Singapore

Mark Carney, Canada's prime minister, will make his first official trip to Asia this Friday. He is hoping to strengthen trade and security links at a moment when North America struggles to reduce its dependence on the U.S. Canadian officials have said that Carney's trip could include a meeting between him and Chinese President Xi Jinping in an effort to restore a relationship previously strained by a trade war. Donald Trump, President of the United States Termination of trade talks Canada responded to a political ad in Ontario that featured Ronald Reagan, the Republican icon who said tariffs caused economic...

The global stock market got a boost Thursday thanks to a series of positive earnings reports that helped offset some of the gloom in Wall Street due to a lacklustre performance by tech megacaps. Oil prices also rose following U.S. sanction against Russia. After the U.S. placed sanctions on Rosneft, and Lukoil, two major Russian oil companies over the Ukraine conflict. The STOXX 600 index rose 0.3% for the day, as positive earnings helped to boost the domestic indexes. The MSCI All-World Index, however, has slipped into the negative zone, and is on its way to its third consecutive day...

In late June, Indonesian soldiers wearing fatigues entered a palm oil plantation in Borneo and displayed a sign declaring that the estate was under government control. The Melati Hanjalipan Plantation is a perfect example of a military-backed takeover which has shocked the 16 million-strong workforce and the world's largest palm oil producer. Agrinas Palma Nusantara is the new state-owned palm oil firm that has a land area of 9.1 million acres. Nearly half was transferred to it, making it the largest palm oil company in terms of size. This crackdown, ordered by the President Prabowo Subianto, is the largest structural...

Asian stocks dropped for a second consecutive day on Thursday, as Wall Street was hit by a sell-off due to lackluster earnings from the tech giants. Meanwhile, U.S. sanctions on Russia and possible export controls against China rekindled geopolitical concerns. After the U.S. placed sanctions on Rosneft, and Lukoil - two major Russian oil companies - over the Ukraine conflict, the price of oil jumped 3%. The broadest MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan fell 0.4% last week, while Japan's Nikkei225 dropped 1.5%. Chinese stocks dropped as much as 1,1% after sources claimed that the White House was considering...

The CEO of the trading house Trafigura stated on Monday that traditional applications of copper will continue as the largest part of the demand for the metal in the coming decade. This is not data centres or the defence industry. Richard Holtum, speaking at the LME Week in London, noted that artificial intelligence (AI), defence spending and metal demand are "buzzwords". He said that consumer demand will "dwarf three times" the AI demand for copper this year. Holtum, in a conversation with Matt Chamberlain, CEO of the London Metal Exchange said: "The amount that copper goes into air conditioning is...

Letters show that Hollywood and Bollywood groups lobby an Indian panel to increase copyright protection so that artificial intelligence companies cannot use their intellectual property for training AI models. AI companies are at odds with content owners around the world, and governments are developing rules to govern this new technology. While Japan allows AI firms to use copyrighted material, the European Union's rules are stricter and allow content owners to opt out. The film industry is especially concerned that AI could scrape copyrighted online videos, images and clippings like trailers and promotions - and even more importantly ingest pirated material...

Angola has a complex network of pipelines that snake along the Atlantic coast. They lead to a new refinery, which signals Angola's drive for energy independence. It also shows how private lenders are being used instead of banks to finance a large-scale project. "We are not the lender last resort," said Felipe Berliner. He is the co-founder and CEO of Gemcorp, a emerging markets asset management company that provided the majority of the funding for the refinery using private capital. "Sometimes, we are the sole lender." Veteran investors said that private credit for emerging market countries -- driven by investors’...

Documents viewed show that the Singapore Police Force has been reviewing a complaint filed by Viceroy Research, a short seller who alleged that Vedanta Ltd, a natural resources conglomerate had improperly funded Vedanta's 2024 dividend. Viceroy's accusations were "baseless" according to Vedanta Ltd, which said it had paid out all dividends in compliance with the applicable laws. The company stated that "we maintain that the allegations contained in the dubious reports of the short seller are malicious and uninformed and we reject them unequivocally." The statement added that there was no SPF investigation in progress and the Singapore Police had...

