Search Results for: Singapore

Speaking at the event on Friday (Feb 17), Mark Carney, UN special envoy for climate action and finance, and former central bank governor for the UK and Canada, said of the baseline: “It’s critical. You need compatible information.”  

Mr Carney stressed ongoing discussions between the ISSB and major jurisdictions, such as the EU (European Union), the USA and Japan, about the need for regulatory harmony.…

INTRODUCTION 

ACCOUNTING used to be restricted to financially measurable matters of profit and loss; expenditure and revenue; taxes and subsidies; investment and liabilities. But the mathematical and statistical skills underpinning a solid set of books and filed accounts are today increasingly being used to measure the environmental and social sustainability of a product, input, production process and supply chain.…

Japan may become a significant market for the halal food sector in future, predicts the Japan Halal Association, whose members are looking ahead to sustained growth once the Covid-19 pandemic ebbs. Faslin Mohammed Lafir, head of halal certification and international relations, of the Japan Halal Association, stressed that the country’s Muslim population is around 120,000 individuals at present, with an estimated 10,000 Japanese converting to the religion every year, boosting potential halal sales.…

Malaysia is expected to launch in January a detailed (although voluntary) halal certification for medical devices in an innovative regulatory move, making the country a world leader in this segment.

Its government published a halal medical device standard in September 2019, known as MS2636, but the halal division of the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (JAKIM) agency has since been enhancing “their online system” and staff, since the new “scheme for halal medical devices must comply with other requirements”, Johari Ab Latiff, senior assistant director at JAKIM’s Malaysia Halal Council Secretariat, told Salaam Gateway.…

Accountants in the European Union (EU) are facing the launch of a more intrusive and proactive legal system fighting money laundering (ML) and terrorist finance (TF), designed to stem the flow of dirty money across borders.

These are huge. Impossible to count accurately, but the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has estimated that USD2 trillion is laundered annually worldwide from all types of crime, from tax evasion to sanctions busting and drug trafficking to white collar fraud.…

Spain, which in the early Middle Ages was part of Islamic state called Al-Andalus – remembered as a golden age of Spanish tolerance and reason – has finally started to seriously play to win in the global halal market, through tourism and exports.…

Spain has been expanding its halal tourism and food sales, as it leverages its geographical proximity to Muslim countries in north Africa to provide travel and accommodation services.

In the CrescentRating Global Muslim Travel Index 2021, by CrescentRating & Mastercard, Spain climbed six positions to the 16th in the top non-Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) destinations (https://www.crescentrating.com/reports/global-muslim-travel-index-2021.html).…

Growth in demand for and production of renewable diesel is set to disrupt the global liquid fuels sector, with major increases in refining capacity being developed now. Renewable diesel has major potential as a transitional alternative energy source, because, unlike standard biofuels, in its highest quality form, it is chemically identical to fossil fuel diesel. …

A comprehensive study of 3,650 students from 55 counties worldwide has indicated that the expansion of online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic has not reduced the attraction of moving countries to undertake in-person higher education in foreign universities and colleges.

Indeed, the study, by IDP Connect, part of Australia-based international student recruitment leader IDP Education, showed that 79% of students questioned were only considering overseas on-campus options.…

The Covid-19 pandemic has delivered experience about how an external crisis – in this case health – that forces AML officers to work at home, poses challenges in maintaining professional excellence. According to the Bank for International Settlements’ Financial Stability Institute an estimated 300 million office workers worked from home in May 2020, including 90% of banking and insurance workers.…

Fraud, corruption and money laundering is hitting the world’s biggest corporations hardest, despite these companies bolstering their financial crime defences, according to Kroll’s latest annual Global Fraud and Risk Report (1). Risk specialists Kroll surveyed 1,336 senior executives from 17 countries worldwide and found 57% from companies with a turnover topping USD15 billion had experienced a “very significant” impact from such crimes, compared to 36% overall.…

Japanese paint companies have felt the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on their bottom lines over the last 18 months, although their fortunes appear to have diverged in the first half of this calendar year. Firms that have a strong presence in China, where the economy has already bounced back strongly, are faring better than those that are primarily focused on domestic sales or export markets still struggling to shake off the lingering effects of the global health crisis.…

Analysed USA trade data from the professor who coined the phrase ‘trade-based money laundering’ have unveiled significant abnormal pricing in exports and imports to and from the USA, which could have been abused for ML. Prof John Zdanowicz, a business professor at the USA’s Florida International University, and long-standing TBML expert, shared analysed 2020 US trade data with MLB, and they include some eye-widening anomalous valuations.…

INTRODUCTION

TEXTILES and clothing manufacture and sales are all about leveraging resources, from creative talent to quality materials and sophisticated technology. So, enterprise resource planning programmes (ERP) have been attractive for the past 20 years or more and have become an increasingly important tool of manufacturers and brands.…

The higher education system in Equatorial Guinea has been trying to move studies online because of Covid-19, but students still struggle to get computers and an affordable and fast Internet.  

It is hard to ignore the socio-economic backdrop of Equatorial Guinea, Africa’s only independent Spanish-speaking country, when assessing its higher education.…

A recent warning by the US government against investing in Hong Kong because of the strengthened Chinese security presence may weaken Hong Kong’s standing as a major centre for sourcing clothing and textile goods from mainland China, observers in the Special Administrative Region say.…

For evidence that China’s nationalistic ‘guochao’ consumer trend is gathering pace in the personal care product sector, look at the country’s powerful e-commerce sector. In February 2021, the turnover of cosmetics on China’s Taobao platform was Chinese Yuan Renminbi CNY14.7 billion (USD2.3 billion), a year-on-year increase of 11%, with the top brand in sales being the guochao-oriented personal care product brand Hangzhou-based Florasis Hua Xizi.…

INTRODUCTION

Until now, the use of sensors within garments has been regarded as a specialist technical exercise, usually as a means of delivering medical information to doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals. However, production advances, especially the integration of sensors within yarns using nanotech and conductive fibre is opening up a wider range of more user-friendly functions that could bring sensor tech to the mass consumer market.…

Covid-19 made 2020 an incredibly disruptive year for the global manufacturing sector and Vietnam’s paint and coatings sector did not escape the pandemic impact. This was despite that this south-east Asian country had an apparently low impact from the disease, with just 9,565 cases (as of June 9, 2021) and just 55 deaths from a 98 million population, albeit with a rash of new cases last month (June).…

A south-east Asian regional power grid is moving closer in the latest stage of a phased 10-year plan to bring energy security, accessibility, affordability and sustainability,

New, upgraded, extended, stronger, and more flexible electricity transmission and distribution grids are key to this ongoing programme, helping the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to meet the power demands of population and economic growth, rising urbanisation and affluence.…

New regulatory plastic waste obligations coming into force in July (this year) will force tobacco producers selling into the European Union’s (EU) 447-million-person market to take measures to reduce butt littering. The move, part of the EU’s Single Use Plastics Directive (SUPD) (Directive (EU) 2019/904), are designed to reduce the 4.5 trillion cigarette butts that end up as litter annually worldwide (according to the UN), generating 845,000 tonnes of waste, according to a New York (USA) state document.…

Switzerland’s largest insurance company, Swiss Life, and its subsidiaries in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Singapore have admitted to conspiring with US taxpayers and others to hide a total USD1.452 billion in offshore accounts, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said on May 14.…

The test remains the same. French tech multinational Thales stressed in a paper that they “allow a person to be identified and authenticated based on recognisable and verifiable data, which are unique and specific…” compared to a person’s biometric template.…

Apparel and footwear brands, especially those in the United States, may come under increasing distribution strain as an uptick in Covid-19 cases in the Chinese clothing and textile manufacturing hub of Guangdong exacerbates already fraught global logistics.  The southern Chinese province recorded 135 total infections over the period June 10–23 and a seven-day average of nine new cases as of June 23, according to data from the USA’s Johns Hopkins University.…

MALTA’S only multiple casino operator has been fined over serious AML/CFT failings, with the country’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) ordering Tumas Gaming Ltd to undertake AML control reforms.

The company must pay EUR233,156 for breaching the country’s Prevention of Money Laundering and Funding of Terrorism Regulations.…

THE WIDE diversity of AML laws worldwide can complicate the enforcement of AML/CFT extradition proceedings.

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations 37 and 39 say that governments should be prepared to extradite money launderers (and terrorist financiers) to another country if they both criminalise the underlying predicate offence.…

THE COVID-19 pandemic and travel restrictions that followed may have slowed down fibre development and innovation in the past year, but Singapore-based world’s largest viscose fibre producer Royal Golden Eagle, known as RGE Pvt Ltd, is forging ahead. A company statement sent to WTiN said that its “USD200 million investment commitment in next-generation textile fibre innovation [over 2019-29] is regardless of economic cycles.”…

Brief:

This article provides an analysis of why the world’s largest regional trade deal (in population terms) – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – was signed last November (2020). It assesses China’s role in this important political and economic event, and how it reflects its relations with other signatory countries.…

The boom in online fraud through the Covid-19 pandemic, at a time when new fintech is being rolled out, has grown demand for anti-fraud professionals.

The latest assessment released by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) (published in December 2020), based on responses from 1,712 anti-fraud professionals, (49% of whom were in the USA and Canada), said that 41% of organisations (public and private sector) are planning to increase their overall anti-fraud budget in 2021.…

The paint and coatings industry in Indonesia still has ample room for growth amid booming infrastructure development, although it has had to struggle with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, say officials and industry experts. 

With the property sector being the primary growth driver Indonesian paint and coating sales, the high demand for new housing and the repainting cycle assures the steady demand for paint and coating products, said Mahendra Chahar, senior consultant at Frost & Sullivan.…

The paint and coatings industry in Indonesia still has ample room for growth amid booming infrastructure development, although it has had to struggle with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, say officials and industry experts. 

With the property sector being the primary growth driver Indonesian paint and coating sales, the high demand for new housing and the repainting cycle assures the steady demand for paint and coating products, said Mahendra Chahar, senior consultant at Frost & Sullivan.…

Unprecedently severe bottlenecks in merchandise trades between Asia and the rest of the world caused by Covid-19 economic disruption is continuing to frustrate apparel retailers in Europe and the US. High levels of demand, port congestion and shortages of containers have been pushing up costs, with shipping rates for the Shanghai-Rotterdam and Shanghai-Los Angeles routes on January 21 being up 296% and 153% year-on-year respectively, according to UK-based maritime consultancy Drewry. …

German banking giant Deutsche Bank is to pay more than USD130 million in the USA for a string of bribes its “business development consultants (BDC)” paid out in Abu Dhabi, China, Italy and Saudi Arabia, in breach of America’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).…

AUSTRALIA has chosen an unorthodox path in transitioning to a low carbon economy. Its centre-right government has advised the country’s clean energy agencies to decrease investment in renewables such as solar and wind and instead increase investment in hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, microgrids and energy efficiency.…

A WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel will assess whether import restrictions created by the European Union (EU) to reduce the use of carbon-intensive biofuels comply with global trading rules.

The Indonesian government is challenging portions of the EU’s renewable energy directive (RED) linked to EU guidance limiting the indirect land use change (ILUC) of biofuel feedstock cultivation.…

A SHIFT towards home-based work during the Covid-19 epidemic has raised multiple challenges for AML/CFT regulatory compliance departments, from changes in consumer behaviour that affects transaction monitoring, to digitally onboarding new customers, and heightened risks of illicit crime and fraud.

The first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdowns this spring especially stretched financial institutions’ regulatory compliance departments to their limits, said Patrick Gerard Dahill, head of AML and financial crime recruitment at Barclay Simpson, in London.…

TEXT fraud is maybe more dangerous that email fraud, given the tendency for mobile phone users to respond to texts swiftly and without careful thought, cyber-security experts warn.

The Covid-19 pandemic has also created opportunities for fraudsters using texts and messaging services such as WhatsApp to launch fishing and other attacks on the unwary.…

GRAPHENE, a form of carbon, formed into a single layer of atoms arranged in two-dimensional honeycomb lattice, has been hailed as a super-material – highly conductive (heat and power), strong, stable, and absorbent of light and liquid. It is the latter quality that has caught the eye of the petroleum sector, with graphene being used to help clean up oils spills.…

Few countries could claim to have weathered Covid-19 well but Singapore, micro-managed and highly-educated, is high on the shortlist. Even so, Covid-19 has had a detrimental effect on the southeast Asian city state’s paints and coatings sector and its impacts continue to linger.…

Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal is one of the largest ever embezzlement and money laundering cases, with Malaysian courts considering how at least USD4.5 billion was stolen and then spent or laundered from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Former Prime Minister Najib Razak has now been convicted of charges associated with the scandal.…

THE ASIA-Pacific region, even one-party states such as China, have developed legal protections for whistleblowers, although the comprehensive protection more commonly found in Europe is still usually absent.

South Korea is one jurisdiction leading the pack on developing robust whistleblower protections.…

EY, (formerly Ernst & Young), the Big 4 accounting major accused of shortcomings over its audit of disgraced German card payments processor Wirecard, is rejecting blame for its failure to detect the fintech firm’s EUR1.9 billion (USD2.1 billion) fraud scandal before it expanded to such a size.…

Two former Iraq managers for Monaco-based energy major Unaoil were convicted July 13 in Southwark Crown Court, London of paying over USD500,000 in bribes to officials at the Iraqi South Oil Company to clinch a USD55 million contract for offshore mooring buoys.…

ACCESSING the dark web once demanded some computing expertise. But dark web search engines and browsers continue being developed, guiding potential users to this encrypted corner of the web where commercial criminals ply their wares and illicit businesses avoid taxes. How should legitimate companies react?…

New aspiring entrants to the AML/CFT and other compliance sectors will be hard hit regarding available jobs and related pay and conditions by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, according to international recruitment agency Randstad. Its Hong Kong director banking and financial services Rick Chung warned: “Similar to what we have witnessed during the global financial crisis, it will be challenging for fresh graduates to secure jobs during these extraordinary times.”…

Malaysia’s digital textile printing industry and market is growing at a steadfast pace, with local demand driven by regional designers and fashion brands, particularly when producing Islamic wear, such as scarfs and shawls.

However, the industry faces challenges securing enough orders to fully utilise its capacity.…

THE CHINESE government has announced that it will add another 46 cross-border e-commerce pilot zones in the country, bringing the number to 105, according to the State Council, effectively mainland China’s cabinet. The move is designed to help revive China’s export industries, which have been damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.…

WANT to check the dark web for illicit services? Search engines accessible from the public web offer links to the dark web. One example is Finland-based Ahmia (https://ahmia.fi/), which yields interesting results from searches such as https://ahmia.fi/search/?q=hacking. A more recent variant that has attracted attention from the IT security press is Kilos – http://dnmugu4755642434.onion…

ASIA Pacific Rayon (APR) has broken ground in the Indonesian viscose manufacturing sector by receiving the internationally recognised STeP sustainable textile and leather production certification from the Switzerland-based standards body OEKO–TEX.  APR, a vertically integrated viscose-rayon manufacturer, with a production capacity of 240,000 tonnes-a-year, is hoping to boost sales through the STeP recognition of its modular analysis of chemicals, environmental performance, environmental management, occupational health and safety, social responsibility and quality management.…

HONG Kong listed companies have been given an additional 60 days to file annual reports because of the Coronavirus pandemic, with the HK Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) saying additional delays maybe approved on a case-by-case basis.…

With the Korea Cosmetic Industry Institute (KCII) estimating there were USD11.7 billion’s worth of South Korean-made personal care products (‘K-beauty’) sales in 2019, including nearly USD6.49 billion in exports, and more than 16,000 individuals and businesses officially licensed to provide cosmetic products and services, South Korea’s cosmetic industry has the innate strength it will need to cope with the Covid-19 crisis.…

MALAYSIA’S new United Malays National Organisation (UMNO)-dominated government has announced a Malaysian Ringgit MYR250 billion (USD57 billion) spending package to help the economy withstand the Covid-19 epidemic. This includes paying a monthly wage subsidy of MYR600 (USD137) for three months for employers with a 50% drop in business since January 1 for workers with monthly salaries below MYR4,000 (USD915).…

THE MANY properties that have contributed to graphene being described as a ‘super material’ make it an increasingly attractive choice as an ingredient in a wide range of coatings with special functionalities say researchers and manufacturers. And, with Many of these properties offering environment-friendly and sustainable benefits, graphene is being considered as a key part of the coatings industries efforts to reduce carbon emissions and hence climate change.…

IN southeast Asia’s humid and hot climate, the need for coatings to protect homes, businesses and public service buildings from mould is significant – expanding demand for anti-microbial coatings, especially as strong economic growth fuels construction.

The regional economic powerhouse that today’ Vietnam recorded slightly above 7% gross domestic product (GDP) growth for a second consecutive year, making it one of the best performers globally.…

Indonesia’s paint and coatings sector is expected to continue to grow, driven by an expanding middle-class population, the fast-growing construction sector and ambitious government infrastructure projects, encompassing transport networks, energy and utilities.

The south-east Asian country’s paint and coatings market has grown to almost USD2.5 billion in sales revenue in the past year and sales are expected to expand at a fair clip of between 6% and 7% annually in the next five years, according to industry analysts Frost & Sullivan. …

WITH public nervousness growing about the impact of the Coronavirus on Singapore, amidst a period of sluggish economic growth, the city state’s government’s 2020 budget, released February 18, has stuck a balance between protecting businesses, workers and elderly, while investing in training to prepare for future upturns.…

THE MALAYSIAN government has issued a Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIB) Framework, which tells financial institutions of importance to Malaysia’s wider economy to hold minimum levels of reserves to protect themselves against troubled times. Mandatory ‘higher loss absorbency’ (HLA) requirements for listed systemic banks, ranging between 0.5% to 1.0% of risk-weighted assets, will come into force from January 31, 2021.…

IN a bid to modernise Cambodia’s textile and garment sectors through digitalisation, the industry is introducing innovative new software next month (February) that will help improve efficiency by improving fabric handling and cutting down repeat clothing defects by almost half – in addition to making overall gains on factory productivity.…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are being touted as game-changing solutions to improve the detection of financial crimes, including AML/CFT, but despite some promising results there are obstacles to roll-out, not least regulators’ ability to green-light new technologies as well as effectively utilise the data they produce.…

HONG Kong has signed an avoidance of double taxation agreement with its neighbour Macao, designed to boost trade and investment in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area of southern China. The deal will ensure that any Macao tax paid by Hong Kong residents earning income from Macao will be a tax credit in Hong Kong and vice versa for Macao residents.…

Researchers in Singapore say they have devised a new conductive textile which enables wearable devices to interconnect and transmit data with far more strength than existing technologies, improving the ability to conduct remote medical monitoring by healthcare professionals and family members.…

SLOVAKIA may have been facing European Commission legal action over foot-dragging in implementing European Union EU AML/CFT legislation and has been striving to improve its AML/CFT weaknesses, but its general reputation in combating money laundering is solid. The Basel Institute of Governance AML Index 2019 ranked this central European country 109 out of 125 countries assessed, with the highest number being the top performer.…

A series of reports published in recent weeks have highlighted the need for increased collaboration across the shipping industry to develop and share best practice to significantly reduce the sector’s carbon footprint. Between 2000 and 2017, the CO2 emissions associated with the shipping sector grew at an average annual rate of 1.87% between 2000 and 2017, according to a report published in September by the Bonn-based International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), ‘Navigating the way to a renewable future: solutions to decarbonise shipping’, resulting in emissions of  677 megatonnes (Mt) of CO2 in 2017.…

Data by the Asia Nonwoven Fabrics Association (ANFA) shows that nonwovens production in Asia increased by a robust 6.5% year-on-year in 2018, to 5.6 million tonnes. China-based manufacturers were responsible for the bulk of this output, producing 4 million tonnes. However, but India-based production increased at faster pace, at 15.9% up, year-on-year.…

In every industry, including the clothing and textile sector, sustainability often means huge amount of long-term investment – be it new sewage processing systems or recycling technology. But how to get rewards from these investments? At the Integral Conversation conference held by Hong Kong-based shirt manufacturer, Esquel, in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, on November 8, companies in the fashion industry were exploring solutions.…

INDIA maybe a populous and diverse country with its 1.36 million potential consumers who speak 22 languages, but one company maintains a strong, even dominant, position in India’s fast-growing chocolate market which saw sales of USD1.8 billion in 2018, according to GlobalData – Mondelēz International Inc’s Cadbury brand.…

THE INLAND Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has for the first time used powers of arrest, in October and November raids, holding 10 suspected members of a crime syndicate, suspected of operating a GST carousel fraud. Chains of sales and purchases have ended in goods disappearing or being exported, with dishonest participants claiming input tax for GST, which is ultimately never paid to the government.…

A few years ago, New Zealand Barque oil and gas prospect was rated as one of the most promising exploratory reserves in the world. The decision by New Zealand’s Labour-New Zealand First-Greens coalition government decision last April (2018) to ban any new offshore exploration permits has, however, complicated any future operations at the Barque, east of NZ’s South Island.…

Aggregated data on shared utility platforms operating across global financial services would “remove banks’ fiefdoms, internal silos that stop them from making the KYC process more informed” and “reduce the risk of bad actors entering the financial system through a weak link,” a report from financial services technology providers Celent, in Boston, USA, has claimed.…

THE DEVELOPMENT of uniform safety standards to help reduce the number of reputation-damaging accidents occurring as automated vehicles are rolled out commercially is of key importance, a CAV Canada conference (connected and autonomous vehicles) in Canada has been told.

