokyo has also emphasized the significance of diversifying supply chains, especially for essential elements and aspects like rare earth aluminum. The Chinese government has made investments in other rare earth metal sources, such as recycling and building new mines abroad. Japan is even looking into how to replace rare earth metals with innovative materials.

Under the auspices of the” Free and Open Indo – Pacific,” Tokyo has encouraged cooperation to strengthen economic relations and objectives. This is demonstrated by the G7 Foreign Ministers’ statement from 18 April 2023, which emphasized that” resilient supply chains may be built in a clear, developed, secure, lasting, trustworthy and reliable manner.”

Japan has even emphasized the significance of bolstering home business. This includes the creation of new sectors and systems that are intended to strengthen Japan’s economic stability and lessen its exposure to China.

Semiconductors are a crucial part of Chinese firms. Despite being a big semiconductor maker, Japan still relies on exports of important components from different nations, such as China.

Tokyo has directly courted the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company( TSMC ), among others, to move to Japan in order to reduce this vulnerability. Additionally, it has supported the creation of next-generation electronics and pushed its businesses up the value network to lessen their reliance on imports.

Japan and other nations are at risk of being weaponized by the rare earth supply chain because China still has a monopoly on the origin and export of these metals. This makes distinctive Chinese industries, such as electronics, cars, and clean energy, vulnerable to potential coercion.

Japan & nbsp lacks domestic sources of rare earth metals and is dependent on imports, just like it does with energy and other mineral resources. There aren’t many reliable suppliers besides China, and building new mining is difficult and expensive. New activities with Canada are still unprofitable from a financial standpoint.

In addition to metals extraction and processing, developing inland industries that can use the metals in products is necessary to develop alternative rare earth metal sources. Even though Japan has a thriving high-tech sector, creating new companies that use rare earth metals takes time and money, which may not be up to the market’s requirements.

On March 10, 2013, loaders loaded vehicles with rare world onto a waterfront in the Jiangsu province’s Port of Lianyungang. Asia Times Files, Imaginechina, via AFP, Wang Chun, and

It will be challenging to improve financial stability and develop resilience to economic coercion and other types of financial instability. To ensure that activities are carried out properly and effectively, Kishida and potential administrations will need to build new mine and running facilities for rare earth metals while adhering to a number of economic standards.

Careful planning, conversation, and cooperation with partners, such as local areas, environmental organizations and government agencies, may be needed when building new mine and processing facilities for rare earth metals. This procedure is being launched by the Kishida presidency in collaboration with Australia and African nations like Namibia.

Japan’s attempts to lessen its reliance on China are motivated by a desire to improve financial stability and lower its susceptibility to geopolitical risks and uncertainties. & nbsp,

The Kishida administration seeks to strike a balance between economic opportunities and Japanese national interests in an increasingly complex and uncertain global environment by moving away from the & nbsp, seikei bunri, principles.

At the International Christian University in Tokyo, Stephen Nagy teaches politics and international experiments. He is also a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs.

This article can be found in Vol. 15 No. 3 of the most recent version of East Asia Forum Quarterly, titled” Re-defining the ASEAN-Japan Relationship.”

This post, which was originally published by the East Asia Forum, has been republished with a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Calls for new China debt boom miss the big picture

By:
On:
In: Asia

At a time when President Xi Jinping’s group is veering in the opposite direction, eminent Chinese analyst Yu Yongding is calling for violent financial growth.

Yu, a previous top official from the People’s Bank of China who is currently employed by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, contends that the shift in policy to” apply fiscal and monetary levers to listen to growth and value files” is the” key to success.” Fiscal and monetary expansion are appropriate if both growth and prices are slow.

According to Yu, the intensity of the headwinds affecting China calls for a strong outburst of public spending in particular to regain demand and thwart negative forces. Instead, he worries that Xi’s economic team is overly preoccupied with” supply-side” solutions like tax breaks, which may ultimately harm China. According to Yu,” supply-side economics is more important in China than in the US ,” even though several Western observers would agree.

It’s difficult to imagine that some major observers, least of all representatives of the International Monetary Fund, would agree with Yu on his proposals for fiscal and monetary expansion, aside from Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.

