The European Union has just approved new sanctions against Russia, including a price cap on oil sales, following the United States’ September 30 announcement of new economic sanctions. Both announcements are in response to Russia’s annexation of four regions of Ukraine. The goal of sanctions against Russia is to cripple Russia’s capacity to wage war […]Continue Reading
SINGAPORE: Singapore’s Lovebonito Holdings, owner of the Love, Bonito female fashion brand and backed by investors including Chinese buyout firm Primavera Capital Group, is targeting opening its first US physical store next year, its top executive said. “The US is really one of the big bet markets for us thatContinue Reading
The much-vaunted economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic was short-lived. The global economy is now once more in the midst of a slowdown – the sharpest after any post-recession recovery since 1970. In this context, there is a growing recognition in Europe that the burgeoning Chinese economy can be seen from two angles. From a […]Continue Reading
BRUSSELS: Partners, competitors or rivals? European Union leaders are debating whether to rethink their stance on China as President Xi Jinping tightens his grip over an ever more assertive Beijing. A two-day summit in Brussels from Thursday (Oct 20) will be dominated by the fallout of Russia’s war on Ukraine andContinue Reading
In late August 2022, news broke that Apple was in talks to manufacture its famed Apple Watches and MacBooks in Vietnam for the first time. Some view this as a move by transnational corporations and their core suppliers to diversify their production away from China, buffering themselves from intensifying US-China geoeconomic competition. Others interpret this as a sign of […]Continue Reading
After months of preparation and concerning sentiment stemming from a deteriorating external environment, Covid-related restrictions and the plummeting real-estate sector, the Communist Party of China’s 20th National Congress started with President Xi Jinping’s delivery of the work report. First of all, dynamic zero-Covid policies remain in place, sealed by the success in saving lives during […]Continue Reading
The war in Ukraine is helping one country achieve its foreign policy and national security objectives, but it’s neither Russia nor Ukraine. It’s Iran. That was starkly clear on the morning of October 17, 2022, as Iranian-made drones attacked civilian targets in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev. Russia used the Iranian drones to inflict damage on Ukraine’s […]Continue Reading
Western observers are mistaken in their tendency to overlook Turkmenistan, a resource-rich, strategically consequential country that borders such key regional players as Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and has a long coastline on the Caspian Sea. The country serves as one of the most important east-west and north-south transport and logistics hubs in Eurasia. Oddly, neither […]Continue Reading
While Joe Biden is trying to calm concerns about recession and Christine Lagarde is scaring markets with quantitative easing (QE), the central banks of South Korea and Japan are pleasing investors in their own way. Starting with the “Land of the Rising Sun,” despite Japan’s 2.84 trillion yen (US$19.7 billion) intervention in the foreign-exchange market in the […]Continue Reading
Funds will be used to fuel global expansionÂ
Startup is currently valued at approx US$1.5 billion bolttech has announced that Tokio Marine, alongside other shareholders, will lead its Series B funding round.Â
In a statement, the insurtech firm said this recent investment values the startup at an up-round valuation of approximately US$1.5 billion…Continue Reading