Sasha Ostojic, a board member of California-based autonomous vehicle company Zoox, and a former senior vice president engineering at GM’s Cruise Automation, said of the current American system, where manufacturers are protecting their CAV IP and not sharing safety information: “I truly think this is a problem.…

A harmonisation of regulatory frameworks and increased sharing of data between financial institutions may help overcome the “metronomic tension” within financial businesses balancing effective fraud detection and low user friction, say experts. With more challenger banks delivering services, real-time checks based on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics may ensure the speed customers expect in digital transactions does not compromise security, including during onboarding.…

CHINA’S ministry of finance drafted regulations punishing accountants violating national accounting laws. Proposals under public consultation would include blacklisting accountants found guilty of fabricating, hiding or destroying financial reports, books and documents, or telling other accountants to undertake such malpractice. Accountants involved in embezzlement would suffer the same fate.…

HONG Kong’s government has released tax measures to support an economy buffeted by political protests, the US-China trade war and headwinds from a potential hard Brexit. Its financial secretary announced that 27 groups of government fees and charges would be waived for 12 months to benefit sectors including maritime, logistics, retail, catering, tourism, construction, agriculture and fisheries businesses.…

HONG Kong’s government has released tax measures to support an economy buffeted by political protests, the US-China trade war and headwinds from a potential hard Brexit. Its financial secretary announced that 27 groups of government fees and charges would be waived for 12 months to benefit sectors including maritime, logistics, retail, catering, tourism, construction, agriculture and fisheries businesses.…

REMOVING non-tariff-barriers (NTBs) impeding the trade in automobiles, parts and materials between the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is key to unlocking the regional automotive industry’s full potential, experts argue. However, they agree that such moves cannot be achieved without short-term pain.…

SOUTH-EAST Asia’s beauty and personal care product market continues to grow, with more mature markets in the region demonstrating an increasing preference for natural products.

As might be expected, consumers in the wealthy city state of Singapore are especially keen to spend more money on lines with natural ingredients.…

WHILE the future of Hong Kong’s political stability hangs in the balance given the long-term protests that have been wracking the territory, its underlying economy seems to be just holding together, with DBS Bank, for instance, in August projecting zero economic growth.…

DOING business in many southeast Asian countries is becoming increasingly challenging, with major companies being exposed to increasingly sophisticated financial crime and widespread corruption. Poorna Rodrigo reports.

COMMERCIAL crime in southeast Asia is fuelled by the fact that it contains wealthy and medium-income well-regulated jurisdictions, alongside weakly-regulated, corruption-heavy poorer countries.…

THE EMPATHY, connectedness and flexibility skills taught to students during an innovative international problem solving programme at the USA’s University of Oregon (UO) have manifested themselves in three prize-winning solutions to community problems.

These focused on environmental degradation, social inequality and public health, with students having 10 days this month to develop groundbreaking ideas for action at an Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) Undergraduate Leaders Program.…

STUDENTS from top Pacific Rim research universities have embarked on an innovative programme of problem solving, designed to create fresh solutions on pressing socio-economic problems that leverage leadership skills and community contacts.

The University of Oregon (UO), in Eugene, Oregon, welcomed 50 undergraduate students from 30 universities based in the Pacific Rim region, including from the USA, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Australia, and more.…

WITH anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) controls becoming ever more comprehensive, strategic and widespread, the demand for trained AML/CFT professionals is growing. Salaries are increasing, as a result. This good compensation reflects the fact that AML work is becoming increasingly demanding because of regulatory requirements, said Michael Harris, director, financial crime compliance, at LexisNexis Risk Solutions.…

A MEMORANDUM of understanding (MoU) has been signed by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) with China’s ministry of finance and the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) boosting SFC access to audit working papers from audits of HK-listed mainland companies.…

In April (2019), Switzerland’s highest court (the federal tribunal) ordered that Zurich-based Falcon Private Bank hand over Swiss Francs CHF2.5 million (USD2.5 million to Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) for its involvement in the global money laundering (ML) scandal involving state-owned Malaysian investment fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).…

Regulators have started to actively encourage financial institutions to experiment and use machine learning to detect suspicious activity.

US regulatory authorities have called for innovative approaches to meet AML compliance obligations “to further strengthen the financial system against illicit activity”.

In a joint statement, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; USA FIU the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN); the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced their support for innovative technology development last December.…

Regulators have started to actively encourage financial institutions to experiment and use machine learning to detect suspicious activity.

US regulatory authorities have called for innovative approaches to meet AML compliance obligations “to further strengthen the financial system against illicit activity”.

In a joint statement, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; USA FIU the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN); the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced their support for innovative technology development last December.…

JAPAN clothing brands have protected themselves in advance against exposure from the US-China trade war by decreasing their reliance on China-based manufacturing outposts in recent years. This sourcing diversification has occurred initially because of rising costs in China.

According to the Japan Apparel Fashion Industry Council (JAFIC), this movement away from Japan means the impact on Japanese textile and apparel companies from US tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on China-made exports would be “slight”.…

BANGLADESH’S major textile and clothing manufacturers are pumping millions of dollars into digital printing, encouraged by the lure of better margins, cost savings and shorter lead times, industry watchers say.

With conventional textile printing losing its prominence, the country’s top textile producers have spent around USD30 million buying European and Asian digital printing machinery in the past three to four years, industry experts have told Digital Textile.…

This July is the 30th anniversary of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which developed its 40 recommendations on anti-money laundering (AML) and nine special recommendations on combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) – but the jury is still out on whether the AML/CFT system it has created is really working.…

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) took effect in December 2018, incrementally bringing down import tariffs for Vietnamese garments in a market with 495 million consumers across 11 countries.

But Vietnamese garment-makers are struggling to reduce costs to deliver pricing that is competitive enough to make the most of CPTPP.…

AFRICA is without doubt the continent to watch for airport and air traffic control investment in the future. It is the world’s second most populous continent (home to more than 1.2 billion people), and according to Airports Council International (World) – ACI World – Africa was the fastest growing region for air passenger traffic in 2017 and 2018, which rose 6.3% in 2017 year-on-year and 10.8% in 2018 to June year-to-date, year-on-year.…

HONG Kong accountants may see an increase in demand for non-financial assessments, with the HK Stock Exchange consulting on proposed new environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting. It is proposing introducing mandatory disclosure requirements to include board statements considering ESG issues; and what reporting principles are used to develop company ESG reports.…

THE INTERNATIONAL clothing industry needs to take a holistic and assertive approach to fighting intellectual property theft and counterfeiting, which while can be easier to detect today, because of advances in data analysis, still poses a significant threat, an expert USA seminar was told.…

THE INTERNATIONAL airport industry is assessing the potential impact of Airbus’ cancellation, from 2021, of its manufacturing programme for the wide-bodied A380 airliner – a plane that sparked multi-million dollar improvements to airports worldwide.

Faced with a reduction in orders from its key supporter, Emirates airline, of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Airbus announced when releasing its 2018 results on February 14, that its programme to build this ground-breaking large jet would be wound up.…

EAST Asia’s two personal care product industry giants – Japan and South Korea – have long been competing for major slices of the regional and global beauty market. At present, however, Japan’s industry seems to be performing more solidly than its rival, which is struggling with the fall-out of diplomatic problems with Asia’s largest market – China.…

JAPAN’S traditional confectionery market and production is imbued with the visual beauty and attention to detail that runs through so much Japanese culture, and exporters have started to explore their appeal to overseas markets.

These assessments have been partly driven by Japan’s ongoing international tourist boom, with foreign shoppers snapping up tasty treats that have been honed for domestic consumers for centuries.…

MALAYSIA has extended its grace period for taxpayers who have under-paid in the past, allowing for low penalties should undeclared income be filed on returns this year. This even covers taxpayers who have yet to register with the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia, and those who have registered but have not submitted ITRF/PRF/RPGTRF returns.…

IN a country where tax collection remains weak, Bangladesh accounting experts now hope that a 2012 transfer pricing (TP) law is finally starting to increase revenues, although progress is slow. Demonstrating the difficulties involved in rolling out complex tax legislation in emerging market states that targets powerful multinationals, the country’s National Board of Revenue (NBR) says that it collected just USD1.2 million’s worth more taxes from 10 multinationals (which it would not name) in the financial year to last June (2018) than without taking TP into account.…

Transaction monitoring systems (TMS) are supposed to detect suspicious activities and provide useful information to AML/CFT law enforcement, but they are proving ineffective, with more than 90% of filings in the USA false positives, according to former chair of the US House of Representatives sub-committee on terrorism and illicit finance Steve Pearce.…

THE HONG Kong government’s 2019 budget is to include a planned 75% reduction of profits tax, salaries tax and tax under personal assessment for the 2018-19 tax year, up to Hong Kong dollars HKD20,000 (USD2,547) per case. These breaks will cost HKD18.9 billion (USD2.4 billion), benefiting about 2.05 million taxpayers.…

SINGAPORE’S central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), is consulting on whether it should be allowed to revoke bank licences for financial institutions who have breached the country’s anti-money laundering requirements. The formal consultation is part of the roll out of proposed changes to Singapore’s Banking Act.…

TRADE-based money laundering (TBML) continues to be a complex typology that is tough for law enforcement to detect and ML regulators to control.

The risk is that with Iran being subject to new USA sanctions, the use of TBML is going to grow in the short term, warn experts.…

IN a world increasingly hungry for natural gas, recent foreign investment in liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects has raised the likelihood that the substantial gas reserves of some sub-Saharan African nations will make it into global markets in the decade ahead.…

THE SINGAPORE government is to phase out between 2020 and 2024 a ‘not ordinarily resident’ tax scheme, where talented overseas workers enjoy tax concessions over five years. This includes not being taxed on work undertaken outside Singapore and an employer’s contribution to a non-mandatory overseas pensions or provident fund being tax exempt.…

THE SINGAPORE government is to phase out between 2020 and 2024 a ‘not ordinarily resident’ tax scheme, where talented overseas workers enjoy tax concessions over five years. This includes not being taxed on work undertaken outside Singapore and an employer’s contribution to a non-mandatory overseas pensions or provident fund being tax exempt.…

THE DYNAMIC east Asian powerhouses of Hong Kong and Singapore are both models for good practice in anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) – sharing both an efficient and open UK-inspired legal system and a need for a clean image internationally that helps maintain their status as hubs of global trade and finance.…

BRITAIN was among a handful of European nations that fell down in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perception Index, dropping out of the top-10 of the most honest jurisdictions in the 2018 rankings. The UK is now joint 11^th with Germany, dropping two points to 80 on the scale where 100 is seen as cleanest and 0 highly corrupt among experts and business people surveyed.…

Malaysia’s money laundering regulation and policies may be on par with international best practice, but their implementation has been tested of late, experts say. These concerns have been sharpened by the scandal related to Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund 1 Malaysia Development Bhd or 1MDB, with Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Najib Razak accused of channelling more than Malaysian Ringgit MYR 2.67 billion (USD700 million) from the fund to personal bank accounts.…

With manufacturing technology advancing at an ever-faster pace, sports apparel companies need to constantly look for ways to embrace new techniques to compete in a constantly changing landscape, an international industry meeting has been told.

Sustainability, blockchain and Industry 4.0 are three of the most important trends being considered by brands and their suppliers, and they were focal points at the sixth World Manufacturers Forum (WMF), organised by the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from December 11-12.…

It is hard to avoid either a cosmetics store or an advertisement for one in Chinese cities today. A mind-boggling wave of new retailers set up by investment firms to cash in on the cosmetics and personal care boom are eagerly seeking franchisees around the country.…

BLOCKCHAIN technology may be being examined hard by the anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) sector, but AML/CFT experts warn against its swift widespread adoption, stressing that while regtech innovation is important, adopters must make sure it does not “compromise the safety and soundness of the financial eco system”.…

Already a world-leader in terms of knitted products for the sports clothing and outdoors-wear sectors, Japan’s Descente Ltd this July opened a state-of-the-art research and development centre that the company anticipates will help it create “the world’s fastest high-performance wear”.

According to the Osaka-based company, the new initiative is built on the concept of being “fast”.…

THE NEW Malaysian government has released its first budget – for 2019 – reducing corporation tax for small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from 18% to 17% on their first Malaysian Ringgit MYR500,000 (USD119,484) of taxable income. It has also tightened rules on companies transferring up to 70% of their losses to the balance sheet of a related company – limiting such transfers to three years’ contiguous tax returns, there are currently no time limits.…

THE HONG Kong government has responded to European Union (EU) concerns that its tax system unfairly benefits offshore investment funds by offering them profits tax exemptions. HK is proposing these breaks also apply to onshore funds. The EU had identified these offshore rights as a potentially harmful tax practice, threatening to add HK on its list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, potentially sparking financial sanctions.…

A PROPOSED Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the European Union (EU) and Indonesia could generate notable structural shifts in Indonesia’s textile (fabric and yarn) sector, expanding the workforce by up to 2.5% for skilled and unskilled workers, expert analysis suggests.

Indeed, a new European Commission’s Sustainability Impact Assessment (see http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2018/october/tradoc_157431.pdf)…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed a draft regulation that would insist that food sold to European Union (EU) consumers contain a maximum 2 grams of trans fat (other than that naturally occurring in animal fat) for every 100 grams of fat.…

THE SECURITIES and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong has announced a strategic framework to develop green finance. A priority will be to enhance listed companies’ consistent and comparable disclosure of environmental information, emphasising climate-related risks and opportunities. The SFC will also help asset managers clarify how and to what extent they factor environmental criteria into their investment processes and risk assessments.…

IN its trade war against China, the Trump administration in the USA has added tariffs on a wide range of upstream textile inputs and fashion-related consumer products, raising the spectre of fraudulent rerouting of Chinese textile-garment products through neighbouring regions, notably south-east Asia.…

A SALES and Services Tax (SST), replacing Malaysia’s now abolished goods and services tax (GST), has come into force (from September 1), via the new Sales Tax Act 2018 and the Service Tax Act 2018. The SST is a single-stage tax, a sales and services tax imposed on manufacturers and service providers rather than end customers, as with the 6% GST.…

Cryptocurrencies have made a big splash across Asia, and governments have taken very different regulatory approaches to curb associated financial scams and money laundering.

While there is one group of countries that has banned the operation and use of cryptocurrencies entirely, including China, India and Vietnam, a second category spans countries that see cryptocurrencies as potentially boosting their own financial sectors.…

THE COLOSSAL potential of Myanmar’s tourism industry combined with a severe lack of transport infrastructure has prompted the government to undertake a countrywide overhaul of its airport network.

Plans range from connecting remote regions using single runway sites to a new international airport for the commercial capital Yangon, but progress on all fronts has been slow and the future of key projects is highly uncertain.…

WITH the old certainties that the world would move steadily towards ever freer trade now crumbling, the technical textile sector is closely monitoring shifts in trade policy by key governments and international organisations.

This industry depends on the free flow of materials and finished goods – and unlike many textile segments – still has a significant manufacturing presence in mature markets, making the impact of trade policy changes complex and hard to predict.…

A new report from Transparency International has found that only 11 major exporting countries in the world significantly punish companies that pay bribes abroad. The report, called ‘Exporting Corruption’, also found that more than half of world exports come from at least 33 jurisdictions, including several European Union (EU) member states, where companies that export corruption along with their goods and services face weak consequences. …

The UK and Australia are poles apart geographically but share the aim of becoming leaders in using or selling hydrogen for energy. The scheduled unveiling in November (2018) of a conceptual design to convert an eighth (8.3 million) of the UK’s population to 100% low-carbon hydrogen gas between 2028 and 2035 matters.…

A SALES and Services Tax (SST), replacing Malaysia’s now abolished goods and services tax (GST), has come into force (from September 1), via the new Sales Tax Act 2018 and the Service Tax Act 2018. The SST is a single-stage tax, a sales and services tax imposed on manufacturers and service providers rather than end customers, as with the 6% GST.…

NEGOTIATIONS for a free trade agreement between Indonesia and the European Union (EU), which will pave the way for greater opportunities for the textile and garment sectors, are entering a final phase, the head of Indonesia’s textile industry association said.

“Negotiations are entering the sixth round.…

THE INDIAN government has been sending out conflicting signals about its trading policy for its important knitwear sector. While it last month (July 18) announced it was increasing import duties for some key knitted apparel and knitwear inputs, talks are moving ahead to forge a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with 16 Asian counties.…

THE MALAYSIAN government has approved a new minimum wage of Malaysian Ringgit MYR1,500 (USD368) for the private sector, but the new wages floor will be phased in gradually.

“If we push for higher minimum wages, cost of production will go up and we will not be competitive,” Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad told the country’s national news agency, Bernama, today.…

Japan’s personal care sector experienced continued growth in 2017, with shipments surpassing Japanese Yen JPY1.6 trillion (USD14.34 billion) during the year to record a new record high. Virtually every sector recording an increase in sales on the previous year. Figures for the January-April period of 2018 suggest that this positivity is being carried over into this year, boding well for Japanese personal care product companies.…

ENDING UP an entrepreneur was perhaps Arif Al Islam’s “Plan B”, but the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)-qualified financial professional has more than proved his business smarts.

“I had to build the company from a scratch,” says Mr Islam, who is now managing director and chief executive officer of Dhaka-based fibre optics major Summit Communications Ltd.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) customs’ long-standing struggle with counterfeit textile products coming from south-east Asia and the resulting economic losses have sparked the EU to invest in two initiatives aiming at preventing the trade of fake goods. 

IP Key South East Asia (IP Key SEA) and ASEAN Regional Integration Support from the EU (ARISE Plus), both launched this April, will be strongly promoting the protection of intellectual and industrial property rights in the textile and other impacted sector.…

THE ASIA-PACIFIC (APAC) region’s oil and gas sector faces an unprecedented level of decommissioning for which it is under-prepared and lacks experience, analysts have warned. Unclear regional government regulations coupled with a lack of local expertise mean that companies and regulators face a steep learning curve, high initial costs and the potential for mistakes, according to the consultancy group Wood Mackenzie’s latest analysis.…

THE ASIA-Pacific region has many of the elements needed to create a burgeoning nonwovens market and industry. It has growing middle class consumption of basis personal products and continued manufacturing and infrastructural expansion for industrial nonwovens. These items can be supplied my new mass-production in emerging market countries and niche lines from the region’s richer developed industrial economies.…

JAPANESE eateries are expanding in Indonesia as the appetite for beef rises among south-east Asia’s most populous country’s growing middle class.

