September, 2019

• 7 September

  A soft start to the peak travel period, says IATA report

  

  Geneva / Emirates Business The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced slowing global passenger demand growth for July. Total revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs) rose 3.6 percent, compared to the same month in 2018. This was down from 5.1 percent annual growth recorded in June. All regions posted traffic increases. Monthly capacity (available seat kilometres or ASKs) increased by 3.2 percent ...

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• 7 September

  Grab to spend $150m on AI to build regional super app

  

  Bloomberg Southeast Asian ride-hailing startup Grab Holdings Inc intends to invest $150 million in artificial intelligence (AI) and hiring more engineers over the next year, accelerating an expanding business that now includes food delivery, digital payments and digital content. Grab, in hot competition with local rival Gojek to become Southeast Asia’s do-it-all super app, outlined for the first time a ...

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• 7 September

  GIC nears deal for Oxford’s hotel stake

  

  Bloomberg Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC Pte, is nearing a deal to buy a majority stake in Oxford Properties Group’s Fairmont portfolio, which consists of four of Canada’s most iconic hotels, according to people familiar with the matter. The talks are advanced and a deal could be announced in coming weeks, said the people, who asked not to be identified ...

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• 7 September

  Malaysian palm stockpiles at 14-month low on exports

  Bloomberg Palm oil inventories in Malaysia likely slumped to a 14-month low in August as exports from the world’s second-largest grower jumped. Stockpiles fell about 7 percent from a month earlier to 2.22 million metric tons, the biggest decline in three months and the lowest since June 2018, according to the median of 12 estimates in a Bloomberg survey of ...

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• 7 September

  Property firms rally as Duterte bucks China ban on online gaming

  

  Bloomberg Philippine property shares got a boost after President Rodrigo Duterte said his country benefits from online casinos, standing pat on the industry despite China’s call for a total ban. “I decide that we need it. Many jobs will be lost. Anyway, it’s government-controlled,” Duterte said in a televised briefing, when asked what he told Chinese President Xi Jinping about ...

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• 7 September

  Chandrayaan-2: Moonshot ends in failure for India

  

  Bloomberg India’s attempt to land a probe on the moon’s southern pole failed, dealing a major blow to its ambitious space programme. The country’s space agency lost communication with a lander and a rover near the satellite’s surface, minutes before a scheduled touchdown. The Chandrayaan-2 craft’s descent was normal until an altitude of 2.1 km (1.3 miles) before communication was ...

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• 7 September

  How Trump can win the trade war against China

  

  If the trade war’s objective is to even the playing field for American firms, President Donald Trump isn’t going about it the right way. China’s easy access to US dollars over the past decade has fuelled asset bubbles, driven an overseas debt binge and laid the groundwork for its low-cost, export-driven economy. Only cutting off the supply of cheap money ...

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• 7 September

  What Fed could learn from Canada

  

  The US Federal Reserve has developed a pretty poor track record for meeting its inflation and employment goals. If it wants to do a better job, it should follow Canada’s example and set some deadlines. More than four decades ago, Congress mandated that the Fed’s monetary policy pursue two objectives: price stability and maximum employment. In January 2012, the central ...

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• 7 September

  Temasek’s asking price for Watson stake was too high

  

  Take Hong Kong protests, add a dash of Brexit and then stir in the death of brick-and-mortar shopping. It’s hardly surprising that a savvy investor would want to bail from its stake in AS Watson Group, a retailer based in the former British colony with a big UK footprint. These latest geopolitical flash points have been cited for Temasek Holdings ...

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• 7 September

  The hard part of ending inequality is paying for it

  Buried among the storylines about global trade and political intrigue from the G7 summit last month is perhaps the most noteworthy one of all. Business for Inclusive Growth, or B4IG, a coalition of 34 multinational companies with more than 3 million employees and revenues topping $1 trillion, unveiled an initiative to tackle inequality with help from the Organisation for Economic ...

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