IMF Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas called for” aggressive actions by the regulators” on a number of fronts, not only looser fiscal policy, in his speech on Tuesday in Marrakech.

In order to prevent an increase in financial instability, to ensure that it stays localized in the real estate business and doesn’t spread out into the larger financial system, and to help rebuild household confidence, Gourinchas argued that Xi’s group if” help rebuild struggling home developers.”

The argument made here is that the largest economy in Asia needs to be stabilized through architectural changes and governmental actions. The IMF’s position does not, of course, preclude increased & nbsp, fiscal spending.

Beijing telegraphed moves to increase its budget deficit for 2023 at the same time Gourinchas spoke at an IMF occasion in Morocco, suggesting a new new stimulus may accompany Xi’s supply-side efforts to calm property markets.

According to Bloomberg, Beijing may issue additional sovereign debt totaling up to 1 trillion yuan($ 137 billion ) to fund new infrastructure projects. China’s 2023 budget deficit would increase above the 3 % cap established in March as a result.

Yu, who is concerned that Xi’s inside circle is extremely devoted to the debt-to-gross-internal-policy provisions of the Maastricht Treaty, the founding document for the European Union, may be encouraged by this development. It maintains that the debt to GDP ratio cannot be higher than 3 %.

According to Yu, the People’s Bank of China has been” juggling too many priorities ,” while Beijing has” pursued a careful financial plan.” ” Economic growth, employment, internal and external price stability, & nbsp, financial stability and even allocation of financial resources” are the terms he uses to describe them.

Yu claims that the PBOC has specifically had to react to the housing price index’s seasonal changes. According to Yu,” the PBOC pulls back the financial plan reins if the score rises quickly.” More generally, the PBOC has vowed to stick to a” precision drip – irrigation” approach rather than pursue” flood irrigation ,” which would mean flooding the economy with liquidity.

However, according to Yu, China” unquestionably” could have been experiencing” higher growth over the past ten years with a more intense economic – coverage strategy.” ” China can still obtain a more powerful coming, even though it’s too late to change the history ,” he claims,” but only if it implements carefully thought-out fiscal and monetary expansion focused on increasing powerful require and, ultimately, rise.”

Academician and top colleague Yu Yongding works at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Wikipedia image

The problem is that rather than addressing the root causes of China’s financial andNBSP problems, these plans do more to treat its symptoms.

Yu is not the only person who believes that China’s issue is a lack of speedy sugar highs. Leading mainland macro hedge fund Shanghai Banxia Investment Management Center urged Xi’s team to establish a market stabilization fund on Tuesday in order to put an end to the” vicious cycle” that is undermining shares. Li Bei, the fund’s leader, is essentially looking for a return to direct business interventions of the kind used in 2015.

Li stated in a WeChat article that” the key is to split the damage property – price declines are doing to people, and their trust.”

However, these quick fixes have no effect on China’s economic system, business governance, or capital markets. Additionally, they don’t boost efficiency, advancement, or chances for change in a struggling economy.

Incentives for local governments to create more dynamic business environments, create social safety nets, which are needed to find households to invest more and keep less, or handle the world’s aging population won’t change despite loosening fiscal policy and bailing out markets andnbsp.

Stimulus alone cannot promote the shift away from tomorrow’s investment-heavy, state-owned – enterprise-led growth model and toward a demand-driven economy. It won’t increase the confidence of international buyers to place large bets on China. Additionally, it didn’t help to stabilize the unstable real estate markets that are alarmed owners.

The issue with the real estate market is the most pressing. Country Garden is implying that it won’t be able to fulfill its obligations abroad two centuries after China Evergrande Group filed for bankruptcy. One of China’s largest real estate developers, Country Garden, had an estimated debt pile of$ 116 billion as of 2023.

Despite the numerous easing measures implemented in September, the property business” showed signs of weakening again ,” according to Tu Ling, a Nomura scholar. This was particularly true of low-tier locations, which may have been squeezed even more by the relaxation of regulations in high-territ cities.

According to Zhang Wenlang, an analyst at China International Capital Corp.,” We believe that economic development may continue to be hampered by pressures along the real estate price network, such as sales, property acquisition, and building.”