In 2016, Indonesia’s beef consumption was 1.84 kg per capita (its population is 261 million), up from 1.45 kg a decade earlier, according to business researcher Statista.…

SOUTH-EAST Asia maybe a diverse and hence complicated region in which to market personal care products, but the growth in sales in all its countries make it an attractive target for beauty brands.

The Philippines is a case in point. The gross domestic product (GDP) of this 103 million people archipelago recorded 6.7% GDP growth in 2017, and the World Bank projects it to grow further at an annual rate of 6.7% in both 2018 and 2019, before settling at 6.6% in 2020.…

THE NEWLY signed 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) could help Vietnam boost garment and textile exports to the lucrative Australian market significantly. But the Asian clothing makers may still face big challenges in taking market share in this mature market away from China, experts warn. …

INDONESIAN President Joko Widodo’s drive to upgrade the country’s infrastructure is set to benefit the textile industry, but the problem of high energy costs remains an obstacle to competitiveness, industry players have warned.

Since taking office in October 2014, Widodo’s administration has embarked on ambitious projects to tackle infrastructure bottlenecks by building roads, ports, airports and power plants.…

THE NONWOVENS sector has always been at the cutting edge of materials production, and so established developed economy manufacturers have often had the edge. But with global markets integrating, and emerging economies becoming increasingly sophisticated, new nonwovens manufacturing bases are growing all the time.…

THE ECONOMIES of the Asia Pacific region are impressively dynamic, but HR experts agree much more could be gained if the region were to succeed in improving women’s skills and providing them with equal opportunities at work.

Illustrating just how much potential there is, the latest report from the McKinsey Global Institute published in April, ‘The power of parity: Advancing women’s equality in Asia Pacific’, has found that advancing women’s equality in the region could add USD4.5 trillion to their collective GDP annually in 2025 – a 12% increase over the “business-as-usual trajectory”.…

INCREASINGLY tough anti-money laundering/combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regimes is increasing demand for AML/CFT compliance staff. And with financial institutions and non-financial AML reporters having to convince regulators that they take AML/CFT compliance seriously these professionals are needed: their salaries are rising as a result.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has moved ahead with its plans to impose temporary safeguard duties on imports into the EU of USA-made knitwear, as a reaction to the levying of American import duties on aluminium and steel imports.

The EU executive, the European Commission, has published a regulation that should see some of the duties in force by July, after they have been approved by the EU trade barriers committee.…

CLIMATE change does not just warm up the planet, it appears to be crating or extreme weather events that can cause major operational and safety problems for airports and air traffic controllers, who need to be prepared for such events with good practice and technology.…

Demand for coatings in the Philippines is being boosted by a mix of factors, leading the Philippine Association of Paint Manufacturers (PAPM) to forecast 8% year-on-year growth in paint and coatings production volumes this year (2018), to 387 million litres.

In terms of sales value, market researcher Frost & Sullivan estimates the Philippines coatings market at more than USD1 billion in 2017, with a projection for USD1.53 billion by 2019..…

THE SINGAPORE government has released an accountancy roadmap, enabling the profession in the city state to grow 5.6% annually to generate Singapore dollars SGD2.03 billion (USD1.48 billion) in nominal value-added income, creating 2,000 new PMET (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) jobs by 2020.…

THE MALAYSIAN government has effectively scrapped the country’s Goods & Services Tax (GST) reducing its rate from 6% to 0%, effective June 1. The move follows the election of a new administration under former opposition alliance Pakatan Harapan, defeating the incumbent Barisan Nasional.…

CHINA’S State Council has announced reductions in mainland VAT, with businesses being saved Chinese Yuan Renminbi CNY400 billion (USD62.8 billion) in this year alone, it has said. Rates have been lowered (from May 1, 2018) from 17% to 16% for manufacturing and other industries, and 11% to 10% for transport, construction bills, standard telecommunications service, and direct farm output purchasers by consumers (12% when these goods are bought by manufacturers for onward processing).…

A SERIES of new easily accessible initiatives from the Singapore government are set to help boost small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) focus on human resources development – an area traditionally shunned due to cost constraints.     

The HR portal (www.hrportal.sg) launched last month is one of the three initiatives led by International Enterprise Singapore – under the ministry of trade and industry – to help develop human resources skills in the city state.…

NEW flexible dress code policies introduced across Asia are facing something of a backlash as employers and employees wrestle with matching cultural and corporate identities to assess the appropriate level of work attire.

While heat and humidity, as well as the needs of the growing number of working mothers, do provide some rationale for more flexibility in east and southeast Asian workforces, cultural forces and the fear of missing out on business opportunities seem to be leading some companies to hold on to traditional rules, either real or implicit, for business wear.…

AN UPCOMING European Union (EU)/New Zealand free trade agreement (FTA) will benefit the metals industry, New Zealand and European experts have told Metal Bulletin, after a preparatory customs agreement between the partners came into force May 1.

Notably, Europe will gain more access to New Zealand’s quality low emission-produced metals as well as metal components, Nick Collins, chief executive of industry association Metals New Zealand (Metals NZ) said.…

RUSSIAN airport holding and cooperating company Basel-Aero, which is owned by the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska may sell some of its airport assets, government officials have told Jane’s Airport Review.

The spark for the sales is likely to be financial problems caused by the recent inclusion of Deripaska in a new USA sanctions list of Russian companies and plutocrats the US, said senior officials at the Russian ministry of transport and air industry analysts. …

EUROPEAN Union (EU) food and drink exporters could be major beneficiaries of a revised EU-Mexico trade agreement which will remove almost all bilateral tariffs left by a year 2000 deal. Under a new agreement struck in principle, Mexican import duties on EU exports of cheeses, such as gorgonzola and roquefort, and pasta (of up to 20%), will be removed, along with duties on chocolate and confectionery, (that can exceed 20%).…

Enhancing the quality of passenger experience while maintaining maximum security was a recurring theme during the Dubai Airport Show 2018. The annual airport industry event, held from May 7 to 9, drew more than 7,500 visitors.

Covering 15,000 square metres of space across three halls of the iconic Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, its 18^th edition hosted more than 350 exhibitors from 60 countries.…

Diversity – a theme very close to Mohamed Irshad’s heart – could not be embodied by a more appropriate person than the affable, youthful-looking 34-year-old head of global internal audit – the Americas, at French multinational Schneider Electric. Irshad is an Indian national who was born and raised in Dubai, studied in India, has lived in Paris and is now based in Canada.…

EXPERTS have expressed mixed reactions on how a proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), now years in the making, could help revive the garment and textile sector in South East Asia.

The 16-member bloc that includes the 10 ASEAN member countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and six other countries – Australia New Zealand, China, India, Japan and South Korea – have been negotiating the deal since November 2012.…

THE SOUTH Korean cosmetics market, currently evaluated by Frost & Sullivan at USD12.4 billion and growing at 7% year-on-year, is leaving behind the negative effects of a de facto boycott by Chinese tourists. The travel freeze, sparked by Seoul’s decision to install a US-made anti-missile system to protect itself from North Korea, has been in place since early 2017.…

DEFERRED Prosecution Agreements (DPAs), that allow companies and individuals that admit to wrongdoing and cooperate with investigators and avoid prosecution, are becoming increasingly common worldwide, including for money laundering offences. The systems are particularly useful sticks to force erring financial and other corporate institutions to improve their anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism systems (AML/CFT), with prosecuting agencies deferring criminal cases on condition of sustained AML/CFT reforms.…

THE INTERNATIONAL knitwear sector has found itself at the centre of the ongoing turmoil in global trade relations, with major jurisdictions considering imposing tariffs on knitted products, inputs and related machinery.

One concern focuses on how the USA has proposed imposing 25% duties on a wide-range of China-made manufactured goods over alleged thefts of American intellectual property by Chinese industrialists.…

Word from US President Donald Trump that he may reverse a longstanding position and explore the possibility that the country may join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after all, has left the fashion industry – along with much of the American business community – somewhat sceptical, while being supportive.…

RUSSIAN airports are intensifying preparations for a flood of passengers in the run up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup from June 14 to July 15, having expanded their carrying capacities and modernised operations, according to Russian transport ministry officials and airport bosses.…

RUSSIAN airports are intensifying preparations for a flood of passengers in the run up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup from June 14 to July 15, having expanded their carrying capacities and modernised operations, according to Russian transport ministry officials and airport bosses.…

THE CHANGI Airport Group’s ambitions to export its operating services could receive a fillip from a new trade and investment agreement struck between the European Union (EU) and the company’s home base, Singapore. The deal has now been released for ratification and includes extensive protections for investors from both parties’ jurisdictions, including against expropriation, as well as guaranteed fair treatment when bidding for public procurement contracts.…

FOR the first time since 2003, Singapore’s overall employment fell last year (2017), however, the number of jobs taken by Singaporean citizens and permanent residents grew slightly in 2017 compared to 2016, according to the latest city state government data. The numbers reflect the government’s continued push towards strengthening its core Singaporean workforce, experts say, although more training and mentoring is needed to make Singapore residents’ productivity more competitive internationally, they warned.…

ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI)-led candidate screening or simply put, automated recruitment is ready to take off in east and south-east Asia. However, a key challenge in the process is making automated interactions valuable and engaging enough for candidates – so that “they don’t feel like they are talking to a dumb machine,” an industry expert said.…

Workplace automation, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, is expected to surge significantly in the next three years in companies throughout Asia Pacific, but companies and HR departments need to do more to address the transformation, warn experts.…

Asian companies are more likely to lose senior management staff after mergers and acquisitions (M&A) than their western counterparts, a study has found. This, say HR experts in Singapore and Hong Kong, emphasises the need for more sophisticated talent retention strategies in the region.…

STANDARD Chartered Bank has been hit by another enforcement action over past anti-money laundering (AML) failures, with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announcing today (March 19) that it was fining local subsidiaries Singapore dollars SGD6.54 million (USD4.85 million). The fines break down to SGD5.2 million on the Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore Branch (SCBS) and SGD1.2 million on Standard Chartered Trust (Singapore) Ltd (SCTS).…

A CONSORTIUM led by Singapore’s Changi Airports International (CAI) has lost a contract to operate and manage Saudi Arabia’s new King Abdulaziz International Airport (KAIA), in Jeddah, which, has been due to open in May (2018). Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said it will launch a new international tendering process.…

StarLux Airlines, a Taiwanese premium carrier now under development, that hopes to start operations by 2020, is to focus first on short-haul flights to airports in northeast and southeast Asia, the company told Jane’s Airport Review. “We are evaluating all sort of possibilities for the choice of route for the first flight,” it said.…

THE HONG Kong financial secretary has proposed a 75% reduction of profits tax, salaries tax and tax under personal assessment for the 2017-18 assessment year, up to Hong Kong dollars HKD30,000 (USD3,820) per case. In his annual budget speech, Paul Chan also proposed widening tax bands, adding one more (HKD150,000 to HKD200,000); adjusting marginal tax rates for salaries tax; introducing a personal disability allowance; increasing basic, additional child allowances, dependent parent/grandparent allowance and additional allowance.…

AMIDST warnings from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank, of a “demographic trilemma” facing the wealthy city state’s ageing workers, employers say the answer lies in creating “ageless workplaces” led by transformational changes.

An ageing population coupled with a low birth rate is set to slow down workforce growth in Singapore from 3.3% per year between 2010 and 2015, to about 1% annually from now until mid-2020s, Singapore National Employers Federation director, planning, research and information, Chua Ker Sin, told People Management.…

SINGAPORE is to levy good and services tax (GST) on imported services from January 1, 2020, to help city state e-commerce service providers compete with foreign suppliers. B2B imported services will be taxed via a reverse charge mechanism. The move was announced in the government’s 2018 budget, that was announced on February 19.…

FINANCIAL crime experts are urging Indonesia to step up its war on terror financing and money laundering highlighting the south-east Asian nation’s vulnerability to these threats. The USA state department’s 2017 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) noted these threats are significant despite Indonesia neither being a regional financial centre nor an offshore financial haven.…

THE MALAYSIAN government should use human resources expertise to achieve its goal of sustainably growing the country’s middle-class workforce, creating high-skilled jobs and making sure such jobs are accessible to educated Malaysians, HR specialists have argued.

Using HR expertise is important for the government – which is facing an election this year (2018) – tied as it is to an official plan to increase the size of the country’s middle class from the current 40% of the country’s 31.19 million population to 45% by 2020, according to the ‘Eleventh Malaysia Plan (2016-2020)’ launched in 2015.…

THE MONETARY Authority of Singapore (the country’s central bank) has announced plans to impose AML/CFT requirements on agents that turn virtual currencies into hard currency. The MAS is currently conducting public consultation on a proposed Payment Services Bill which would authorise powers enabling it to demand such gatekeepers screen transactions.…

It is no secret that sources of illegal proceeds of crime are manifold in the Philippines – witness President Rodrigo Duterte’s notorious campaign of state-sponsored killings, aimed at what he has claimed is an active industry of selling and trafficking illegal narcotics.…

WITH full supply chains and innovative products, Thailand’s knitwear industry is thriving, making the country a nucleus for fashion manufacturing in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. Thai Garment Manufacturers Association (TGMA) executive director Chartchai Singhadeja said: “Thailand’s strength lies in our full-value supply chains, starting from fibres to yarns and fabrics, then apparel and clothing within the fashion industry.”…

SINGAPORE’S Accounting Standards Council (ASC) has issued the Singapore Financial Reporting Standards (International) (SFRS(I)s), the city state’s equivalent of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs). This new set of rules will cover Singapore-incorporated listed company accounts for annual periods beginning January 1, 2018, and onwards.…

THE SECURITIES Commission Malaysia (SC) has issued Guidelines on Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) Funds to boost the growth of green investments in the country. The advice follows Malaysia issuing in July the world’s first green sukuk (Islamic bond).

The new advice applies to conventional as well as Islamic sustainable finance, including unit trust funds, real estate trust funds, exchange-traded funds, and venture capital and private equity funds.…

*The European Union (EU) Council of Ministers has published a blacklist of jurisdictions it thinks do not cooperate sufficiently with international efforts to reduce tax evasion. They are American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea, Macau, the Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).…

China will boast the world’s number one cosmetics market in 2018 according to global financial services firm Morgan Stanley: it will account for 20% of total sales, compared to 17% for the second-placed USA and 10% for third placed Japan – overtaking America for the first time, it said.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers today (December 5) adopted a money laundering blacklist, bringing widespread criticism because the listing – designed to prevent tax fraud and evasion – only covers countries outside the 28-nation bloc. Despite the European Commission screening 92 jurisdictions worldwide, the final list of non-cooperative jurisdictions in taxation matters only contains 17 jurisdictions: American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam (another US territory), South Korea, Macau (a China special administrative region), the Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).…

THE STRATEGY and business development director of global aviation and transport systems giant Thales predicts that a global set of comprehensive rules controlling unmanned aircraft could be in place by 2019. That would be the year of the next triennial assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), and allow enough time for expertise to be developed in countries such as the USA, Singapore, Australia, and the UK, that are leading on drone regulation.…

THE HEAD of groundbreaking satellite navigation company Aireon has told Jane’s Airport Review that his company’s network will not replace ground-based air navigation services, rather compliment them and supply healthy excess capacity that will boost reliability. Don Thoma, president and CEO of Aireon, Virginia, USA-based space-based automatic dependent surveillance broadcast network system operator, said: “It’s going to be all of the above.…

INCREASINGLY, the success of universities is being measured by the number of employable graduates they turn out every year – by this metric south east Asian universities are failing. Indeed, when a recent global ranking found that only one university within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was within the top-20 higher education institutes worldwide in terms of their graduates securing good jobs, experts have called for reform.…

NEW Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) signal a promising outlook for the Vietnamese textile industry with tariff concessions providing the biggest stimulus to figures, according to the country’s trade officials.

Attendees at the 17^th Vietnam International Textile & Garment Industry Exhibition, held late last month (November 22-25th) in Ho Chi Minh City, heard the deals will impact significantly on the national textile sector.…

THE HUMAN resources sector has been urged to put pressure on governments and investment fund managers in Asia to strengthen pension provisions as they deal with the consequences of rapidly aging populations.

And HR and economics experts have warned that corporate HR teams have a critical role to play in educating the workforce about the extent, however limited, of their pension provision and working with company bosses to strengthen policies within their organisations to compensate for the lack of robust schemes in existence.…

EMPLOYERS in Hong Kong should find it easier to recruit staff with the right skills according to the latest labour participation rates for the city, which indicates there is an increasing number of potential workers available to fill posts.

Hong Kong – with a population of seven million and a workforce estimated at just under four million, split almost equally between male and female – has had to face up to a diminishing talent pool in recent years, partly due to emigration and partly due to a fluctuating birth rate.…

WITH east and southeast Asia’s labour market tightening, companies and governments are developing innovative schemes to entice a key resource into their workforces – returning professionals, who have taken a break from their careers.

Morgan Stanley through its Return to Work 2018 programme aims to lure such “experienced” workers to restart their lives as employees at this global financial firm through a 12-week paid internship in the company’s Hong Kong offices.…

HONG Kong regulators have laid down binding rules on financial institutions insisting that they practice effective cybersecurity management. The special administrative region’s (SAR) Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has issued ‘Guidelines for Reducing and Mitigating Hacking Risks Associated with Internet Trading’ requiring all licensed or registered internet traders to implement 20 steps to reduce cyber-attack vulnerabilities.…

AS the gig economy or ‘open talent economy’, grows within the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asia Nations) region, how will it impact the area’s HR jobs? Experts warn that the number of full time, traditional personnel jobs are going to be cut significantly and the role of HR is bound to be disrupted.…

HUMAN resources experts in Asia have challenged the widely-held belief that recruiting more and more younger ‘digital natives’ who grew up in the Internet age is the best answer to technological developments completely transforming traditional work environments.

Personnel specialists in the tech-innovation-driven economies of Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia believe that an older more experienced workforce might actually be more beneficial to organisations mastering digital development challenges.…

MORE than half of current jobs in Malaysia could either disappear totally or see their nature “considerably change” over the next two decades due to advancements in automation, according to a new report.

And businesses will have to work with education providers to ensure relevant skillsets are taught to bridge the employability gap, human resources experts warned.…

HUMAN Resources experts across east and southeast Asia need to rethink what can be overly-automated hiring processes, lacking in personal touch, say some experts. Indeed, there is a need to rehumanise the candidate experience, according to a new study which found that too much automation puts off prospective candidates rather than attracts them.…

SINGAPORE’S HR sector needs to plan ahead to beat an estimated productivity loss of SGD3.3 billion (USD2.43 billion) by 2030 due to sickness absenteeism among its workers, experts have warned.

This estimated loss is 43% more than the productivity loss in 2016 because of sickness absenteeism in Singapore, according to an October 2017 study entitled ‘Aging Workforce: Cost and Productivity Challenges of Ill Health in Singapore’ compiled by New York-based HR consulting firm Mercer together with New York-based professional services company Marsh & McLennan Asia Pacific Risk Center (APRC). …

A NEW national training initiative launched in Singapore focusing on key skills to create a competitive workforce risks failing to achieve its target for omitting critical soft skills from its remit, HR experts have warned.

While specific expertise in areas such as finance and technology are vital in the modern workplace, industry specialists believe qualities such as emotional intelligence and cultural awareness are those which help distinguish successful employees from their counterparts yet they do not feature in the new programme.…

SINGAPORE’S workforce is highly diverse – drawing from a multi-cultural home labour market and tapping international sources of expertise –  meaning companies benefit from a larger talent pool with a competitive edge. But among such employees, frequent miscommunication can occur, hence the government has moved to further strengthen its dispute resolution mechanism with a promise to do more to tackle the issue.…

THE SINGAPORE government’s efforts towards increasing the share of locals in its workforce are gaining momentum and bearing fruit, according to new figures.

