February, 2020

• 11 February

  Singapore braces for 30% tourism drop

  

  Bloomberg Singapore could see a 25% to 30% decline in tourist arrivals and spending this year because of the coronavirus outbreak, as the industry braces for a worse impact than the 2003 Sars pandemic, the city’s tourism chief said. The city-state is losing about 18,000 to 20,000 tourists a day, and the figures could plummet further if the situation persists ...

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• 11 February

  India to lift foreign investment cap on ‘sovereign bonds’

  Bloomberg India will remove foreign investment limits on some sovereign notes as part of its attempts to get inclusion in global bond indexes, the country’s chief economic adviser said. Issuing new debt with no limits on investments by foreigners will be the first “necessary step” for the inclusion in the indexes, Krishnamurthy Subramanian, the economic adviser, said in an interview ...

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• 11 February

  China’s silent factories fuel workers’ fears of virus

  

  Bloomberg Janey Zhang, the owner of an umbrella factory in China’s east coast city of Shangyu, spends her days watching the news for coronavirus updates and fielding calls from cash-strapped employees asking when they can go back to work. “I don’t know,” says Zhang, whose Zhejiang Xingbao Umbrella Co employs about 200 workers. “We await government instructions. If it’s just ...

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• 11 February

  Energy emissions stall for first time in 3 years

  

  Bloomberg Global emissions from energy held steady in 2019 for the first time in three years. But the restraint all came from the US and Europe as developing countries boosted use of the most polluting fossil fuels. The findings from the International Energy Agency (IEA) show energy-related carbon dioxide emissions remained at a record 33.3 billion tons. While industrial countries ...

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• 11 February

  Ghana to use $1b to restructure power deals

  

  Bloomberg Ghana plans to use as much as $1 billion of the Eurobonds it sold last week to help restructure the country’s obligations to independent power producers, said Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta. The country is in talks to re-negotiate supply deals with the power companies known as IPPs. The currently take-or-pay agreements mean the government is billed even for unused ...

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• 11 February

  An anti-corruption probe isn’t AirAsia’s only challenge

  

  Asia’s largest budget carrier is in trouble, caught up in an anti-corruption investigation of Europe’s aerospace industry. Things could get worse. AirAsia Bhd. Chief Executive Officer Tony Fernandes stepped down for two months along with Chairman Kamarudin Meranun, after the airline was named in a 3.6 billion euro ($4 billion) settlement of bribery allegations against Airbus SE. Shares have fallen ...

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• 11 February

  How coronavirus could help Trump

  

  There has been plenty of talk about how the coronavirus might affect politics in China, for example by eroding trust between the Chinese public and its leadership. In the US, however, the coronavirus is likely to have the opposite effect: Namely, to make the incumbent more popular and to increase the re-election chances of President Donald Trump. How the coronavirus ...

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• 11 February

  Maybe SoftBank’s Son will listen to Singer, if not sense

  It may just take the likes of Paul Elliott Singer to make SoftBank Group Corp.’s Masayoshi Son adjust his approach. Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. has taken a $2.5 billion stake in the Japanese company — that’s about 3% — with a view to bend Son’s ear, the Wall Street Journal reported. Elliott confirmed to Bloomberg Opinion that it invested in ...

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• 11 February

  Quarantines, travel bans may not stop coronavirus

  Coronavirus is spreading at an accelerating rate, but inappropriate quarantines and travel bans could cause more havoc than the disease itself. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has a duty to protect human health, but also an obligation to protect the world’s citizens from the human rights violations or unnecessary economic hardship that panic could cause. So far, they’re doing a ...

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• 11 February

  If coronavirus is such a big economic threat, act on it

  

  Almost all of Asia’s central bankers have said the economic risks from the Wuhan coronavirus are significant. Then why aren’t they all taking action? In a slew of interest-rate meetings, policymakers have been all over the map. Thailand surprised most economists by reducing rates, while the Philippines cut and India held, as anticipated. The Reserve Bank of Australia acknowledged the ...

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