The Australian government announced on Tuesday that it would provide A$135 (US$87.4M) in financial assistance to two smelters in Australia's southern region owned by Nyrstar. Nyrstar is a subsidiary of commodity trader Trafigura. Trafigura placed its Port Pirie lead-smelting operations, in South Australia, and its zinc processing operation in Hobart in Tasmania under strategic review in early this year after high energy costs and lower processing fees rendered the businesses unprofitable. Nyrstar, as part of its review, assessed the potential of producing antimony, a critical mineral, at its Port Pirie facility, but it would require government assistance to do so....

Trafigura, a global commodity trader, said that its UK-based Greenergy biofuel producer will consult with employees about closing the biodiesel factory in Immingham. A spokesperson said that the consultation process will affect 60 jobs. This would be the latest blow to Britain's fuel sector, just a week after Lindsey's oil refinery owner Prax declared insolvency and put 420 jobs on the line. Greenergy closed down the plant at the end May and placed it in strategic review, citing the "unsupportive market conditions" despite having "implemented significant cost-reduction measures". The plant was negatively affected by the company Trafigura acquired last year....

According to BlackRock's Thursday investor day presentation, Temasek is part of a consortium backed Microsoft, BlackRock, and the tech investment company MGX, which aims to expand and invest in artificial intelligence infrastructure. Slides showed that the Singapore state investment firm has joined AI Infrastructure Partnership. This group also includes BlackRock Global Infrastructure Partners. AIP was formed in September, with the goal of investing more than $30 billion initially in AI-related project. It is one of world's biggest efforts to invest data centres and energy infrastructure needed to power AI apps such as ChatGPT. The aim is to mobilize up to...

According to a petition from investors, Vietnam's state-owned power utility has reduced the subsidised prices that it pays for electricity generated by solar and wind farms. These farms now face defaulting on their bank debts. The document was sent to Vietnam's highest authorities on May 16, and follows a letter from the majority of signatories in which they warned that billions of dollars were at risk due to retroactive changes made by Vietnamese authorities to subsidies, even though they were targeting a massive expansion of solar energy capacity. Documents show that, starting with invoices for January, a subsidiary EVN's Vietnam...

Sany Heavy Industry's shares rose up to 4.7% on their Hong Kong debut Tuesday, after the Chinese construction equipment maker raised HK$12.36bn ($1.59bn) in one the biggest listings in the city this year. According to the prospectus, this company was founded in 1994 and is part of the Sany Group. It is now China's leading construction machinery manufacturer, and ranks among the top three worldwide. Sany, which manufactures excavators and concrete machinery as well as road construction equipment and cranes, operates 16 production bases in different countries and sells its products to more than 150. The stock price opened at...

This week, a delegation of Singaporean firms is visiting South Africa to explore partnership opportunities in manufacturing, logistics and consumer goods. Trade between the two countries has almost doubled in the last four years. Enterprise Singapore, Singapore's agency for trade and enterprise, stated that this mission was part of the Scale-Up Programme and aimed to link participating firms with South African counterparts, and potential partners, in a variety of sectors including agriprocessing and industrial supplies. "South Africa is already a close partner of Singapore, and there are many Singaporean firms operating in South Africa," Rahul Ghosh said on Thursday. He...

Two people who have direct knowledge of this matter say that Anugrah Neo Energy Materials, a nickel mining and processing firm in Indonesia, plans to make an initial public offer on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. The company hopes to raise $300 million. Sources declined to identify themselves as this information is not public. According to sources, Anugrah Neo Energy Materials could be valued at more than 2 billion dollars. Proceeds will also be used for expansion. They added that DBS and RHB are among the banks involved in the IPO. Anugrah Neo Energy Materials didn't immediately respond to an inquiry...

Rio Tinto is preparing to ship 2 million metric tonnes of high-grade ore from its Simandou mine in Guinea by mid-November, according to three sources. This would be the very first shipment out of the massive mine that will reshape the global supply and pricing. Rio's third-quarter report, released on Tuesday, stated that SimFer, one of two mines in Simandou, had amassed 1,5 million tons of ore. The first ore was loaded onto rail transport back in October. Unspecified details were not provided by a spokesperson, but he said that the company was continuing to progress the project at "pace"....