As many as three out of four white-collar jobs, (professionals, managers, executives and technicians – often clubbed together under the acronym PMETs), created in the last three years, went to locals as opposed to just one in two jobs five years ago, according to Singapore manpower ministry data.…

SELF-EMPLOYED workers in Singapore are set to be offered better financial and benefits packages to bring them further in line with their employed counterparts to ensure a competitive workforce and economic prosperity prevail.

At a city state National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) held in October this year, secretary-general Chan Chun Sing revealed that the government intends to offer better security to the growing number of self-employed and freelance workers in the country.…

INNOVATIVE schemes are required to beat workplace stress and challenge organisational culture if HR bosses are to prevent Singapore’s productivity levels being damaged by increasingly worrying wellbeing issues, experts have warned.

Singapore-based Centre for Effective Living (CEL), a company promoting the psychological wellness of organisations, said they have seen a 10%-20% rise in the number of clients from the public as well as private sector seeking their help.…

Using simple automation or more advanced artificial intelligence (AI) – where machines can simulate human intelligence – to perform HR jobs such as hiring, developing and engaging workers, has resulted in massive productivity gains. Consequently, it has made HR decision making more data-based rather than intuition-based and “Asia has certainly embraced digitisation,” global law firm Evershed Sutherland’s head of Hong Kong and Asia Pacific employment practice Jennifer Van Dale said.…

AS one of the world’s leading financial centres and a traditional bridge to mainland China for international business, Hong Kong has long been in the crosshairs of global money laundering investigations.

Hong Kong featured in the infamous ‘Russian laundromat’ scandal, uncovered by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), that saw USD20 billion moved out of Russia between 2010 and 2014 through a web of shell companies.…

MALAYSIA is making progress in combating money laundering but political interference is still a problem in implementing policies and enforcing laws, experts have told Money Laundering Bulletin.

A dynamic upper middle-income country (USD9,850 per head gross national income in 2016, says the Word Bank), some of Malaysia’s ML and TF [terrorist financing] risks derive from its geographic position.…

IT is no surprise that Singapore has a significant exposure to money laundering and terrorist finance. It is one of the world’s largest financial centres, a major free-trade hub and has neighbours where corruption and Islamic extremist insurgent groups remain are real threats.…

THE SOUTH-EAST Asian kingdom of Thailand, has high profile vulnerabilities to money laundering, being known for its widespread sex trade sector its role in the international drugs trade, and also for being the base of human trafficking networks, according to the USA state department’s 2017 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR).  …

The Chinese government is to set up a new anti-corruption agency, the National Supervisory Commission, to replace the existing watchdog the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). The change to be confirmed at the 19th National People’s Congress on October 18, comes as China seeks greater cooperation with international law enforcement bodies as part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) planned trade deal with Japan – its sixth most important trading partner – struck in principle at the July 6 EU-Japan Summit in Brussels and set to be operational in 2019, will benefit the EU dairy industry greatly, experts say.…

INDONESIA is an important market – it does not just have 261 million people, but its female consumers especially are becoming more assertive and shaping colour cosmetic trends that brands should follow if they want to boost revenue. Last year, market observers have said, women consumers in Indonesia decided they wanted to buy matte lipstick, and this demand has mushroomed.…

SALES of colour cosmetics have trailed skin care purchases in China, but this may change in future, with make-up sales rising at a rapid pace in recent years.

A survey by market researchers Mintel in April this year revealed 62% of urban Chinese women claim to wear make-up every year, up significantly from the 38% of women surveyed just a year before.…

THE PAINT and coatings industry in south Asia maybe thriving, but regional trade between countries is not – being restricted to exports of pigments, resins, solvents and additives from India to its neighbouring countries. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan and Afghanistan, as well as regional giant India, are all members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), but they import most of their paint and coating raw materials.…

SINGAPORE may be a global hub for business but the city state’s ministry of manpower is keen to ensure that its employers consider Singaporeans fairly for local jobs when recruiting. And currently there are nearly 300 companies placed on a government watchlist for not doing so, a ministry spokesperson told People Management.…

SINGAPORE is at risk of losing its edge as a regional hub with significant knock-on impacts for employment opportunities, according to leading Singapore economist Manu Bhaskaran.

The Chief Executive Officer of Centennial Asia Advisors, Mr Bhaskaran said there was increasing competition in key areas such as aviation and financial services, which he said were showing early signs of potential problems.…

HUMAN resources department in Singapore may adjust workers’ terms and conditions to avoid making costly redundancies, following the introduction of new government guidelines that strengthen employee job protections.

Despite this, personnel experts have broadly welcomed the changes arguing they encourage companies to broaden internal opportunities for staff.…

COMMERCIAL motivation coupled with a desire to make a difference in people’s lives is driving a new wave of social entrepreneurs in Singapore.

While social enterprise start-ups in Asia have traditionally been non-profit non-government organisations (NGOs), the new trend is for tech-savvy millennials to launch innovative and profitable, but also socially-inclusive projects.…

THE GOVERNMENT-run Cyber Security Agency of Singapore’s (CSA) plan to open its first academy to train cyber security professionals will be just in time to prepare the city state for a surge in demand for these skills next year, experts say.…

HUMAN resources department in Singapore may adjust workers’ terms and conditions to avoid making costly redundancies, following the introduction of new government guidelines that strengthen employee job protections.

Despite this, personnel experts have broadly welcomed the changes arguing they encourage companies to broaden internal opportunities for staff.…

AFTER a recent study found that 30% of Singapore’s fresh graduates quit their first job within a year, experts are questioning if HR professionals are doing enough in terms of retaining young talent and helping newcomers to grow into their jobs.…

CONCERN is growing over the ability of Hong Kong’s education system to produce graduates with the skills needed by the Special Administrative Region’s (SAR) economy.

Hong Kong children start school early. While there’s a well-established government-run education system, every parent who can afford the fees wants to send their children to a private school.…

A BILL has been introduced in the Philippine parliament to curb the practice of both private and public sector employers delaying salary payments without justification in a bid to tackle high levels of private debt in the country.

Philippine Congressman Manuel Lopez submitted House Bill 6537 on October 3 citing the 2016 Manulife Investor Sentiment Index that shown that Philippines citizens are saddled with serious personal debts – Philippines Pesos PHP291,582 (USD5,613.50) on average for people aged under 35, PHP207,418 (USD 4018.03) for those aged 35-49, and PHP143,958 (USD 2788.62) for the over-50s.…

A recent survey conducted by University of Malaya’s Social Security Research Centre (SSRC) has pointed to a growing number of Malaysians wishing to work as long as their health permits, despite having savings or investments.

Close to half of the respondents aged 60 and above continue to work, most of them feeling their savings are insufficient, said a report released in October.…

IN Singapore, employees whose careers can be damaged the worst when made redundant are the country’s locally trained mid-career professionals – and HR experts are arguing that these workers need help. According to government data as much as 70% of Singapore-based employees who have been made redundant are mid-career pros.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU)-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA), on which negotiations concluded December 2, 2015, will open up “huge business opportunities” for Vietnamese garment companies, business experts agreed last month (September). They were speaking at an event jointly organised by EU business federation BusinessEurope, EuroCham [European Chamber of Commerce] Vietnam and the EU-Vietnam Business Network.…

SINGAPORE has released details of how it plans to insist that sellers of mobile phones, memory cards and off-the-shelf software pay VAT on the sale rather than purchase of such goods, to prevent tax fraud. The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) says that this reverse charge system is designed to prevent black-marketers avoiding VAT payments, while customers lower down the supply chain continue to claim input tax.…

VIETNAM’S textile and clothing and textile sector is looking to sell more product into Asian markets such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Japan, while solidifying its traditional export bases like the US and EU, the latest trade data indicates. 

Last year, Vietnam exported USD2.28 billion’s worth of clothing and textiles to South Korea – a 7.45% gain compared with 2015, according to Vietnam customs data analysed by the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS). …

WHILE there is little doubt that the Asian fire resistant coating market is large – indeed New Jersey-based chemical consultancy Growney Kusumgar, Nerfli & Growny has argued that it is several times larger than that of the USA’s USD100 million-market – marketers can struggle to make sales. …

MULTINATIONAL companies are failing to prioritise anti-bribery and corruption (ABC) measures with more than half appearing to put profits ahead of prevention and a significant minority of CEOS not prepared to turn their backs on high risk contracts due to commercial pressure, according to a new survey.…

IN a cutting-edge area of the textile sector such as digital manufacturing, planning and distribution, it is always helpful to know what the gold standard is for performance. But with technologies still developing and innovation taking hardware and software in directions that are untested – with implications that are as yet unknown – companies may not want to follow the crowd.…

BANGLADESH has ramped up investments in high-tech equipment to bolster security at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA), in its capital Dhaka, but sustaining mechanical and procedural improvements remains an ongoing challenge.
The spending has followed a string of bans on cargo flights out of the country’s main gateway over security concerns, with the European Union (EU) becoming the latest to enforce such restrictions on June 1, (2017).…

THE IMPOVERISHED south-east Asian kingdom of Cambodia shares porous borders with the significantly more dynamic economies of Thailand and Vietnam, is notorious for corruption, has a large casino sector and generates significant earnings from illegal exports.

This precarious mixture of factors has since 2012 consecutively earned Cambodia a spot in the Basel Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Index (from the Basel Institute on Governance) top-10 risk jurisdictions for money laundering.…

AN ELDERLY person at home is like a living golden treasure. So runs an oft-quoted Chinese proverb – but Hong Kong is starting to ponder its worth in the wake of a warning that the city faces an “ageing tsunami” along with much of the region where innovative plans are being considered to tackle the looming crisis.…

MOST of East Asia’s dynamic economies have traditionally relied on expats and there are no readily discernible signs that this is decreasing.

In Vietnam, which has been benefitting from production lines migrating from China amid rapidly rising labour and land costs there, increasing the number of expats six-fold since 2004 to almost 100,000 in 2016, the shortage of engineers and managers can be seen throughout most sectors.…

THE EAST and south-east Asia HR sector is feeling the heat more than ever to plug the region’s gaping gender pay gap in the wake of a new initiative – launched on the fringes of the UN general assembly in New York last week (September 18).…

IMPROVING productivity and upskilling Malaysia’s public servants are key targets ahead of the country’s journey to a high-income nation by 2020, according to the government.  However, an HR expert urged the government to overhaul the national curriculum with public service improvements in mind for any meaningful skills improvements to take place.  …

AS Singapore’s talent shortages begin to impact on business prospects, new opportunities are emerging for HR to play a lead role in aligning workforce planning with business strategy.

A recent report (released August 17) by the talent outsourcing firm KellyOCG, conducted across Singapore, India, Australia and Malaysia, found the majority of senior ‘C-suite’ level executives (61%) expected talent shortages to have a negative impact on their business going forward.…

SINGAPORE has moved to rejuvenate its appeal to entrepreneurs by making key changes to its work visa system in a move described as “a smart initiative” by a leading human resources and business development expert. The changes were announced in August to the EntrePass work visa programme.…

INDONESIAN textile factories must improve their production of motif designs and colours to satisfy domestic consumers and boost local sales, said textile retailers at south-east Asia’s busiest garment and textile market in Jakarta’s Tanah Abang district. “We expect producers make more unique textile motifs, so customers will have more choices, which they will like,” said Eryanto, a trader who has been working for about 11 years at the Arjuna Bombay textile shop at Tanah Abang Block A market.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU)-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (FTA), on which negotiations concluded December 2, 2015, will open up “huge business opportunities” for Vietnamese garment companies, business experts agreed earlier this month at an event jointly organised by EU business federation BusinessEurope, EuroCham [European Chamber of Commerce] Vietnam and the EU-Vietnam Business Network.…

HONG KONG and Saudi Arabia has struck an agreement on avoiding double taxation so any Saudi Arabian tax paid by Hong Kong companies will be credited against tax payable on the same profits in the special administrative region. The same would apply to Saudi companies paying tax in Hong Kong.…

A MAJOR international anti-counterfeiting action ‘Operation Renegade’ did not just seize more than 70,000 counterfeit auto spare parts, oil and air filters, grills, and fuel pumps, and nearly 600 cylinders of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) refrigerants, it yielded valuable anti-smuggling and counterfeiting information.…

WHEN the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) released its annual set of global statistics in June (2017), and South Korea was not among the world’s 24 countries that performed the most surgical and nonsurgical procedures in 2016, there was considerable surprise.…

SOUTH east Asia’s countries are as culturally diverse as those in Europe, and far more contrasting in economic development, so it is no surprise that their personal care product markets differ in their tastes and priorities. Fortunately, with the region’s largely emerging market economies still on a robust growth trajectory, and its more developed economies solidifying their wealth, the usual personal care product sale trend is one of expansion, albeit unevenly and sometimes with set-backs.…

TAIWAN, a now a high-income economy with a population of 23.6 million and a per capita income of USD22,453 in 2016, (International Monetary Fund figures), has been witnessing robust growth in its cosmetics and personal care products manufacturing. In 2016, this grew by 5.99% year-on-year to Taiwan dollars TWD21.1 billion (USD700 million), according to an estimate by the Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center (IEK), a Hsinchu-based public-initiated think tank.…

THE GENERAL Authority of Civil Aviation in Saudi Arabia has released information about how it plans to privatise all the kingdom’s 27 airports. It has said it will transfer control to companies owned by the Saudi Civil Aviation Holding Co, whose ownership will be given to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which will handle further sales.…

BANGLADESH’S apparel makers have heaved a sigh of relief following a government announcement that it has received new explosives–detecting equipment for Dhaka airport, which the industry hopes will persuade the European Union (EU) to lift a direct flight air cargo ban.    …

AFTER it was discovered in February 2016 that Chinese cybercriminals had used the Philippines banking system and local casinos to launder USD81 million of the USD101 million they had stolen from the Bangladesh central bank (the Bangladesh Bank), Filipino officials vowed to strengthen anti-money laundering (AML) controls.…

AN IRON rice bowl – ‘tee farn woon’ – is how Chinese employees refer to a “job for life”. The implication is that whether you look after it or whether you treat it harshly, you can look forward to three square meals a day (and some added benefits) for as long as you live.…

Attention, Hong Kong bureaucrats! Study hard to become less bureaucratic!

When Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Chief Executive of the former British colony, announced she was mulling setting up a Civil Service academy, it wasn’t just Hong Kong’s public servants who sat up and took notice.…

THE ONGOING economic integration of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) block is creating potential opportunities for Indonesia’s workforce, but thy may not have skills to take advantage without proactive vocational training programmes, economists have warned.

“Qualification mismatch is still a significant issue for young people in Indonesia today,” Emma Allen, Jakarta-based country economist for the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), told People Management.…

AN EXPERT from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has told businesses in the city state that they need to work harder to ensure they pay women and men equally for the same for level of work.

Its call came after a study found that Singapore’s gender pay gap has not improved in the last decade.…

HUMAN resources experts in Thailand have called on the country’s military government to reorient the education system so that students become more adept with digital technologies, bringing such skills to the workforce once they graduate.

They have commented after the release of findings by AlphaBeta – a Australia and Singapore-based strategic and economic advisory – which put Thailand at 10th place on overall digital ranking of Asia-Pacific countries, just ahead of Vietnam.…

SINGAPORE has been rated the best city in the world to live for professionals wanting to work in start-ups, according to a survey by furnished apartment web-rental platform Nestpick. The website’s researchers assessed 85 cities, looking at their start-up ecosystems. It assessed average salaries for entry level and experienced positions regarding project management, technology and marketing roles.…

IN east Asia’s complex ethnic mix of peoples, the need to avoid racial discrimination which may undermine social stability is understood clearly by governments and businesses. And while experts agree that progress is being made is tackling this potentially corrosive personnel problem, more certainly could be done.…

PUBLIC authorities in the south Asian island nation of Maldives are themselves developing the country’s main Ibrahim Nasir International Airport, after a dispute with India’s GMR Group ended in a costly arbitration ruling.

This dated back to 2010 when GMR Male International Airport Ltd (GMIAL), a subsidiary of India’s GMR Infrastructure Ltd, signed a concession agreement with the Maldives government and the Maldives Airport Company Ltd (MACL) to modernise and operate the airport.…

For the past year, passengers flying out of Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) have had to cough up a Hong Kong dollars HKD70-180 (USD9-23) Airport Construction Fee for the privilege. Should they want to see where their money is going, they need only look northwards from the glass-sided terminal to observe the construction of the hub’s third runway, which is due to be completed in 2024.…

EMPLOYERS in Hong Kong should find it easier to recruit staff with the right skills according to the latest labour participation rates for the city, which indicates there is an increasing number of potential workers available to fill posts.

Hong Kong – with a population of seven million and a workforce estimated at just under four million, split almost equally between male and female – has had to face up to a diminishing talent pool in recent years, partly due to emigration and partly due to a fluctuating birth rate.…

WITH east and southeast Asia’s labour market tightening, companies and governments are developing innovative schemes to entice a key resource into their workforces – returning professionals, who have taken a break from their careers.

Morgan Stanley through its Return to Work 2018 programme aims to lure such “experienced” workers to restart their lives as employees at this global financial firm through a 12-week paid internship in the company’s Hong Kong offices.…

WITH the Asia-Pacific continuing to be the hub of global industrial growth and also a nexus of technological innovation, the region’s non-wovens sector has been making the most of these benefits, increasing both output and quality.

The Chinese nonwoven fabric sector, for instance, has been growing steadily, with 8-10% year-on-year growth in recent years, surpassing the average growth rate of the country’s entire textile industry.…

A GROWING trend of digitising HR – or simply put, developing human resources using machines – is sweeping Asia’s HR sector. And it has brought with it many challenges and risks that the industry need to take note of, experts warn.…

Singapore will review its 80 bilateral agreements on avoiding double taxation to ensure they do not help companies avoid paying tax where relevant business activity took place. This follows its signing the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD)-sponsored Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting.…

ACCOUNTANTS must become trusted business advisers to succeed in big corporations, says ACCA-qualified Sumathi Mohnani, whose 20-year career at IBM has seen her become Global Integration CFO for one of its subsidiaries – Sanovi Technologies.

“You need to understand the business itself – the product or the service that you are selling,” she stressed.…

THE HUMAN resources sector has been urged to put pressure on governments and investment fund managers in Asia to strengthen pension provisions as they deal with the consequences of rapidly aging populations.

And HR and economics experts have warned that corporate HR teams have a critical role to play in educating the workforce about the extent, however limited, of their pension provision and working with company bosses to strengthen policies within their organisations to compensate for the lack of robust schemes in existence.…

SINGAPORE Airlines has launched ‘green package’ for its San Francisco-Singapore route, with planes burning a biofuel-kerosene blend, with the biofuel component including used cooking oils. The flights, which began on May 1, also use the airline’s most fuel-efficient aircraft, with special efforts to optimise flight paths and air traffic management to cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions.…

Ethiopia airlines, the largest cargo carrier in Africa, is close to completing its cargo terminal expansion as part of a major infrastructure upgrade at Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, serving the Ethiopian capital.

Ethiopian Airlines, with its fleet of two Boeing 757Fs and six Boeing 777Fs, requested the new facility to accommodate increased volume growth and transit traffic.…

An increasing and unprecedented desire to smell good at all times is driving an increase in deodorant sales within Indonesia, an emerging market of more than 260 million people, whose tropical climate sees average daily highs generally exceed 28C.

The affordability of deodorants and their widespread availability at supermarkets have been boosting sales, especially among the country’s growing middle class, although there has not been a constant increase in sales in recent years, with a fall in the value of the Indonesian Rupiah in 2013 and 2014 depressing imports, which are of key importance for supplies of this consumer product in Indonesia.…

THE PLANNED introduction of mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR) by the South African Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA) has sparked widespread dissention within the country’s business and accounting communities This is despite that the reform’s goal is to strengthen auditor independence and audit quality and that there are some calls for the move to be brought forward from the current introduction date of April 1, 2023.…

AN INITIATIVE led by Singapore’s Textile and Fashion Federation (Taff) along with the International Enterprise Singapore agency (part of the ministry of trade and industry) is helping city state textile companies strengthen their market position by integrating technology into fashion.