Similarities to Japan’s negative mortgage crisis in the 1990s have been made due to the scope of the issue. According to Gourinchas of the IMF,” aggressive action is necessary to clean up the real estate business.”

There is a possibility that the issue will rot and get worse if that doesn’t happen, he claims.

Of all, the PBOC may contribute. However, the weak yuan & nbsp may restrict Governor Pan Gongsheng’s ability to further reduce interest rates. That implies that there will undoubtedly be some financial relaxation.

According to scholar Ding Shuang at Standard Chartered Plc,” with CPI falling to depreciation, exports contracting further, and the home business also struggling, we see opportunity for the authorities to make full use of the fiscal space under the approved budget to maintain growth.”

According to economist Thomas Gatley of Gavekal Research, problems facing Evergrande and other designers harm the Taiwanese economy as a whole,” as the recent declines in equity and offshore bond pricing attest ,” going far beyond the strain they place on the companies’ direct lenders.

According to Gatley, there are at least three causes for concern for shareholders regarding the future of Evergrande.

First, he claims that there are now more risks associated with government policy mistakes that” disrupt industry and the market.” ” Mistakes are always possible, and the precarious financial situation of developers makes it difficult to predict or control the flow of events ,” says Gatley.

Two, there is still the” potential for further damage to cover – market sentiment, which is already anxious.” Third, Gatley claims that” as engineers delay or default on payments to their manufacturers, the financial strain of house builders is spilling over onto another companies.”

By the middle of 2023, China’s listed designers jointly owed their suppliers 3.4 trillion renminbi( US$ 466 billion ) in business payables. Evergrande only is worth$ 82 billion in the US.

In short, according to Gatley,” the struggles of China’s real estate developers have now drained trillions of rmb of liquidity from the economy andnbsp, and if things get worse for developers, so will the monetary drag on associated industries.”

Therefore, economists like Yu downplay the urgent need for the supply-side rebellion.

Vitor Gaspar, chairman of financial affairs for the IMF, approached the issue from a different angle this week in Marrakech. According to Gaspar, both China and the US are getting less value for their signal investment.

According to Gaspar, the US and China’s budget deficits, which range from 6 % to 7 % of GDP over the course of the period up to 2028, are what are really driving them. However, for both of the world’s two largest markets,” growth has slowed and the medium-term leads are the weakest in some day.”

The opacity built into the Communist Party’s growth model, including the explosion of off-balance-sheet borrowing via local government financing vehicles ( LGFVs ) since the late 2000s, is a major concern in China.

Lower China’s long-standing emphasis on real estate and massive infrastructure projects for growth, according to Gaspar, is the current top priority. According to Gaspar,” The concern for China is development, balance, and innovation.”

According to Gaspar,” China” has” enough coverage space” and” many options” to switch to a new development model that prioritizes domestic need over exports and investment. He cites development in the electric vehicle industry and other energy markets as examples of those options.

Encourage households to eat more and keep less must be the main focus. According to Eric Khaw, older portfolio manager at Nikko Asset Management,” China’s huge benefits imbalance is the trouble now.” The savings rate is significantly higher than the purchase price, which has been impacted by a liberal decline in investment demand, and China currently has one of the highest savings rates in the region.

This implies, according to Khaw,” that China, with its surplus discounts, will need to have higher purchase.” You can see that the overall level of personal loan is lower than that of the US, South Korea, Japan, and many other nations if you look at it.

He also notes that, based on IMF information, China’s public debt is only about 71 %. ” Relatively less than those of the US and Japan ,” to put it mildly. Therefore, in our opinion, there is a lot of room to raise the nation’s purchase rate.

According to Khaw,” more borrowing and lending will need to be done for China’s economic mediation the bigger the discounts.” Saving must either be invested domestically or borrowed internationally. China used to be able to export its extra benefits worldwide. However, politics then place restrictions on Chinese imports. Saving might be the only option available to the Chinese authorities.

Therefore, claims like Yu’s that a debt-fueled signal growth is necessary to return to 6 % only serve to continue the boom-bust period that the Xi team is trying to break. In order to win China’s financial game, fresh and disruptive policies must be taken on, rather than being reliant on tried-and-true safeguards.

