February, 2021

• 1 February

  India’s half-a-trillion dollar budget aims to spur growth

  

  Bloomberg India unveiled a spending plan of almost $500 billion as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to dig Asia’s third-largest economy out of its pandemic-induced slump. His government’s plan relies on taxes, including higher levies on some imports to boost self-reliance, selling state assets and dividend income to partly fund the nearly 35 trillion rupee ($480 billion) ...

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• 1 February

  Jakarta to get 23.1mn Astra shots via Covax

  

  Bloomberg Indonesia will receive as many as 23.1 million doses of the AstraZeneca Plc vaccine in the first half, boosting the government’s inoculation efforts as Covid-19 cases and deaths continue to rise by record numbers. The Southeast Asian nation will get the shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the World Health Organization-backed Covax initiative, the Indonesian foreign affairs ministry said ...

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• 1 February

  Companies mull excluding HK from legal contracts

  Bloomberg International companies operating in Asia are considering leaving Hong Kong out of legal contracts amid concerns about China’s growing control, the Financial Times reported, citing people it didn’t identify. Lawyers in the region have received a surge of queries from clients about excluding Hong Kong from governing law and arbitration clauses when conducting business there or entering into joint ...

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• 1 February

  AIA, China Strategic among bidders for BEA life insurer

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong insurance giant AIA Group and China Strategic Holdings, an investment firm backed by billionaire Henry Cheng, are among final bidders for Bank of East Asia (BEA)’s life insurance unit, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The companies have submitted binding bids for the asset, proceeding into the final stage of negotiations, the people said, asking ...

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• 1 February

  Asia manufacturing activity holds up

  Bloomberg Factory activity across much of Asia continued to hold up in January even as China’s output showed signs of moderating. Taiwan’s IHS Markit January manufacturing purchasing mangers’ index rose to 60.2 from 59.4 in December, its highest reading since April 2010. South Korea’s rose to 53.2 from 52.9, the most since February 2011. Both were well above the 50 ...

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• 1 February

  Virus controls impact China’s holidays, economic recovery

  

  Bloomberg China’s efforts to control a recent resurgence of Covid-19 are undercutting a recovery that’s been one of the bright spots in the global economy. Travel has collapsed ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays after recent lockdowns were imposed in northern China to curb outbreaks and the government took steps to discourage millions of people from making the annual ...

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• 1 February

  Myanmar military takes power for one year, Suu Kyi detained

  

  Bloomberg Myanmar’s military detained Aung San Suu Kyi, declared a state of emergency for a year and voided her party’s landslide November election victory in a setback for the country’s nascent transition to democracy. Army chief Min Aung Hlaing’s office said he took the action in response to alleged voter fraud and military would hold a “free and fair general ...

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• 1 February

  Biden to focus on trade enforcement after years of Trump tariffs

  

  Bloomberg President Joe Biden’s administration is setting up its trade policy to prioritise enforcement of existing commitments by the US’s partners over negotiating more deals to open new export markets. Biden’s likely strategy for supporting American producers focuses on going after violations via dialogue, work with allies and use of dispute-resolution mechanisms in existing trade agreements rather than following the ...

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• 1 February

  Russian prosecutors urge Navalny jail term as protests swell

  

  Bloomberg Russian prosecutors demanded opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s imprisonment, a day after police detained record numbers of protesters against President Vladimir Putin for a second straight weekend. The Prosecutor General’s Office said on Monday it agreed with the Federal Penitentiary Service that Navalny had repeatedly violated the conditions of a suspended 3 1/2 year sentence for fraud and should receive ...

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• 1 February

  Italy scrambles to form new government

  

  Bloomberg Talks aimed at building support for a new Italian government pushed ahead with a deadline in sight, after consultations failed to produce a deal to end the deadlock that forced Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to resign. Roberto Fico, the lower-house speaker tasked with sounding out parties, said Sunday afternoon that discussions with the forces from the outgoing coalition would ...

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