A key part of this initiative (launched last year – 2016) is organising trade shows in the world’s fashion capitals –  New York, Paris and Shanghai – helping Singapore designers to “link up with buyers, retailers and stockists,” Taff CEO Lynette Lee told WTiN.com…

Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has released a new Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG). This revised guidance encourages the development of corporate governance culture, not just within listed companies, but also state-owned enterprises, small-and-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and licensed intermediaries. This code includes 36 practices to support strong board leadership; effective audit, risk management, and internal controls; and solid corporate reporting.…

VIETNAM is working hard to develop an upstream parts manufacturing base, but this goal is proving hard to achieve and meanwhile, regional liberalization through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is threatening the country’s auto assembly segment.

In many ways, it is crunch time for Vietnam’s auto sector.…

A GOVERNMENT-industry partnership has been launched to strengthen Singapore’s fight against money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF). The country’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Singapore Police Force have created an Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Industry Partnership (ACIP).…

A GOVERNMENT-industry partnership has been launched to strengthen Singapore’s fight against money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF). The country’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Singapore Police Force have created an Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Industry Partnership (ACIP).…

The largest logistics facility in Japan employs around 2,000 people – but that is one-quarter of the manpower that would be required if Haneda Chronogate had not incorporated so much advanced technology into its design.

Located alongside the perimeter fence of Haneda International Airport, the busiest serving Tokyo, Chronogate has a total floor area of nearly 200,000 square metres and serves as the hub for mail for the metropolitan area and the surrounding Kanto region.…

Japan’s cosmetics and personal care market is holding steady, although there are concerns that stability is being supported by strong consumption by the burgeoning number of tourists visiting the country combined with a weak yen. USD1 bought Japanese Yen JPY117 in December compared JPY100 in July, although it has since recovered to JPY110 (April).…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) cosmetics and soaps companies are awaiting with interest the results of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s appellate body’s decision on Indonesia’s claim that the EU’s anti-dumping duties have been unfairly placed on imported fatty alcohols from the south-east Asian economic giant.…

A STAGGERING 62% of Asia-Pacific consumers (including China and India) buy natural and organic cosmetics and another promising 32% are keen to buy them – making the region a hotspot for manufacturers of such lines. But this impressive growth also has made the region a perfect breeding ground for greenwashing, experts warned.…

HONG Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) will ease listing requirements for certain infrastructure companies, notably those involved in projects aiding the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative. This aims to promote transport infrastructure helping move Chinese goods to central Asia, southeast Asia, Africa and Europe.…

China’s may have announced the launch of a second major national oil and gas trading centre – in the country’s south-western metropolis of Chongqing – but this new entrepot may take time to be operational. Indeed, while the Chongqing Oil and Gas Trading Centre was formally established in January, it may take until 2018 before it is operational.…

THE CHIEF executive of a major Pakistan government economic development agency has told wardsauto that Volkswagen has made significant progress in talks to establish new manufacturing production in this key south Asian market’s port city of Karachi. The latest fruit of the business-friendly policies pursued by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, “Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles is in final talks with Premier Systems Private Limited – the authorised importer of Audi vehicles in the country – to set up a manufacturing/assembly plant for its Amarok and T6 (transporter range) models and Volkswagen,” Tariq Ejaz Chaudhary, CEO of Pakistan’s Engineering Development Board told wardsauto.…

A MEMORANDUM of understanding (MoU) to tap Singapore’s expertise to hone Cambodians’ workplace skills will help Cambodia diversify its economy beyond its key garment export base, human resources experts say.

Cambodia’s ministry of labour and vocational training has signed the agreement with Singapore’s ITE Education Services, which will help train 80 Cambodian technical and vocational trainers in information communications technology, electronics and automotive, spanning over two years.…

ASIA’S technical textiles sectors continue to grow, fuelled by ready buyers in domestic and overseas markets, but governments can and do help too – keen to promote these sustainable high tech industries.

China is a case in point. Its industry and information technology ministry plus the National Development and Reform Commission in January (2017) jointly issued development guidance for technical textiles as part of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, which runs from 2016-20.…

India’s complex Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime is set for a launch on July 1 with complicating features such as multiple tax rates and a separate law to guarantee minimum revenues to the country’s states. The central government is moving ahead with the plans, even as the country’s USD2 trillion economy recovers from the shock of November’s withdrawal of high value banknotes.…

THE ASEAN Audit Regulators Group (AARG) and the big-four audit firms have agreed a measurable goal to improve audit quality within south-east Asia. The project involves Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand; along with Malaysia’s Audit Oversight Board, Indonesia’s Finance Professions Supervisory Centre, Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) and Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission.…

THE PAINT and coatings sector in Indonesia looks set to grow significantly in coming years as rising salaries and job creation mean more disposable income for middle class purchases of residential product. The south-east Asian archipelago’s poverty rate has dropped from 17.2% in 2002 to 11.1% in 2015, according to the World Bank.…

A collaboration forged between Australia and New Zealand in January this year could demonstrate how countries can pool resources to develop autonomous vehicles (AV). The antipodean neighbors are to launch an Australian and New Zealand Driverless Vehicle Initiative (ANZDVI), according to Peter Damen, chair of executive steering committee, of an existing partner the Australian Driverless Vehicle Initiative (ADVI).…

As US President Donald Trump on January 23 pulled America out from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with an executive order, he signalled he will instead ask Asian TPP members for bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). This includes countries such as Vietnam that rely on apparel and textile exports.…

Even as the official withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been greeted by enthusiasm by American automakers, the focus is shifting to the bilateral trade deals that President Donald Trump has promised will take its place.…

IT will take at least one entire generation before Cambodia can fill a serious gap in the country’s skilled and professional labour force, an industry expert has warned – the problem dates to the Khmer Rouge dictatorship, whose brutal Marxists massacred educated Cambodians.…

Human resources departments are gearing up for reforms designed to help Singapore confront the employment challenges of a greying population. The city-state is growing old, and fast. According to the government’s National Population and Talent Division, Singapore’s number of working-age citizens (ages 20-64) peaked in 2015, at 2.2 million.…

THE US Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) has called on the new American administration of President Donald Trump to work hard to negotiate new bilateral trade deals with Asian markets now he has formally pulled his country from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.…

As US President Donald Trump has been wasting no time carrying out his campaign pledges to undo long-standing American trade ties, the Asian apparel industry and the US retailers it supplies have ample reasons to be on edge.

Signs are particularly worrisome for apparel players sourcing from Vietnam, a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the unratified 12-nation deal that will now not include the USA after Trump extracted America from its commitments via a January 23 presidential memorandum.…

AN INTERNATIONAL consortium of investors led by Singapore’s Changi Airport Group, the Russia-based Basic Element holding company and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) sovereign wealth fund have agreed to acquire Vladivostok International Airport from owner JSC Sheremetyevo International Airport.

The takeover is expected to cost Russian Rubles 6 billion (USD100 million).…

UNITED States (US) President Donald Trump’s decision on January 26 to sign an executive order to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) should provide opportunities for European Union (EU) dairy exporters, according to European dairy experts.

“From an EU dairy perspective, we would hope that the European Commission will continue to make an effort in our European trade negotiations, especially with Japan,” Alexander Anton, secretary general of the European Dairy Association, told Food & Drink Technology News.…

The January 23 presidential memorandum from President Donald Trump, puling the USA from participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal has disappointed the American cosmetics and personal care products sector. This is not only because of the tariff barriers it would have eliminated but also because the TPP would have pushed regulatory controls in all TPP countries in the same direction.…

HONG Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange have put listed companies on notice that they will closely monitor rights issues and open offers that substantially dilute the interests of non-subscribing minority shareholders.

In a joint statement, the SFC and the exchange have said they fear in some cases deals have been conducted without complying with requirements to give fair and equal treatment to all shareholders. …

CHINA’S central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBC), has issued a new anti-money laundering and terror finance reporting requirements for all financial institutions inside the country. The rules come into force July 1. They cover banks, brokers, foreign exchange, online and mobile payment systems and insurance companies, who will have to file reports to the central bank, via their headquarters or via representative institutions, if a client requires daily cash transactions exceeding Chinese Yuan Renminbi CNY50,000 (USD7,261) or a larger amount of USD10,000’s worth in foreign currency.…

THE HONG Kong and Pakistan government have signed a comprehensive agreement on avoiding double taxation. Pakistani tax paid by Hong Kong companies will be credited against Hong Kong taxes on the same profits, with the reverse applying for Pakistan companies. Pakistan’s withholding tax rates for Hong Kong residents on royalties and fees for technical services (both currently 15%) will be capped at 10% and 12.5% respectively.…

THE REGULATORY net has tightened further on controversial Malaysian government-owned development fund 1MDB, with Singapore’s central bank fining two major banks over breaches of anti-money laundering (AML) rules associated with its deals.

Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore Branch (SCB) has been ordered to pay Singapore dollars SGD5.2 million (USD3.6 million) and Coutts & Co Ltd’s Singapore branch SGD2.4 million (USD1,7 million) for breaches of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) AML requirements.…

Indonesian batik producers are turning to social media to boost sales, helping them maintain production when not only standard marketing and distribution channels are not delivering enough revenue but standalone websites and major e-commerce sites.

Rusydi Bawazir, producer of Nargis Batik Podhek, from Madura, East Java province, started online marketing three years ago by using website: nargis.web.id.…

Hacking and data breaches keep Asian IT departments awake at night, but many of the most serious cyber security incidents can be prevented with greater vigilance from HR professionals. Of course, there are a wide variety of risks being posed to companies from online environments, from denial-of-service attacks, to Trojan programmes that monitor computer use, and theft of identities and intellectual property.…

THE REGULATORY net has tightened further on controversial Malaysian government-owned development fund 1MDB, with Singapore’s central bank fining two major banks over breaches of anti-money laundering (AML) rules associated with its deals.

Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore Branch (SCB) has been ordered to pay Singapore dollars SGD5.2 million (USD3.6 million) and Coutts & Co Ltd’s Singapore branch SGD2.4 million (USD1,7 million) for breaches of Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) AML requirements.…

For years, sustainability has been a buzz word across the fashion and textile industries. But exactly how to integrate good environmental and labour practices into businesses to create profits and boost efficiency, rather than leave ‘sustainability’ as a slogan on a company homepage?…

A long-held ambition by Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (MAHB) to create an aerotropolis, or airport city, anchored around Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) is taking key steps forward with a newly finalised master plan and a number of strategic partnerships.

The project, called KLIA Aeropolis, was announced in May (2016).…

HUMAN resources specialists are advising Vietnam’s government and private sector to get smarter over their personnel policies if it wants to maintain the productivity improvements that have helped pull this southeast Asian country out of poverty.

A report released in October (2016) by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) on the issue has cited research from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to highlight Vietnam’s strong record: the report notes that Vietnam’s productivity grew 184% from 1991-2012, far surpassing Thailand’s 85%, Singapore’s 81% and Malaysia’s 80% growth over the same period.…

THE ORGANISATION for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has urged Malaysia to reverse a trend of 15 years of low labour productivity by improving education and labour skills – helping the country meet its government goal of becoming a developed nation by 2020.…

THE PROMISE from US President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the USA from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement on his first day of office has prompted widespread nervousness in auto-sectors around the world.

His rejection of the deal could scupper an agreement negotiated over five years by the United States; Australia; Brunei; Canada; Chile; Japan; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Peru; Singapore and Vietnam.…

HUMAN resources experts in the Asia-Pacific region are mulling the potential impact of US President-elect Donald Trump abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. He has promised to withdraw the US from the agreement on his first day in office.

And without American participation, the pact seems dead in the water: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently said it would be “meaningless,” while Vietnam, whose export-driven economy was expected to be one of the major beneficiaries of the TPP, has withdrawn the proposal for ratification in its National Assembly.…

International investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co faces a mammoth USD264 million in fines in the United States for operating an illegal Asian jobs-for-business referral hiring scheme.

The bank will pay the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) more than USD130 million for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) over charges that staff secured business from clients and bribed government officials in the Asia-Pacific region by giving jobs and internships to their relatives and friends.…

A senior Canada metal industry association has called on its government to continue ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), despite US President-elect Donald Trump’s commitment to withdraw the US from the trade deal on his first day of office.

“We definitely still support Canada moving forward with the TPP, even without the US.…

SINGAPORE, Japan and South Korea have stopped poultry imports from Denmark after an Avian Influenza virus (H5N8) outbreak affected the country’s entire poultry sector. This is the first outbreak of the virus in Denmark since 2006, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, (Fødevarestyrelsen – FVST) told GlobalMeatNews.…

Vietnam’ clothing and textile industry has been assessing the impact of losing an anticipated huge garment export boost under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) now that US president-elect Donald Trump has promised to sign an executive order pulling out of the 12-nation trade deal.…

THE MALAYSIAN government has released its 2017 budget with a pledge to reduce corporation tax by between 1% and 4% for companies with significant increases in taxable income during 2017 and 2018. The budget will also mandate a cut in income tax from 19% to 18% for small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).…

To keep pace with today’s global and interconnected world, auditors must move with the times, European experts told a high-level Brussels conference on November 16.  Maggie McGhee, director of professional insights at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) – joint hosts of the ‘Future of Audit’ conference with assurance, tax and advisory services network Grant Thornton International, said: “Auditors need to adapt and constantly innovate.…

UNITED States President-elect Donald Trump’s commitment to withdraw the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, condemning the deal as a “potential disaster for our country”, has received the thumbs-down from the cosmetics industry.

“TPP represents an important step forward for the cosmetics industry in the signatory countries, containing as it does a specific annex for cosmetics and personal care,” Cosmetics Europe director general John Chave told Soap Perfumery & Cosmetics.…

SINCE the bulk of textile and apparel and production moved offshore from the wealthy city state of Singapore – seeking lower costs labour elsewhere – the country has become an industry innovator, and experts say this trend will continue.

The United States department of commerce (DoC) said in a report issued in May (2016): “Manufacturing has moved offshore to mainly other countries in the region, forcing the textile and apparel sector to reinvent itself and focus on research and development.”…

The chairman of the Indonesia textile association (API – Asosiasi Pertekstilan Indonesia) has welcomed his government’s initiative to open bonded logistics centres, saying that they will reduce textile manufacturers’ logistics costs by as much as between 25% and 35%.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo inaugurated 11 bonded logistics centres earlier in the year as part of a series of economic reforms designed to boost trade in southeast Asia’s largest economy.…

The Association of South East Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) “large structural differences in the education system” are challenging the 10 country group’s efforts to harmonise skills across the board, an expert from Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) has warned. His comments follow the August launch of an initiative to benchmark tourism industry skills in the 10-member bloc.…

As China’s banks get bigger, they are also drawing the attention of global money laundering investigators. Eyes were certainly focused on Bank of China (BoC) earlier this year: the bank stands accused Florence police and public prosecutor’s office of funnelling EUR4.9 billion from Italy to China between 2007 and 2010 with Italian authorities claiming much of that figure was from the proceeds of crime.…

A SENIOR scientist warned an international trade conference in Geneva this afternoon (Oct 24) on anti-microbial resistance that rich countries will increasingly ban the import of meat from livestock fed antibiotic growth promoters. Jørgen Schlundt, Professor of Food Science and Technology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, noted the upcoming January 1 introduction of a ban on the use of most antobiotics as growth promoters within the United States meat and livestock sector, while the EU already has a comprehensive ban.…

BIG data means big money, especially for telecoms and internet companies. However, the fact that they are holding, collating, processing and monetising so much data makes heavy weather for IT-based anti-fraud systems. As a result, the siren song of cloud-based anti-fraud programmes is becoming increasingly attractive as companies look to scale up their protection to take account of growing datasets.…

Indonesia’s personal care product sector is faring well at first glance, with domestic sales more than doubling in size in value terms over the past five years. Multinational companies see it as a lucrative market, while local firms also seem to hold their own.…

SINGAPORE has signed deals allowing for the automatic exchange of financial account information with two key trade partners – Britain and Australia. The agreements were struck by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) with the UK’s Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).…

The most current pressing issue for Taiwanese human resources executives is arguably the failure of the island’s enterprises to timely craft leadership succession plans. There are the headline-grapping stories such as that of Morris Chang, 85, founder of the world’s largest semiconductor maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd (TSMC), who has held on as chairman and returned as chief executive officer (CEO) in 2009 after having temporarily passed on the position.…

SINGAPORE may have a robust anti-money laundering (AML) regime on paper, but the effective use of its AML laws and agencies require improvement, the country’s latest Financial Action Task Force (FATF) assessment has concluded. While FATF found that Singapore had substantially effective risk assessments, policies and coordination regarding ML, it had only moderate success in preventative measures, supervision, investigation, prosecution and confiscation.…

BRAZIL’S exports of pigmeat are booming, with over January to July, volume sales overseas increasing 42.2% year-on-year compared to the same time period in 2016. The Brazilian Protein Association (Associação Brasileira de Proteína Animal) says that from January to July this year (2016), 413,300 tonnes have been exported, be it frozen or processed meat, including sausages.…

Thailand’s online packaged food market is small, but growing fast. Indeed, online sales of packaged food in Thailand are expected to grow dramatically by 2020 as Internet penetration increases and traffic in major cities makes in-person shopping inconvenient. Just over 40% of Thailand’s population can access the Internet at home, up from just 22.4% in 2010, according to the World Bank.…

Demand for ready-to-eat meals is growing continuously in Thailand on the back of drastically changing lifestyles in the kingdom. As an ever greater share of the population lives in the condominiums of Bangkok’s sprawling suburbs; rural areas turn into industrial clusters; traffic jams worsen; and more family members work outside, the retail value of ready-to-eat meals is forecast by London-based market researcher Euromonitor International to grow this year by 9.9% year-on-year to Thai Baht THB7.4 billion (USD213.4 million) after having expanding in value at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 13.5% from 2010-14, according to another London-based market researcher, Mintel.…

The market for packaged food with health claims is still small in Thailand, with the organics food sector being particularly tiny. But functional food sales growth rates have been picking up markedly on the back of an aging population translating into increasing awareness of health problems, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity and diabetes.…

SINGAPORE has signed deals allowing for the automatic exchange of financial account information with two key trade partners – Britain and Australia. The agreements were struck by the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) with the UK’s Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).…

FOOD and drink manufacturers based in Britain face a risk that their exports to the European Union (EU) will attract duties now the UK government has confirmed it will push ahead with leaving the EU following the June 23 Brexit referendum result.…

The cosmetics surgery sector in South Korea, the industry’s undisputed bellwether in Asia, expanded strongly in 2015, with the number of total cosmetics surgery procedures growing by 17.9% year on year, to 1.2 million, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS).…

MALAYSIAN Prime Minister Najib Razak has come under renewed pressure over allegations that he personally profited from a sovereign wealth fund, after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced it would seek to recover more than USD1 billion in “misappropriated assets”.…

WORKFORCE DEMOGRAPHICS

East Asia is a very varied region in terms of economic development. Take the 10 members of trade bloc ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations): with 632 million people, demographics greatly vary, from aging Singapore and Thailand, to the younger and emerging economies of Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.…

The Indonesian Textiles Association (API – Asosiasi Pertekstilan Indonesia) has told WTiN.com that it enthusiastically endorses the opening of negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Indonesia to forge a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) free trade deal.

