Bloomberg Singapore will unveil additional support for businesses and households on Monday, less than two weeks after announcing a S$48 billion ($33.4 billion) stimulus package to buffer the impact of the coronavirus. The government plans to waive foreign worker levies for April and boost an existing jobs support programme, deputy PM Heng Swee Keat said in a Facebook post. The measures ...

Bloomberg PM Narendra Modi’s call to Indians to switch off lights on Sunday evening for nine minutes and instead use candles to “challenge the darkness” of the coronavirus outbreak would mean blackouts for some citizens as utilities take steps to safeguard their equipment. Modi asked people to switch off lights at 9 pm. That may result in a sudden drop ...

Bloomberg Police in Australia’s New South Wales state will start a criminal investigation into a cruise ship that allowed people on board to disembark in Sydney last month after some passengers had reported flu-like symptoms, Commissioner Mick Fuller said. Detectives will be involved in the probe into the circumstances surrounding the docking of the vessel, Fuller said. Ten of the ...

Bloomberg Malaysia’s economy could contract this year as the country struggles with a month-long coronavirus lockdown and a steep fall in commodity prices. Gross domestic product could shrink as much as 2% this year or grow as much as 0.5%, Malaysia’s central bank said in its annual Economic and Monetary Review. The global pandemic has hit the country’s tourism sector ...

Bloomberg Government officials in China, the world’s biggest consumer and producer of rice, called on citizens not to hoard the grain after a recent ban on new export sales by Vietnam sparked concerns over global supplies. The country holds sufficient rice and wheat stockpiles for one year of consumption, while imports of the cereals are only about 2% of domestic ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong could take six months to reverse the economic effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic, financial secretary Paul Chan said, adding that the government will offer “comprehensive” aid to protect businesses and jobs across all industries as the outbreak’s impact spreads through the economy. The retail and tourism sectors were initially among the hardest hit by the pandemic ...

Bloomberg In just a matter of weeks, Ryan Sitton went from being a lame-duck commissioner of an obscure Texas agency to one of the key figures in a global effort to save the oil market from plummeting prices. Sitton, a Republican who lost the primary election for his own seat on the Texas Railroad Commission just one month ago, said ...

Bloomberg Norway, the biggest oil producer in western Europe, said it would consider cutting its output if there was a broad international agreement to curb supply. The Nordic nation, whose oil output is set to grow over the next few years, hasn’t been a part of coordinated international cuts to support prices since 2002. Opec and other producing nations are ...

Bloomberg The fallout from the coronavirus crisis is starting to upend wheat tenders in the world’s top importer. In a rare move, Egypt cancelled a tender within hours of announcing it, without giving a reason. The state buyer added a new clause requiring suppliers to replace any cargoes affected by virus-related restrictions with wheat from elsewhere, and bear the difference ...

Bloomberg California regulators want to use money from the state’s climate change cap-and-trade programme to offset rising utility bills, as the coronavirus forces many residents to stay home. Some of the proceeds from the system — which makes power plants, factories and many businesses pay for the greenhouse gases they emit — go to California residents twice each year as ...