Continue Reading

Commentary: Breaking the vicious cycle of haze and climate change in Southeast Asia

By:
On:
In: Asia

TO Alleviate HAZE, GET ON THE Earth

South Asian maritime haze pollution is recognized as a complex issue that necessitates multi-stakeholder engagement with local communities, municipal governments, corporations, and civil society.

Since the 1990s, ASEAN has been actively working to reduce haze, and in 2015, the Singaporean government passed a law prohibiting intergovernmental waste. Researchers have spent years carefully analyzing the haze’s underlying reasons, factors, impacts, and implications. But the issue keeps coming up every season.

It is now time to move beyond the realms of diplomacy and academia and engage the public to convince towns, businesses, and institutions that it is in their best interests to protect peat. Simply put, every effort we make to keep our coal reserves in our peatlands may contribute to the prevention of our climate and haze.

In this regard, the region’s current speed in using carbon prices tools and the creation of voluntary carbon emissions trading markets( as Indonesia has just done ) may provide a window of opportunity to encourage stakeholders to scale-up their conservation efforts and produce high-quality carbon credits that can be monetized.

For instance, the United Kingdom has developed the Peatland Code, a cutting-edge organic capital financing mechanism that uses an independent standard to provide independent validation and verification for projects involving the restoration of peatlands.

Through this, the UK has been using a combination of public and private funding to register about 200 peatland jobs in its nationwide registry and track the total amount of emissions reduced and the place restored. The need for individualized job reviews is replaced by the Code, which reassures investors of best practices.

Development toward these opportunities in the peatlands of Southeast Asia may be diverse. According to international standards, the results may be measurable, actionable, and factual.

In the current brass environment, this may be difficult, but the advantages are well worth it. For peatland populations, this might lead to better standard of living. The same could contribute to corporate conservation moves. They may improve national carbon products account for governments. It might eventually signify for the area the realization of the” Haze-Free ASEAN” perspective.

At the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute’s ASEAN Studies Centre, Sharon Seah serves as Senior Fellow and Coordinator. At the University of Malaya’s Department of International and Strategic Studies, Helena Varkkey teaches climate politics and leadership as an associate doctor. This article first appeared on the website Fulcrum of the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.

Continue Reading

Veg fest to generate B9bn: TAT

By:
On:
In: South-East Asia

PUBLISHED: 12 October 2023 at 4:00 p.m.

The Phuket Provincial Commercial Office reported that fruit prices are lower than they were during the same time last month, and the monthly 10-day vegetarian event is anticipated to bring in over 9 billion ringgit.

The Phuket Tourist Association’s chair, Thanet Tantipiriyakit, stated that in October, the low season, also known as the green season in Phuket, comes to an end.

Phuket is hosting its yearly vegetarian festival from October 15 to October 24 to commemorate the change to the beach island’s high season, which lasts from November to April.

According to Mr. Thanet, the TAT’s Phuket Office predicts that more than 9 billion baht in revenue may be brought in during the festival, compared to 3.4 billion for the previous occasion.

According to him, lodging will account for 20 % of the anticipated revenue, the culinary industry for another 20 %, and local products for the remaining 20 %.

He stated that over 70 % of the city’s ability for hotels in Phuket is also anticipated to be occupied.

According to Mr. Thanet, the salad event will draw a sizable number of visitors to Phuket as the green season comes to an end.

He claimed that the public and private businesses both contributed to Phuket’s amenities and lodging. While some hotels or restaurants will provide an all-you-can-eat vegetable buffet, others may change their menus to include vegetable dishes.

According to Mr. Thanet, vegetarian food will make up about 80 % of the menu in Phuket.

Woranit Apiratjirawong, director of the Phuket Commerce Office, added that officials often check the ingredients in Phuket’s areas.

To prevent customer exploitation, especially during important festivals, the office will dispatch inspectors to monitor present ingredient costs.

She claimed that prices for carrot, white sugar, water spinach, bean sprouts, and cabbage are 20 to 30 % lower than they were during the same time last year.

Continue Reading