The goal of the talks announced in July will be to create an agreement that goes beyond traditional agreements that focus on duty and quota abolition, to include removing non-tariff barriers through regulatory mutual recognition and harmonisation.…

A WORK-study programme launched in Singapore last year (2015) is picking up pace with the scheme now covering 21 sectors, from an initial seven. Singapore’s Earn and Learn Programme (ELP) is one of various schemes launched as part of SkillsFuture, a national initiative aimed at fostering a culture of lifelong learning and skills mastery within the city state.…

WITH personnel managers in Britain and continental Europe worrying about the impact of the UK’s Brexit vote to quit the European Union (EU), human resources experts in the 10 country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc are facing the opposite challenge, an increase in freedom of movement of workers.…

A Myanmar Textiles Manufacturers Association has finally been launched, following years of discussion about creating an upstream textile-specific body in this fast developing south-east Asian country.

Finished garment exports from Myanmar have more than doubled from 2011-12 to 2014-15, from USD497 million to USD1.02 billion according to statistics from the country’s Central Statistical Organisation (CSO).…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has told just-style it is planning to launch a sustainability impact assessment on a proposed European Union (EU)-Indonesia free trade deal that is expected to boost apparel and textile trades on both sides.

A spokesperson from the European Commission’s trade directorate general said the assessment’s “valuable input” will help negotiators on both sides to hone the deal, the spokesperson said.…

MALAYSIA may have its political struggles, with current Prime Minister Najib Razak at loggerheads with predecessor Mahathir Mohamad, but its economic progress seems sound, being reflected in a healthy and growing market for paints and varnishes.

According to London-based market researcher Euromonitor International, especially bouyed by growth in plastics and construction, Malaysia’s paint and varnish producers will see their turnover grow by an average of 8% over the period of 2015 -2025.…

THE opening of Paddy Power bookmaker shops in provincial Romanian cities such as Cluj in the past year is the latest show of international ambition from an Irish corporation which has become a market leader and has shaken up the European gambling industry.…

Thailand-based automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are set to benefit from the expansion of an existing auto tariff-free zone to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam in 2018. These would then join this ASEAN-linked trading zone’s member countries Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand to forge an ASEAN-wide automotive market bloc.…

Malaysia officially raised its minimum wage on July 1, and some business leaders are already warning that it may have far-reaching effects on both consumer prices and staffing levels.

“The impact will be quite great,” said Ho Su Mong, president of the Malaysia Singapore Coffee Shop Proprietors’ General Association.…

THE COMMON market launched on January 1 by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has so far failed to promote a sustainable increase in legitimate intra-ASEAN meat and livestock trades. Instead, imports from outside the bloc, domestic production and US dollar-based smuggling continue to thrive, say experts.…

Banking security chiefs and their opponents in their opponents in the underworld of cybercrime are fighting a “cold war arms race” with no long-term solution in sight, fraud specialist academics have told Fraud Intelligence.

And if anyone should doubt that this threat is not just profound, but global in scope, witness that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB – Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti) announced last month that it had arrested 50 members of a gang believed to have been responsible for a Russian Roubles RUB1.7 billion (USD 26.6 million) bank cyberhack using the Trojan programme ‘Lurk’ to collect customer data.…

South-east Asia is a region that has sharp contrasts in economic development, from between the wealth of Singapore to countries such as Myanmar, where poverty is endemic and consumer markets are relatively undeveloped.

Such contrasts pose challenges for personal care product companies seeking regional strategies to tap the markets of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) 10 countries, whose cosmetics suppliers have to comply with the standards of the ASEAN Cosmetics Directive, which was modelled on European Union legislation.…

Asian paint and coatings manufacturers are set to benefit from the expansion of an existing automotive tariff-free zone spanning Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.…

Business governance experts in Canada have told Board Agenda how they think companies can maximise the ability and performance of their non-executive board members.

Their comments come as concern about the effectiveness of non-execs in Canada has been piqued by media reports that Pierre Beaudoin, a director of Montréal-based comms and finance conglomerate Power Corp, had 20.28% of shareholder votes withheld at a director election in May – usually such elections proffer 100% support.…

SINGAPORE has promised that it will implement the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) project developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD). The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) has said it accepts profits should be taxed where real economic activities generating them are performed and where value is created.…

Companies worldwide are failing to use technology to combat fraud, even though it is a “significant enabler” for 24% of the 750 fraudsters involved in white-collar crimes across 81 countries assessed by KPMG’s ‘Global profiles of the fraudster’ report.  KPMG found 65% of fraudsters are employed within the company they defraud, 38% for at least six years, 35% at executive or director level and 44% with unlimited authority allowing them to override controls.…

Liberalising Myanmar’s potential market for new cars is significant, but growth is currently hampered by regulatory uncertainty. Although it has a population of 51 million, only 5,000 new passenger cars were sold in the country during the last financial year.

“The future is very good, potentially.…

THE INFLUX of foreign tourists and investment to once-isolated Myanmar has resulted in an increasing demand for meat, while a limited manufacturing base is presenting new opportunities for international suppliers.

Almost 90% of Myanmar’s population are Buddhist and almost a third live below the poverty line; factors which have historically kept meat consumption levels low.…

THE SINGAPORE Stock Exchange (SGX) has started negotiations with London’s Baltic Exchange, which could see Singapore Exchange Ltd obtain full ownership of The Baltic Exchange Ltd, which operates this UK-based international freight derivatives market.

The Baltic Exchange and SGX will now meet with Baltic shareholders and business partners to explain and discuss the offer.…

The boom in tourism in Myanmar has inflated local demand for international food brands, as the local branded food manufacturing base remains very limited in scope. Tourism is expected to continue to grow due to the country’s first democratically elected government coming into power last month (April).…

THE UNITED States Trade Representative (USTR) has highlighted its continuing concern about intellectual property rights violations in the pharma sector, citing claims that 20% of medicines sold in India are fakes.

In its annual ‘Special 301 Report’, the USTR said it notes “its particular concern with the proliferation of counterfeit pharmaceuticals that are manufactured, sold, and distributed in trading partners such as Brazil, China, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Peru, and Russia.”…

MYANMAR, the world’s newest democracy, is taking steps to improve its financial reporting. Its reforms are new – as befits a country that saw its first and only stock exchange – the Myanmar Securities Exchange Centre (MSEC) – open on March 25.…

Kazakh aircraft have been improved under the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)’s ‘No Country Left Behind’ initiative.

The project started following investigations which uncovered concerns about the air-worthiness of aircraft in the central Asian country.

Resources and manpower were provided by a number of countries and was a co-operative effort between Portugal, Turkey, Singapore, Ukraine and the ICAO’s Air Navigation Bureau.…

THE HONG Kong government has said that its Inland Revenue Department will closely assess data released in the Panama Papers leak, taking action against tax evasion and avoidance by taxpayers uncovered within these documents. In a written answer to the special administrative region’s (SAR) Legislative Council, the government admitted however that it did not know the number of intermediaries in Hong Kong providing offshore incorporation company services.…

China has overtaken Germany to become the world’s number one producer of solar energy. Driven by the Chinese government’s urgent quests for energy security and the elimination of extreme urban air pollution, solar installations in China generated 43 gigawatts (GW) in 2015, exceeding German production, according to China’s National Energy Administration.…

Rising affluence, together with growth across feeder industries are translating into solid results for the Indonesian coatings sector. The paints and varnishes market in the country generated sales of Indonesian Rupiah IDR24,733 billion (USD1.9 billion) in 2014 according to the latest data available from market researcher Euromonitor International.…

CAPITAL markets and their traders within Malaysia may be forced to forge defences against cyber-crime amidst growing concern that hackers could damage the country’s financial services. The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) is seeking comments from accountants and other financial specialists about planned regulations saying capital market participants should have cyber-security programmes and policies, including contingency plans for dealing with associated risks.…

The 2016 outlook for the US paints and coatings industry remains positive, with experts predicting growth thanks to a resilient US economy, a strong performance by the manufacturing industry, and notable new trade agreements.

According to IBISWorld, a global market research company, the US paints and coatings industry bounced back quickly from the financial economic crisis beginning in 2008.…

CAPITAL markets and their traders within Malaysia may be forced to forge defences against cyber-crime amidst growing concern that hackers could damage the country’s financial services. The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) is seeking comments from accountants and other financial specialists about planned regulations saying capital market participants should have cyber-security programmes and policies, including contingency plans for dealing with associated risks.…

With fast fashion demands growing and China’s costs rising, sourcing closer to home is certainly becoming a more commonly considered option for brands, speeding up clothing and textile supply chains, being particularly beneficial for smaller producers, according to experts. Companies sourcing locally can have faster turnaround times, potentially better relationships with suppliers, and greater quality control.…

Ultra-thin diaper technology has continued to evolve, and with new mass-market innovations challenging the market position of traditionally-manufactured disposable nappies, these newer products could become dominant in the future, experts believe.

Pricie Hanna, founding partner of US-based Price Hanna Consultants, a management consulting firm which specialises in nonwoven and hygiene absorbent products, is one expert predicting ultra-thin will eventually replace traditional diapers.…

A JAKARTA-based designer and exporter of soft furnishings has told WTiN.com how her country’s home textile sector could prosper by using more of the country’s rich and varied tradition of woven fabrics in its design, especially if production could be scaled up reducing unit costs.…

Australian and New Zealand confectionery and ice cream manufacturers have been broadly supportive of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that was finalised towards the end of 2015, recognising the potential for securing export sales in lucrative Asian markets. That said, there is some caution, given the TPP delivers more potential for America’s juggernaut of a confectionery sector to roll into local stores.…

2015 was a significant year for Singapore and for its paints and coatings sector. The Asian city-state marked its 50th anniversary of independence, began work on a vast new shipping port and progressed with a new business district – all should keep the country’s paint manufacturers busy for years to come.…

Changing management styles is key the success of corporate gender diversity initiatives in the Gulf region and elsewhere, participants of a recent networking breakfast hosted by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) have concurred.

Entitled ‘Lead the Change: increasing gender diversity to boost performance’, the event was held on February 7 at the Shangri-La Dubai hotel and was attended by more than 60 CFOs and senior finance professionals.…

The Hong Kong government has announced its 2016 budget which includes a salaries tax reduction of up to HKD20,000 (USD2,574), increasing personal allowances and offering a rates waiver within its 2016-17 budget. The government has also announced a 75% profits tax reduction up to a ceiling of HKD20,000; waived business registration fees; and released a technology voucher programme assisting small-and-medium sized businesses.…

If there is one region in the world that could benefit from a rationalisation of corporate governance structure, it is surely Asia, with its shifting sands of complex company ownership structures. Globalisation has only increased the size of subsidiary/parent relationship webs.…

The opening of newly elected Myanmar parliament on February 1 will herald a month of great change for the country, leading to a new government being installed, probably in March, with potentially major consequences for the country’s textile sector.

This change of regime could inspire a set of major new investments across many industries, potentially transforming Myanmar’s textile production sector from a homegrown relic into a competitive industrial player.…

As in many other areas, the Asian city-state of Singapore punches above its weight when it comes to fabrics and textiles. According to its ministry of trade and industry, in terms of sourcing volume the island ranks as the second largest textile and apparel business and sourcing hub in the Asia-Pacific region after Hong Kong.…

A JAKARTA-based designer and exporter of soft furnishings has told WTiN.com how her country’s home textile sector could prosper by using more of the country’s rich and varied tradition of woven fabrics in its design, especially if production could be scaled up reducing unit costs.…

CHINA’S central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBC), has issued a new anti-money laundering and terror finance reporting requirements for all financial institutions inside the country. The rules come into force July 1. They cover banks, brokers, foreign exchange, online and mobile payment systems and insurance companies, who will have to file reports to the central bank, via their headquarters or via representative institutions, if a client requires daily cash transactions exceeding Chinese Yuan Renminbi CNY50,000 (USD7,261) or a larger amount of USD10,000’s worth in foreign currency.…

MILLENNIAL CONSUMERS ARE SHAKING UP INDIAN MARKET

The emergence of the millennial generation – those born between 1980 and the early 2000’s – is going to drive how consumption, including that of food, takes place in India, according to retail and manufacturing heads at the India Food Forum, which was held in Mumbai between January 19 and 21.…

THE HONG Kong government has signed an avoidance of double taxation agreement with Russia. It will prevent Hong Kong companies with a permanent establishment in Russia being taxed in both jurisdictions. Russian tax paid by Hong Kong companies will be credited against the tax payable in Hong Kong.…

IT has been a tough year for China’s growing economy, which has experienced some unexpected faltering in 2015, but facial care product sales have continued to surge ahead.

Retailers of these products have posted strong and sustained growth rates, increasing by 8% in the whole of 2014 to Chinese Yuan Renminbi – CNY142 billion (USD22.1 billion) and are estimated to have grown by another 10.2% in 2015, to CNY (also known as RMB) 156.4 billion, according to market researcher Euromonitor International.…

MALAYSIA’S Audit Oversight Board (AOB) has revoked the registration of an audit firm for the first time since the regulator was established by the Securities Commission Malaysia in 2010.

It has scrapped the registration of Wong Weng Foo & Co, managing partner, Wong Weng Foo and partner Abdul Halim Husin, from December 2.…

Japan’s Kobe Steel’s (Kobelco) has entered the Bangladesh market as it aims to gain a toehold in the south Asian nation’s growing shipbuilding sector, focusing on high titanium oxide-based welding rods designed to connect mild steel sheets. The third-largest steel maker in Japan, annual revenues of USD16 billion has already delivered 100 tonnes of welding electrodes, which will be marketed among shipbuilders by its local partner TSI Marine Ltd.…

A SUSTAINABLE garment-making firm in Cambodia has managed to revive the country’s centuries-old, long-forgotten tradition of making clothes out of fibres from Lotus flower stems. Moreover, it has successfully found a growing international niche market for its unique brand of clothes and fabric.…

The Danish Agriculture & Food Council (DAFC/ Landbrug & Fødevarer) has invited the country’s leading meat industry players to round-table talks to deepen collaboration between producers, brokers and marketers regarding halal meat exports.
This DAFC initiative would help create a range of common industry guidelines that take into account country-by-country differences in halal slaughtering conventions.…

Sustainability improvements in the Asian outsourced clothing and textile sector are far from being the sole preserve of China. In Cambodia, Tonlé, a sustainable garment-making firm based in Phnom Penh, obtains 90% of its fabric from factory cut-out and 10% through sustainable suppliers to make a zero-waste clothing line.…

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), an increasingly dynamic and affluent 10-member bloc with a population half the size if China’s, plans to achieve a single aviation market (SAM) by the end of 2015 as a part of its broader ambition to launch its ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).…

EUROPEAN dairy producers are keen participants in the European Union (EU) protective systems that prevent competitors from claiming to sell products made using traditional production methods and ingredients. The systems: PDO (protected designation of origin); PGI (protected geographical indication); and TSG (traditional speciality guaranteed) promote and protect names of quality agricultural products and foodstuffs.…

In the past decade, Thailand has undergone a serious of political upheavals, coups and reversals of power that have left deep divisions within the country. But while opposing factions are still arguing about the future direction of the country, there is one point on which almost every side in Thailand can agree: the Thai tax system is sorely in need of an overhaul.…

AN AGREEMENT on streamlining reviews in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand of offers or listings of equity or plain debt securities has been secured. It has been written into a memorandum of understanding designed to promote common prospectuses in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).…

THE MONETARY Authority of Singapore (MAS) has published a system for identifying and supervising domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) in Singapore. The authority has also released an inaugural list, including the DBS Bank; the Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation; the United Overseas Bank; Citibank; the Malayan Banking Berhad; the Standard Chartered Bank; and the HSBC.…

Demand for marine and anti-fouling paints has expanded significantly since Denmark’s Hempel laid claim to producing the first antifouling coating for ships’ hulls in 1917. With a greater understanding of the economic benefits of anti-fouling paints and tougher environmental legislation, marine paints are very much at the forefront of coatings technology today.…

China’s new found taste for olive oil is growing, opening up new sales channels for olive oil producing countries and Morocco is one potential beneficiary. Morocco is the fourth largest exporter of olive oil and olives after the European Union (EU), Turkey and Tunisia, currently producing between 100,000 and 120,000 tonnes per year of which 25,000 tonnes are exported.”…

MYANMAR will soon be importing more high quality pork and beef products following discussions in March between Myanmar’s Meat Industry Board and representatives of meat producers from the United States, Japan and Brazil, the Meat Industry Board (MIB) told globalmeatnews.com.
High quality meats have been imported to Myanmar in low quantities in the past, said U Win Sein, vice-chairperson of the Myanmar Livestock Federation.…

GROUND power units (GPUs) are an increasing source of energy savings for Chinese airports as the country’s aviation sector works towards some exacting environmental targets. The Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC), has pledged to cut 2005 levels of energy consumption and emissions by 22% from the country’s aviation sector by 2020.…

THE HONG Kong and mainland Chinese governments have signed a fourth protocol to their existing 2006 agreement on avoiding double taxation and preventing tax evasion. The deal sets out the tax liabilities of Hong Kong residents when they buy and sell shares in mainland China and vice versa.…

Indonesia is pushing to expand its domestic vaccine manufacturing, so that the domestic market is covered with vaccines in Indonesia’s regular immunisation schedule. The country’s state-owned pharmaceutical company Bio Farma is at the centre of these efforts, and has been expanding exports so that 60% of its production (NOW?…

THE INDONESIAN batik industry may be set for record profits in 2015, on the back of strong growth of both the domestic and export market in recent years, according to an industry insider. “Our turnover trade has approximately doubled in the last five years,” Dewanto Santosa, director of Batik Danar Hadi, said.…

AN AGREEMENT on streamlining reviews in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand of offers or listings of equity or plain debt securities has been secured. It has been written into a memorandum of understanding designed to promote common prospectuses in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).…

CAMBODIA’S paint and coating sector is experiencing robust growth according to leading companies, making strong sales to a booming construction industry, which flourished in 2014. Rising urban incomes, a flourishing tourism industry, foreign investment in condominiums, and Chinese and Japanese inward investment in light manufacturing have all contributed to this growth.…

VETERAN customers of US-based coffee and donut chain, Dunkin’ Donuts would be confused having to wait outside the company’s outlets on main shopping street Huaihai Lu in downtown Shanghai. The store does not open until 8.30am – very late for regulars in western countries where stores typically open at 5:30am to catch the breakfast trade, a staple of Dunkin’ Donuts revenue.…

SOUTH Korea’s personal care product industry is credited with developing the sheet mask, a facial covering made from microfiber, paper or hydrogel, impregnated with skincare products – and this delivery method is still popular with Korean consumers.
Indeed, in South Korea, spending on sheet masks grew 11.6% in 2014 to South Korean Won KRW80 billion (USD72.34 million), following a 9.3% decrease in spending in 2013.…

The government of India is modernising and expanding airports located in the remote north eastern part of the country. They generally generate low levels of civilian passenger traffic, but the region considered extremely sensitive politically and strategically due to several armed insurgencies and its proximity to international borders with China, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal.…

The government of India is modernising and expanding airports located in the remote north eastern part of the country. They generally generate low levels of civilian passenger traffic, but the region considered extremely sensitive politically and strategically due to several armed insurgencies and its proximity to international borders with China, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal.…

The government of India is modernising and expanding airports located in the remote north eastern part of the country. They generally generate low levels of civilian passenger traffic, but the region considered extremely sensitive politically and strategically due to several armed insurgencies and its proximity to international borders with China, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Bhutan and Nepal.…

ADDITIONAL pressure is being placed on Macao anti-money laundering (AML) authorities to reduce the illicit flow of money between the Chinese special administrative region (SAR) and mainland China. This month (February 2015), officials from mainland China’s ministry of public security (effectively the police force) have this month been meeting Monetary Authority of Macao (AMCM) officials to set up a system that monitors transactions through UnionPay (China’s state-owned card payment clearing company) in Macao.…

QUALITY suspicious transaction reports (STRs) and suspicious activity reports (SARs) around the world are crucial to identifying and combatting money laundering – but a lack of feedback from law enforcement and financial intelligence units (FIUs) can discourage reporting entities from working to improve their reports.…

THERE is growing international demand for Cambodia’s traditional ‘krama’ scarves from Europe – especially from Germany and Italy.  And the bulk of the country’s nearly 50,000-60,000 annual ‘krama’ exports go to these two countries, the Cambodian Craft Corporation executive director Seung Kimyonn told WTiN.com.…

THE INDONESIAN batik industry may be set for record profits in 2015, on the back of strong growth of both the domestic and export market in recent years, according to an industry insider. “Our turnover trade has approximately doubled in the last five years,” Dewanto Santosa, director of Batik Danar Hadi, said.…

AN INTERNATIONAL regulatory cooperation pilot involving medicine regulators sharing real time assessments about generic medicines is now in full flow. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is leading the initiative, building on the European Union’s (EU) experience of cooperation between national regulators.…

PLASTIC banknotes have been in circulation since their introduction in Australia in 1988 and their use is expanding. Counterfeiters beware. Alan Osborn, in London; Kitty So, in Ottawa; and Lee Adendorff, in Byron Bay, Australia, report.

