Bloomberg Singapore increased its cash payout to individuals and announced additional steps to save jobs as the city-state prepares to severely curtail activities to contain a spike in coronavirus cases. The third virus-related stimulus package in two months will cost S$5.1 billion ($3.6 billion), taking the nation’s total virus relief to almost S$60 billion, or 12% of gross domestic product, ...

Bloomberg Shares of Biolidics Ltd jumped as the Singapore-based medical device manufacturer said its rapid test kits for Covid-19 were approved for sale in the European Union. The stock rose as much as 12% in early trading after the firm announced on Monday that it received confirmation for CE marking on April 3. CE marking is a notification process to ...

Bloomberg The deadly coronavirus may infect as many as 95,000 people in Indonesia by next month before easing, a minister said, as authorities ordered people to wear face masks to contain the pandemic. The dire forecast is based on a projection by the nation’s intelligence agency, University of Indonesia and Bandung Institute of Technology, finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told ...

Bloomberg The world over, one mainstream fuel — diesel — has managed to remain a decent profit centre for the oil refining industry at large as the novel coronavirus ravages economies and their wider demand for petroleum products. Diesel has risen in value relative to crude in recent weeks due to a combination of continued industrial usage and purchasing of ...

Bloomberg Harris Associates, a multibillion-dollar asset manager that has touted responsible investing, agreed to enact a series of investor-driven measures after it was disclosed that one of its top managers helped fund groups that question the consensus on climate change. Brunel Pension Partnership, one of Britain’s largest retirement pools, said it looked into Harris’s investment practices following a report by ...

Bloomberg Airlines’ carbon emissions could drop by more than one-third this year as travel demand sinks, a trend that could continue as businesses reassess their need to fly, according to the Australia Institute. The industry’s carbon-dioxide emissions between February 1 and March 19 fell by more than 10 million tons from the same period a year ago as airlines scrapped ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he doesn’t think he’ll have to impose tariffs on imported oil to blunt the impact of a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, but held out the option to protect US oil producers. “I would use tariffs if I have to,” he said at a White House news conference, restating his position from an ...

Bloomberg When the coronavirus hit China late last year, America’s solar industry immediately started worrying about manufacturing. Asia is the main source of panels and other equipment, and with residential installers anticipating a bumper year, a bottleneck in the supply chain could be a major hindrance. Turns out the industry’s biggest 2020 quandary is very different: dwindling demand. Many homeowners ...

Bloomberg Prime minister Boris Johnson was taken to the hospital for tests as he struggles to recover from coronavirus, dealing a serious blow to the UK as the country prepares for the worst of the crisis. Almost 5,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the UK so far and, according to government advisers and scientists, the peak of the outbreak ...

Bloomberg Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said he will propose declaring a month-long state of emergency in seven prefectures including Tokyo and Osaka, after a renewed surge of coronavirus cases in some of the nation’s biggest cities. He also announced a much larger-than-expected stimulus package of 108 trillion yen ($988 billion) to support households and businesses struggling from the impact ...