Three sources familiar with the matter claim that the sale of a majority stake in Bank Pan Indonesia, or Panin Bank, listed on Jakarta's stock exchange by ANZ Australia and Indonesia’s Gunawan Family has been stalled because of a mismatch of pricing. The combined stake is equivalent to approximately 86% of Panin Bank. This bank was valued at $1.45 billion on Friday, based on the 1,140 rupiah share price on the Jakarta Stock Exchange. According to LSEG, the Gunawan family holds 46.5% of the shares. It is willing to reduce its holdings. ANZ, an Australian bank, owns around 39.2%. CIMB...

Chinese media, citing anonymous sources, reported that Ant Group, a subsidiary of China's ecommerce giant Alibaba Group, plans to list Ant International on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Caixin reported, citing sources close to the company that Ant was in communication with regulators regarding the possible listing. The report didn't specify whether discussions took place with regulators from China or other countries. Ant International is a Singapore-based company. Alibaba controls 33% of Ant, which was founded by Jack Ma. It runs China's ubiquitous Alipay mobile payment app. Chinese authorities pulled Ant's $37-billion IPO in Shanghai & Hong Kong in 2020....

S ingapore-headquartered real estate investment manager SC Capital Partners has emerged as a potential bidder for British data centre group Global Switch, two people familiar with the matter told . One of the sources said that the firm, which is backed by the global real estate manager CapitaLand Investment is working with advisors to purchase the London-based Jiangsu Shagang Group. The matter is a private one, so both sources requested anonymity. The people cautioned that the talks are still ongoing and will depend on market conditions. The first person who spoke said that the transaction could be valued between $4...

According to internal memos and sources, the former head of Mercuria's Beijing office will join China's largest oil refining group Rongsheng Holdings as a senior executive. Li Xinhua will assist Xiang Jingjiong as president of Rongsheng Holdings. Li will be responsible for Rongsheng’s coal, petrochemical and oil trading businesses in Singapore, according to sources who declined to name themselves as the move had not yet been announced. Rongsheng has not yet commented. Li has been with Mercuria in Geneva for 17 years, one of the top four commodities and energy traders on the planet. Li's new role is to grow...

The parliament approved the creation of a state-owned investment vehicle that will oversee government investments in some the largest companies. It is similar to Singapore's Temasek investment arm. Soon after Prabowo Subito assumed office in October, the creation of Daya Anagata Nusantara Investment Management Agency (Danantara) was announced with the goal of improving performance and returns on state investments. Danantara will have an initial capital of at least 1,000 trillion Rupiah (61 billion dollars). Sufmi dasco Ahmad, deputy speaker to parliament, told reporters that it would take over the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry's holdings in all state-owned companies. State companies play...

Electric automobile tech company Ideanomics Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware on Wednesday to discover a buyer for its wireless charging business and other innovation investments. Ideanomics got in insolvency with over $30 million in debt and simply $189,000 in cash on hand, according to files filed in Wilmington, Delaware personal bankruptcy court. Ideanomics said it has lost over $800 million in the previous five years. The company spent $320 million on electric automobile innovation investments in between 2021 and 2023, but the majority of those investments were unprofitable. It has actually closed down all of its obtained...

Lead inventories in London Metal Exchange authorized warehouses have jumped by 49% over 2 days to their highest level considering that March 2013, LME information showed on Tuesday. Inflows of 91,025 metric loads were most likely to be from celebrations providing against brief or bearish positions ahead of Wednesday's November agreement expiry, analysts said. LME information reveals 2 celebrations each holding a significant short position in November- one accounting for more than 40 %of market open interest and another one for 10% -19%. On the other side of the marketplace are 4 long> positions, where one celebration holds up to...

On Thailand's eastern coast, strategies are underway to develop an electric arc heater that will provide green steel to Europe and benefit from controversial brand-new guidelines that will require buyers to pay tariffs on highcarbon imports. Federal governments and market associations in Asia have lobbied ferociously against Europe's Carbon Border Change Mechanism ( CBAM) and it could cast a shadow over COP29 environment talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, next week, with China and others calling for an end to green trade barriers. CBAM was created to stop European companies averting carbon compliance expenses by sourcing commodities from regions with laxer ecological...