FAKING banknotes is considerably more difficult on plastic than on cotton-based paper, and while printing technology improvements may aid forgers, central banks seem happy to avail themselves of the competitive advantage.

With 685 million wet pounds of coatings sold for USD730 million in 2013, the Vietnam market consumed only a tiny fraction of Asia-Pacific region’s total of 36 billion wet pounds sold for USD50 billion that year, according to Kusumgar, Nerlfi & Growney, Inc, a New Jersey, USA-based consulting firm for the polymer and chemical industries.…

THE HONG Kong government has proposed a 75% reduction of profits tax, salaries tax and tax under personal assessment for the 2014-15 assessment year, up to Hong Kong dollars HKD20,000 (USD2,578) per case. Announced in the government’s budget, the tax cut will cost HKD17.7 billion (USD2.2 billion), benefitting about 1.95 million taxpayers.…

A MAJOR Bangladesh knitwear company has launched an innovation that may inspire a new segment in this key outsourcing industry – ‘fake’ heavy knitwear.

DBL Group, based north of Dhaka, has developed this fabric for jerseys made from cotton or a blend of cotton and synthetic fibres. …

Bangladesh’s struggling national carrier Biman is looking for a foreign suitor to upgrade the groundhandling services it currently single-handedly offers at the country’s airports, but the move has been greeted with suspicion from civil aviation unions.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines in December issued advertisements in newspapers seeking a consultant to ready tender documents for a joint venture in groundhandling operations at three international gateway airports within Bangladesh.…

Bribing public officials is part of the regular cut-and-thrust of doing business in some parts of the world. Russia stands out, of course. Similarly some 28% of respondents in Singapore thought it was acceptable for companies to “misstate” their financial performance if it helped them, says EY in its 13th Global Fraud Survey.…

Malaysia’s finance ministry has released a comprehensive plan to boost the strength of the accountancy profession in the country. Drafted by a special committee to strengthen the accountancy profession (CSAP), the policy is designed to ensure Malaysia has sufficient numbers of professional accountants and reform the profession’s governance.…

Iraq and Syria are major hot spots in the fight against terrorism financing. Numerous militant Islamist groups are in operation, most notably the Islamic State (IS), with revenues derived from multiple sources, including extortion, seizures of grain, sales of oil, private donations and charities.…

The panoramic view from D22, a chic new restaurant and skybar, offers the local executive Deloitte has tapped to head up their Cambodian expansion a quick insight into a rapidly developing Phnom Penh. Once a low-lying urban sprawl, Cambodia’s capital city has begun to develop a skyline, with a handful of high-rise towers already in place and several more green-tarped construction projects underway.…

SINGAPORE’S Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) has released a revised code of professional conduct and ethics for public accountants and accounting entities, to take effect from February 1. 

The regulator has stressed that the standards will ensure Singapore continues to be aligned to international benchmarks.…

2015 will be an important year in southeast Asia, with the launch of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) in December. But analysts question whether the region’s non-ferrous metal giant Indonesia is ready to integrate its industry with those of its neighbours.…

SINGAPORE’S Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) has released a revised code of professional conduct and ethics for public accountants and accounting entities, to take effect from February 1. 

The regulator has stressed that the standards will ensure Singapore continues to be aligned to international benchmarks.…

In keeping with Singapore’s wider economy, the country’s paint and coatings sectors continue to thrive. It is taking advantage both of the city-state’s strategic location close to the world’s largest marine and port industries, and the continuing affluence of the domestic, decorative market.…

Plastic banknotes have been in circulation since their introduction in Australia in 1988 and the consensus so far seems to be that they do an excellent job of a key requirement – reducing counterfeiting. It may be that forgers will gain more expertise in time – faking is considerably more difficult on plastic than on cotton-based paper – but the initial reports from larger countries that have taken this route, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, have persuaded the UK’s Bank of England to follow them.

The panoramic view from D22, a chic new restaurant and skybar, offers the local executive Deloitte has tapped to head up their Cambodian expansion a quick insight into a rapidly developing Phnom Penh. Once a low-lying urban sprawl, Cambodia’s capital city has begun to develop a skyline, with a handful of high-rise towers already in place and several more green-tarped construction projects underway.…

In keeping with Singapore’s wider economy, the country’s paint and coatings sectors continue to thrive. It is taking advantage both of the city-state’s strategic location close to the world’s largest marine and port industries, and the continuing affluence of the domestic, decorative market.…

Plastic banknotes have been in circulation since their introduction in Australia in 1988 and the consensus so far seems to be that they do an excellent job of a key requirement – reducing counterfeiting. It may be that forgers will gain more expertise in time – faking is considerably more difficult on plastic than on cotton-based paper – but the initial reports from larger countries that have taken this route, such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, have persuaded the UK’s Bank of England to follow them.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES of Singapore accountants to report suspicions that their clients maybe involved in money laundering or terrorist finance have become tougher since November 1. New guidelines released by the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA) have strengthened requirements for accounting firms to establish anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) controls.…

SINGAPORE has seized Singapore dollars SGD115 million (USD92 million) from suspected money laundering in 2013 – the highest amount in 5 years – as against SGD 65 million (USD 51 million) worth of laundered money seized in 2012 and 2013, an national police official has confirmed to the Money Laundering Bulletin.…

By the end of next year, the increasingly wealthy 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc aims to establish its own European Union-style common market for its combined population of 600 million.
Experts say that the new ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is expected to deepen cohesion and liberalisation within a regional market that has already made significant strides in removing trade barriers that can impact tobacco product sales.…

THE VIRTUALISATION of telecommunications networks may offer new technology suppliers a chance to break into the biggest telco markets, but by doing so, they may help established large players become truly global services. That’s the prediction of Ian Maclean, vice president for strategy and marketing, at Mavenir Systems, a Texas-based technology company that is busy rolling out network functions virtualisation (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) systems to forward-looking telcos.…

CAMBODIA’S “high cost of electricity  – the third highest in south-east Asia after Singapore and Myanmar – along with low skills are keeping the country away from producing  textiles”, the World Bank chief economist for the east Asia and the Pacific region, Sudhir Shetty has told WTiN.…

CHANGING demographic patterns in the domestic market are driving innovation at Japan’s largest producer of soy sauce and seasonings, while growing overseas demand means that the Kikkoman Corporation is actively looking to raise its international profile, according to Noriaki Horikiri, president and chief executive officer of the company.…

THE STRENGTH and diversity of Bangladesh knitwear producers’ supply chains is one reason why this key outsourcing location is so popular with international brands. And indeed, attention to the supply chain is the mantra of Bangladesh knitwear boss Mohammed Abdul Jabbar.…

Kevin McCarthy, the recently appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Microsoft’s Consumer Channels Group, is planning to use his expertise in manufacturing and managing consumer space to spin energised growth into what is, as he puts it, is “already an amazing business model.”…

GARMENT exporting outsourcing centre Cambodia relies on overseas laboratories for the bulk of its textile testing because it lacks local facilities, meaning there is a significant potential to develop such locally-based services, experts have told WTiN.com.

Most of Cambodia’s textile testing is undertaken in Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and China because the handful of local laboratories’ capability to handle “restricted substances testing is very limited” while others lack the capacity to handle big orders, said Ms Kris Wan, senior manager of the global softlines development office of SGS Consumer Testing Services, in Hong Kong.…

South Korea is a society that values image and status. It is said that looking good is a sign of your respect towards others. Men and women of all ages in the country typically place great emphasis upon looks; personal grooming and beauty routines are of utmost importance. …

THE PHARMACEUTICALS sector has not emerged unscathed from China’s recent anti-trust investigations of multinational companies, but with healthcare spending rising, there are plenty of opportunities for the industry. The powerful National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), which investigates alleged price fixing in China, has made claims alleging GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have charged Chinese consumers seven times its average global prices.…

If Cambodia’s USD5.5 billion garment industry is not quite at a crossroads, it is approaching one, according to participants at an industry trade show held in Phnom Penh over the weekend.
The Cambodia International Textile & Garment Industry Exhibition, which closed on Monday (August 18), brought 260 exhibitors from 21 countries to display their latest wares and look for buyers and distributors.…

THE ASSOCIATION of Southeast Asian Nations – ASEAN Capital Markets Forum (ACMF) has announced that the ASEAN framework for cross-border offerings of collective investment schemes (CIS) is now operational in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The regulatory system allows fund managers working from these member jurisdictions to offer locally constituted schemes, such as unit trust funds, to retail investors in other member jurisdictions, using a streamlined authorisation process.…

Kevin McCarthy, the recently appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Microsoft’s Consumer Channels Group, is planning to use his expertise in manufacturing and managing consumer space to spin energised growth into what is, as he puts it, is “already an amazing business model.”…

With less than one-and-a-half years until the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) creates its own European Union (EU)-style single market, the bloc is about to sign off on a ‘mutual recognition arrangement’ (MRA) on accountancy services. This is designed to help the mobility of accounting professionals wanting to work across the 10 member states, and all their governments bar the Philippines (expected to sign in October) have now signed up.…

The Vietnamese textile and garment industry has yet to prepare comprehensively for the onset of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Economic Community (AEC) next year. “We are not aware of any AEC impact studies, and I cannot even provide an educated guess,” an otherwise helpful representative of a Vietnamese textile association in Ho Chi Minh City told WTiN.com.…

EXHIBITORS at this week’s trade show in Phnom Penh, the Cambodia International Textile & Garment Industry Exhibition, called on the country to diversify into textile manufacturing, knitwear, finishing and other supporting industries.

Cambodia’s USD5.5 billion garment industry is a mainstay of the country’s economy, accounting for some 80% of exports.…

Taiwan’s main airport, Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, is to undergo a major expansion, increasing its annual passenger capacity from 32 million to 60 million by 2030. Located halfway between the capital Taipei and the island’s industrial heartland along its western coast, the airport is planned to become the centerpiece of the government’s highly ambitious Taoyuan Aerotropolis project, which with an estimated investment of Taiwan New Dollar TWD600 billion (USD20 billion).…

SKIN whitening and anti-ageing products represent key growth segments for cosmetic manufacturers targeting expanding and increasingly integrated markets in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. Indeed, producers of these products are set to benefit from a single ASEAN port of entry when the fully integrated ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is launched next year (2015).…

AFTER upgrading its laws against money laundering, Bangladesh has earned praise from anti-money laundering (AML) watchdogs however implementing this legislation remains an uphill challenge. Satisfied with the progress Bangladesh made toward plugging “strategic deficiencies” in its AML and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) regime, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) removed the country from its special watchlist.…

European Union (EU) meat production is projected to start growing in 2014, according to the European Commission, as Europe’s economic recovery solidifies. This could be up 0.7% year-on-year for beef, veal, pigmeat, poultry, sheep and goat meat. However, exports might fall for pigmeat and poultry, with Russian import bans especially causing problems for pigmeat.…

The manufacture of nonwovens surgical gowns are offering Cambodia’s nascent non-wovens sector hope for growth,  in one of the world’s toughest garment and fabric export businesses. The problem for smaller emerging market countries such as Cambodia, experts from international non-wovens industry associations told WTiN.com…

EXHIBITORS at two key international textile and shoe exhibitions in Vietnam have spoken personally to WTiN.com on the value of investing time and money appearing at such shows.

The Vietnam International Exhibition on Garment Manufacturing Equipment and Fabric 2014 was organised concurrently with the International Shoes and Leather Exhibition 2014 in Ho Chi Minh City from July 16 to 18.…

Indian dairy product giant Amul’s newly appointed managing director Amul Dairy managing director Dr K Rathnam has spoken to just-food  about the Gujarat-based cooperative’s future : A range of new value-added ‘nutraceutical products’ are due for launch later this year midst  plans to start manufacturing  in Europe and Singapore by early 2016.…

AN INFLUX of big-brand café and convenience retail chains is whetting China’s appetite for sweet bakery, including in smaller cities. Brands are diversifying and moving upmarket, offering coffee and seating.

Take Beijing’s Beixinqiao, in the city’s older quarter, a busy intersection of residential blocks and a hub for restaurants and youth-focused fashion stores.…

THE HONG Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) has welcomed the launch by the Hong Kong government of proposals to reform the special administrative region’s regulatory regime for auditors of listed companies and other organisations.

There will be three months of consultation (ending September 20) on the proposals whose goal is enhancing the independence of Hong Kong’s audit regulators.…

SINGAPORE and the United States have negotiated an agreement that will force Singaporean financial institutions to declare money held in the city state by American citizens and residents. The deal will help Singapore comply with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which says all financial institutions outside the USA must regularly submit such information to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).…

A SINGLE global standard for automatic information exchange (AIE) between tax authorities worldwide is in the final stages of preparation by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD). G20 finance ministers will consider it in September before sanctioning its implementation.…

THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) has secured agreement from its 34 rich world member countries to apply a new single global standard on automatic exchange of tax information. Endorsed by G20 finance ministers, the standard obliges countries and jurisdictions to obtain all financial information from their financial institutions and exchange that information automatically with other jurisdictions annually.…

Extreme weather events in 2013 were plentiful in the Asia-Pacific region – increasing demand for high performance coatings. Typhoons and cyclones brought devastation to parts of the central Philippines with typhoon Haiyan, while India was hit by Phailin, the second strongest tropical cyclone to strike the country since accurate meteorological records began.…

The value of European Union (EU) exports of spirits and liqueurs dropped 1.6% in value last year after being the fastest-growing product group in 2012, according to the European Commission’s ‘Agricultural trade in 2013: EU Gains in Commodity Exports’ report. Whisky exports in particular dropped steeply – by EUR131 million.…

There is nothing better for a financial professional to oversee the transformation of an innovative company from a small scrapper to a big player – and ACCA qualified Australia-based Paula Kensington knows how this feels.

She is CFO of Rubik Financial – a Sydney-based provider of banking software – whose revenue since the end of 2011 has increased by 200% and its share price multiplied, driving market capitalisation exceeding Australian dollar AUD150 million (USD140.39 million).…

JAPANESE food manufacturers are targeting south-east Asia as key export markets, leveraging their products’ sophisticated, fashionable and healthy image. Indeed, with a significant proportion of south-east Asian consumers becoming richer, the perception that Japanese brands can be relatively expensive can help marketing and certainly not harm sales, they say.…

A SUPERVISOR of an American company in Vietnam’s Binh Duong Province has told just-style how she saw demonstrations against foreign ownership of clothing and textile companies turn into ugly riots. But industry insiders in other Asian countries claim the resulting damage will not seriously deter future foreign investment.…

SINGAPORE has been working hard to lose its past reputation for lax anti-money laundering (AML) controls.

Its ‘steering committee for combating money laundering and terrorist financing,’ jointly headed by the ministry of home affairs, ministry of finance, and the monetary authority of Singapore (MAS) published the country’s first ‘national risk assessment report’ on money laundering and terrorist financing in January 2014.…

The reorientation of South Korea’s steel plate makers towards clients making marine installations for offshore oil and gas companies might guarantee future business, but there is a risk of falling margins, a report has warned.

UK-based energy industry market researchers and consultants Douglas-Westwood has warned especially that such energy work can need eight to ten times less plate per USD of order value compared to conventional ships.…

THE INTERNATIONAL Trade Centre (ITC) and the Cambodian ministry of commerce are trying to revive Cambodia’s silk production sector, as the country is importing almost all its total 400 tonnes annual raw silk requirement.

Currently, only five tonnes of Cambodian silk, which is noteworthy because of its natural yellow colour, is produced in the country each year.…

Taiwan textile industry insiders have told WTiN.com that the recent riots in Vietnam will not deter future investment in this key emerging market outsourcing country.

Serious attacked on Taiwanese textile businesses in Vietnam were suffered when on May 13 and 14 local mobs – protesting against China’s recent installation of an oil rig in disputed waters in the South China Sea – ransacked and torched hundreds of foreign-owned factories.…

Asking a 31-year old with little prior branding experience to turn around the fortunes of a retail brand almost as old as her may seem foolhardy, yet the quirkiness and fresh perspective commanded by Dee Poon may deliver the rebranding success the ageing high-end shirt specialist PYE needs.…

Events in Ukraine continue to unfold in dramatic fashion: a government overthrown, Crimea annexed by Russia, pro-Russian separatists stoking unrest and grabbing government buildings in eastern Ukraine, and worries of a full-scale invasion. Weaved into these crises – and in many respects at the heart of them – is Ukraine’s oil and gas sector.…

NEPAL pashmina fibre is “exotically delicate, weightless and the finest natural insulation fibre of the world,” according to the Nepal Pashmina Industries Association’s (NPIA) general secretary Vijoy Kumar Dugar. This reputation has helped Nepal producers carve out a niche markets for pashmina knitwear and traditional shawl exports.…

THREE dimensional (3D) technology – while well established in many other industrial sectors like aerospace, architecture and industrial design – is still relatively new to the fashion industry. Analysts are describing it as ‘disruptive’ technology, capable of transforming the way apparel companies do business, from prototyping and pattern making using 3D models to the creation of 3D digital catalogues and a range of customer centric services based on 3D body scanning and sizing.…

Astellia, a leading provider of network and subscriber intelligence enabling mobile operators to drive business performance, is constantly developing solutions helping mobile operators exploit big data. Astellia’s vendor-independent real-time monitoring and troubleshooting solutions cover end-to-end 2G, 3G and 4G from radio access to core network, and its scalable products and expert services address the needs of operators’ full value chain.…

WHEN the Percassi family, owners of the successful make-up brand KIKO Make Up Milan, purchased in October 2013 a UNESCO-listed historic industrial site called Crespi d’Adda in northern Italy, it was not only a sign of their success, but proof of the old adage that tough economic times can be good for the beauty industry. …

Innovations in sustainability for cosmetics and packaging were highlighted at the 47th Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna (April 4-7), in Italy. From natural, innovative materials to using traditional materials specifically designed to protect sustainable and organic products, Cosmoprof and its related Cosmopack exhibition emphasised the latest in cosmetics and personal care innovations, and offered a look at trends to come in 2015.…

REPRESENTATIVES from Europe’s sugar industry want sugar to be excluded from the current free trade negotiations between the United States and the European Union (EU). Speaking at an EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) briefing in Brussels, Oscar Ruiz de Imaña – the deputy director general of the European Association of Sugar Producers (CEFS), warned of the uncertainties in the sugar markets on both sides of the Atlantic.…

These are testing times for everyone in Ukraine: a revolution followed by the annexation of Crimea by Russia; pro-Russian separatists stoking unrest and grabbing government buildings in eastern Ukraine; and worries of a full-scale invasion. Just as pertinently, these hugely destabilising political upheavals have merely added to the existing turmoil of a state plagued for decades by corruption and low living standards.…

These are testing times for everyone in Ukraine: a revolution followed by the annexation of Crimea by Russia; pro-Russian separatists stoking unrest and grabbing government buildings in eastern Ukraine; and worries of a full-scale invasion. Just as pertinently, these hugely destabilising political upheavals have merely added to the existing turmoil of a state plagued for decades by corruption and low living standards.…

THE SINGAPORE Parliament has beefed up the powers of the country’s accounting regulator, especially over corporate service providers. MPs passed an accounting and corporate regulatory authority (amendment) bill, which will insist corporate service providers be registered as filing agents, able to help companies with their establishment, legal advice, regulatory filings, office hosting and secretarial services.…

Jeffrey Loke, vice president of pricing and commercial strategy at the Singapore-based Changi Airport Group Private Ltd, has outlined a number of upgrades that will grow Singapore Changi Airport’s non-aeronautical revenue over the next few years.

Speaking at Airport Council International’s (ACI) Airport Economics & Finance conference in London (March 12-14), Mr Loke said that Changi is developing a number of “game-changing” retail concepts as part of its recently concluded tenders for the liquor and tobacco, and beauty concession categories for 2014-2020.…

NATURAL and ‘halal’ cosmetics are making gradual inroads into the lucrative Gulf markets, which have some of the highest spending per capita on fragrances and cosmetics in the world. A handful of local companies and distributors are springing up to cater to the growing trend for natural or organic cosmetics, while the development of the ‘halal’ sector is actively being pushed by the Dubai government, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).…

The use of smart phone and tablet apps looks set to become increasingly important in the coaching sector over the coming years. New apps are emerging designed to help coaches and clients during sessions; apps that offer clients a ‘coach in your pocket;’ and a range of self-coaching apps.…

THE FOURTH largest country in the world by population, with an expanding middle class, Indonesia is an attractive base for many of the world’s global paints and coatings companies.

Mr Yoichi Yonehara took over the helm at PT Kansai Prakarsa Coatings two years ago and in that time he has had the opportunity to witness not only a coatings industry in evolution but also a country in a period of great change.…

AS the 2015 deadline for the full integration of the ASEAN economic community (AEC) approaches, it is becoming clear that while trade and standards harmonisation is right on target (and in some sectors well advanced) among member nations, the infinite details of this process for the coatings sector will be a work in process for many years to come.…

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) scientific committee has sounded an alarm about potential health concerns regarding the use of nano-silver in clothing – the substance often used as an antibacterial in knitted socks.

The EU’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks has noted studies indicating that “nanosilver exposure leads possibly to genotoxicity, changes in activity of the immune system and an accumulation of silver in spleen, liver and testes.”…

MONEY laundering through global shell companies could be better tackled with simple and inexpensive measures rather than revisions of complex anti-money laundering (AML) procedures, according to a senior Australian academic. “We don’t need more rules, we need better enforcement of existing rules,” said Prof Jason Sharman, co-author of ‘Global Shell Games: Experiments in Transnational Relations, Crime, and Terrorism’, due for release in April 2014.…

Changes in the way in which healthcare is delivered across Asia mean there are challenges but also opportunities for a new generation of nurses, with experts calling for organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing to better assist and support the sector in developing nations.…

Sri Lanka’s customs officials have launched a full scale investigation aimed at cracking down on copper scrap smuggling, after two export-bound containers of copper scrap worth more than USD172,189 were seized in late January.

The two containers weighing 32,140 kilogrammes were being exported to Singapore under false documentation claiming that the cargo was ‘plastic hangers’.…

SHALE gas has been inadvertently discovered by Norwegian researchers on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. The discovery, in the northernmost part of Norway, has prompted a debate over whether this could be an important addition to the world’s ever-increasing supplies of shale.…

THE THREAT that an ageing population will create ‘silver tsunami’ of patients causing funding pressures for Singapore’s healthcare sector came under the spotlight at an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Singapore Health Conference 2014. Nearly 100 financial and healthcare professionals attended the half-day event on February 18 at the city state’s fabled Raffles Hotel.…

SOURCING in Asia has been a merry-go-round for many buyers in recent years. As the era of low-cost Chinese manufacturing draws more or less to a close, several countries have leveraged their low cost labour to capture a significant volume of the world’s lower end knitwear manufacturing, while others have sought to extend their reach into higher value-added manufacturing by investing in infrastructure and training.…

SOURCING in Asia has been a merry-go-round for many buyers in recent years. As the era of low-cost Chinese manufacturing draws more or less to a close, several countries have leveraged their low cost labour to capture a significant volume of the world’s lower end knitwear manufacturing, while others have sought to extend their reach into higher value-added manufacturing by investing in infrastructure and training.…

A country famed for its beautiful traditional ‘batik,’ Malaysia is also home to a highly specialised textiles industry and these niche skills may prove vital for the country’s numerous finishing factories in what is shaping up to a challenging year. Economists are predicting a general slowing of the Malaysian economy, with average real gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the next five years estimated in Q4 2013 at 3.4%, revised down 0.2% from Q4 in 2012 (slightly slower than the Asian average of 3.7%), according to the Ifo Institute for Economic Research/International Chamber of Commerce’s World Economic Survey of business experts published in November last year.…

THE COUNTRIES of eastern and central Europe that came in from the cold in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall have felt the economic chill in recent years, with recession affecting the fortunes of the cosmetics industry.

Across a wide range of countries – for instance – Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia – the retail value of the beauty and personal care products market has remained at around Euro EUR10.70 billion in both 2012 and (according to provisional data for these five countries by market analysts Euromonitor International) in 2013; and is forecast to grow to EUR10.85 billion in 2014.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF

A country famed for its beautiful traditional ‘batik,’ Malaysia is also home to a highly specialised textiles industry and these niche skills may prove vital for the country’s numerous finishing factories in what is shaping up to a challenging year.…

BY MARK ROWE; JONATHAN DYSON, in Zagreb; and ANDREW KURETH, in Warsaw

THE COUNTRIES of eastern and central Europe that came in from the cold in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall have felt the economic chill in recent years, with recession affecting the fortunes of the cosmetics industry.…

SPANISH meat producers secured increasingly healthy prices in 2013 as the country crept out of recession in the second half, figures from its ministry of agriculture, food and the environment (MAGRAMA) show.

Category E pork (55% – 59% leanness) rose by 11.4% on 2012 to average EUR1.936 per kilo, 10.3% greater than the European Union (EU) average, peaking at EUR2.171/Kg.…

FOR years, Switzerland’s success as a global financial center has rested upon the rock-solid foundation of banking secrecy, a guarantee of discretion as solid at the Matterhorn.  The Swiss proudly declared banking secrecy to be part of the country’s DNA, a practice formally established in the 1930s when Nazi Germany was on the rise and which helped shield individuals against abusive states. …

INCREASINGLY stringent regulations governing the cold chain transport of medicines for human use are tipped to become a major driver for the uptake of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology by pharmaceutical suppliers in the Asia-Pacific region.

According to a recent report published by industry analysts Frost & Sullivan, America and Europe currently divide the biggest slice of market share in the global market for cold chain RFID.…

Northern Irish beef farmers have welcomed Singapore’s decision to allow UK beef imports an “excellent marketing opportunity for their quality grass fed Northern Irish beef”. The province’s beef and sheep business is one of Europe’s most dominant regional sectors, comparing its turnover to other local industries.…

THE LIBERALISATION taking place in Myanmar has been making the global textile and clothing sector excited about the country’s thus far untapped potential to export indigenous and mainstream textiles. Aung Min, research director of the business insight and social insight department at the Myanmar Marketing Research and Development Co.…

ANTICIPATED market liberalisation in democratising Burma is enticing global tobacco companies such as British American Tobacco (BAT) to sell and manufacture cigarettes in Myanmar. However, rampant smuggling of duty-free cigarettes into the country and the dominance of low-end local brands pose a challenge to legitimate business ventures.…

INDIA’S luxury apparel market poses huge challenges for western brands due to a local preference for ethnic designs, especially for dresses, according to the latest market intelligence revealed last week at the ‘CII-ET Dialogue on Luxury’, a daylong conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and India’s Economic Times newspaper, in New Delhi.…

THOSE who have spent some time walking Chinese supermarket aisles in the past decade will have noticed astonishing changes in the local diet. Increased sales of dairy products and meat are driving demand for soy as an animal feed ingredient, and demand for higher-end consumer products such as ice cream, and confectionery are increasing palm oil requirements.…

THERE are few brands as recognisable to Chinese consumers as the ‘Golden Dragon Fish’, the ‘Jin Long Yu’ in Mandarin, which adorns the tubs of cooking oil and bags of flour and rice in supermarkets across the country. The brand is owned by Singapore-based conglomerate Wilmar, a one-time trading house which has come to increasingly invest in downstream and upstream elements of the oil palm and soy industries.…

ONCE upon a time, an overly curved cucumber could not be labelled ‘cucumber’ in the European Union (EU) because it did not comply with ‘official’ definitions of the fruit, which included limits on curvature. The European Commission eventually modified the rules: ugly and misshapen fruit and vegetables now sell freely under their own time-honoured names.…

STATE support for the development of the Internet of Things (IOT) sector in China has the potential to drive demand for premium protective coatings across the Asia Pacific region, according to IOT and coatings industry experts.

During China’s recent change of government leadership, the State Council this February promised to launch tax breaks for companies using these technologies, vowing to achieve widespread “application of the IOT in key areas by 2015, as well as breakthroughs in core technologies.” …

MEXICO’S new president Enrique Peña Nieto, who came to office in December 2012, promised a less militaristic fight against the country’s increasingly violent drug trade, so his government’s implementation of a new anti-money laundering (AML) law will be watched closely.

Past president Felipe Calderón launched a severe military-led crackdown against the country’s drug cartels towards the end of 2006, around 80,000 people have since been killed in drug-related violence since.…

PETRONAS, Malaysia’s state-owned oil and gas (O&G) company, plans to increase the country’s O&G production and resource addition at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.5% over the five years 2013 through 2017.

This target follows Petronas’ announcement in January 2013 of plans to spend MYR186 billion (USD56.7 billion) on the country’s O&G sector over the next five years, and to increase significantly its production activities for both hydrocarbons.…

IS IT possible to divine ‘golden rules’ that increase the likelihood of freezing order relief being granted and lessen the risk of scoring an own-goal when potential costs are compared with what may be recovered?

Fraud Intelligence asked Thomas K Sprange, a partner and Solicitor Advocate in the London office of international law firm King & Spalding and a member of the firm’s International Arbitration Group.…

And this can make Singaporean accountants lives particularly difficult, especially in a country not known for robust transparency.

Lee said economic uncertainty creates “significant challenges” for firms regarding their ability and willingness to disclose information about “future-oriented assumptions” and undermines the reliability of commercial projections made in annual results.…

BANGLADESH’S fast growing economy is developing a robust and booming personal care product market. Mosaddeq Hossain, owner of a general store at the Shagoria Bazaar in Hatiya sub-district, neat Chittagong, recalls 10 years ago, there was almost no demand for his stocks of Sunsilk shampoo.…

FRANCE and Japan have two of the world’s most powerful personal care product sectors, but their companies fare quite differently when trying to sell into each other’s markets. The glamour of the French industry is a strong calling card in Japan, while Japanese manufacturers must work harder to persuade French consumers to buy their wares because of their technical excellence.…

JAPAN’S paint and coatings industry has enjoyed steady growth over the last couple of years, with demand growing both at home and abroad, although some of the biggest names in the industry here remain concerned about the longer-term outlook for the sector.…

reform of its financial markets may take another giant leap forward this summer with the expected reintroduction of bond futures after a 17 year hiatus. The launch of a new bond futures market in Shanghai may be good news for many seeking alternatives to the country’s heavy reliance on bank financing even as local banks this summer faced an unprecedented liquidity squeeze amid a government crackdown on unofficial lending.…

IN signing up to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD) multilateral agreement on tax information transparency, Singapore has moved to address a major paradox that applies to its banking, business and financial operations.

Singapore scores exceptionally highly in global anti-corruption indexes – in 2012 it was ranked fifth by Transparency International out of 176 nations, behind only Denmark, Finland, New Zealand and Finland, for its lack of perceived corruption.…

THE CAPACITY of Moscow airports will increase nearly threefold during the
next three to four years under a Russian Rubles RUB600 billion (USD18.7 billion) plan unveiled by the Russian ministry of transport at a June 15 meeting of the State Council, which advises President Vladimir Putin.…

DESPITE the billions of dollars spent on modernising several major Indian airports, government officials admit they have failed to become strong international hubs, limiting their potential.

According to a May 2012 report, ‘Developing aviation hubs in India’, published by the Indian ministry of civil aviation, in the year ending March 2011 only 12% of passengers in Mumbai and 9% in Delhi used these airports for transit, and most are transferring to domestic destinations.…

AIRPORTS and air traffic controllers could soon use data generated from supercomputers to solve many of their safety and capacity challenges.

High performance computing (HPC), which makes billions of calculations per second, is already being used by the aviation sector for forecasting weather and in designing aircraft – notably for engines, said Alastair McKinstry, environmental sciences activity leader at the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC).…

‘LA TORRE PUIG,’ the 22-storey Puig Tower now being fitted out in the Plaza de Europa, of the Catalan capital, Barcelona, for Puig SL, the family owned fragrances and fashion firm, will be yet another landmark building for one of Europe’s most beautiful cities.…

INDONESIA’S paints and coatings industry is introducing a growing range of new products and innovations as the market becomes increasingly competitive, as recent robust growth continues into the foreseeable future.

A 2012 report by UK-based market researchers Euromonitor International, said the total turnover of the Indonesian paints and varnishes sector was forecast to grow by 10% in 2012 to Indonesian Rupiah IDR15.3 trillion (USD1.53 billion), up from IDR6.4 trillion (USD640 million) in 2005, with a combined annual growth rate of 8.4% between 2005 and 2012.…

THE EUROPEAN Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) will have a new boss starting this autumn and he comes from outside the automobile sector. The Belgian Erik Jonnaert, former Asia vice-president of external relations at personal care products corporation Procter & Gamble (P&G), will take over as ACEA secretary general from Ivan Hodac, 67, who is retiring in October.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) negotiators are approaching the final decision over the future of EU sugar quotas, with a deal expected between the European Parliament and EU Council of Ministers by the end of June. What is almost certain is the current phase-out date of 2015 is dead.…

Vietnam’s clothing and textile sector has failed to secure a comprehensive breakthrough settling disputes over the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) yarn-forward rule during negotiations held both in Vietnam (May 12 to 15) and in Singapore (May 19 to 20). There was no deal on the controversial “short-supply list” proposals regarding exceptions to the TPP’s yarn-forward provisions, which stipulate that textiles are made with materials from TPP member countries in order to receive tax-free import benefits in TPP markets.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) heads of states and governments have urged their ministers to agree important pieces of draft EU legislation that could potentially curb tax evasion in the bloc.

Meeting during a European Council meeting in Brussels last week (May 22), leaders were under pressure to act from media reports revealing how much untaxed incomes politicians, companies and rich business owners have stashed in tax havens.…

the once-in-a-decade handover of power within China’s Communist Party government now complete, the country’s new administration is beginning to find its feet. It is a process that has profound implications for the cogeneration sector in the world’s most populous nation.

At the heart of the opportunities related to cogeneration is a government plan entitled Guiding Opinions of the Deployment of Gas-Fired Distributed Energy. …

WITH global cocoa prices continuing to rise and concerns growing that climate change will hinder efforts to boost production, the confectionery sector’s key Asia Choco Congress 2013 this year explored solutions to assure sustainable cocoa supplies.

Experts from industry giants such as Cargill, Mars and CAMOI joined with international cocoa specialists to assess ways of solving ongoing and potentially worsening market disfunction.…

THE PHILIPPINES, which with 95 million people, has the 12th biggest population in the world, is among the world’s most promising emerging markets, and international business and accounting services are taking note. GDP was up by around 7% in 2012, with 6% growth forecast for 2013, and the country’s accounting sector is capitalising on its strong economic growth.…

SUCCESSION issues are a significant and growing challenge for companies and could be an opportunity for qualified accountants who may step up internally or be drafted in to even become the next CEO or CFO.

“Many businesses spend very little time, if any, thinking through who will lead the various aspects of their business in the future,” said Karen Young, a director for the senior finance section of global recruitment experts Hays, and whose remit includes qualified accountancy jobs including finance director, financial controller, management accountant, financial accountant, or practice accounting.…

IT seems for all the world like the setting for a Graham Greene novel: a British-trained chartered accountant in charge of an almost unfathomably wealthy state-owned holding corporation in a distant outpost.

Yet Greene would barely recognise the 21st century context in which Our Man in Kazakhstan operates.…

China’s move to elevate its State Food & Drug Administration (SFDA) to a ministry level entity aims to consolidate oversight of food safety issues under one umbrella and convince consumers the government is serious about tackling the country’s food safety problems. …

TO listen to opposing sides in a polarised debate, February 14, 2013, could go down in European business history as a St Valentine’s Day Massacre of Europe’s capital markets or as the start of a beautiful love affair with regulation that could help to prevent speculative trading turning boom to bust.…

THE SINGAPORE government’s much lauded change of gears from running an economy known for its efficiency to one where innovation also plays a key role has been illustrated in a new education services export initiative, targeted at China.

The city state’s trade promotion agency IE Singapore (IE for international enterprise) signed in January a memorandum of understanding with seven local leading training and educational institutes and universities to form what it calls a Singapore Talent Development Alliance (STDA).…

WITH mobile communication service providers facing an increasingly complex but growing market, they are being offered a range of third party services to help navigate a path to maximum profitability in this new commercial world. And with consumers using multiple devices and switching between data, video and voice, it is useful not only to be supplied software systems that helps make sense of this communications Babel, but to be advised and helped along the way.…

Strengths:

China has a booming e-commerce sector, and growing online drinks retailers are building more warehouses nationwide. They need to balance ‘just-in-case’ and ‘just-in-time’ demands and also the need for flexibility versus low inventory. Negotiating these logistical pressures is vital in this huge yet highly fragmented market.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) police agency Europol has released details of a major football scam at global level with Asian betting syndicates at its heart. It is now up to national prosecutors still investigating some of the cases to unveil the names of football clubs involved in match fixing.…

WHILE it is always sensible to handle reports emerging from North Korea with care, it appears undeniable that the country does manufacture cosmetics and other personal care products and could, if current hopes of liberalisation are ultimately realised, become a new market for international players.…

PURCHASING cosmetics through business-to-consumer (B2C) group-buying websites offering national and local discount deals from third party vendors is catching on in key markets worldwide and positively blossoming in China, but with different nuances according to location. Cosmetics deals are popular on these sites throughout Asia, according to Shanghai, China based Dataotuan.com…

The Malaysian government-owned investment company Iskandar Investment Berhad (IIB) is pushing ahead with the development of EduCity, the major new education complex being built in Nusajaya in the state of Johor, in the south of Peninsular Malaysia.

A growing number of international universities are setting up operations at the 600-acre site, which will be part of Iskandar Malaysia, a new planned eco-city and trading zone with districts for tourism, health care and education, designed to help re-generate Johor state.…

INDIA’s auditors have had a difficult time in the court of public opinion since the revelations of the USD1 billion Satyam Computer Services scandal. A new Companies Bill might change that – although it will also inflict some pain on India’s auditors.…

THE WEALTHY city state of Singapore seems to have glided through the global financial crisis, but the country only narrowly avoided recession and this slowdown has affected its important accounting sector. GDP growth in Singapore grew in 2012 was projected to be 1.2%, down from 4.9% the previous year.…

SPORTS regulators, police and other ‘actors’ in the emerging global scandal over match-fixing and other forms of bribery, fraud and corruption need more dedicated accounting skills in-house to prevent, detect and prosecute offences.

“Sporting institutions are behind the curve and need specialists including people trained in forensic accounting within them,” said Dr Graham Brooks, a leading independent analyst of sports crime, and senior lecturer at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies (ICJS) at the University of Portsmouth, in southern England.…

THE UNITED States government has unveiled details of proposed flexibilities it wants to introduce into the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement which will allow importers to buy scarce clothing, textiles and yarns from outside the bloc.

Speaking at a New York conference yesterday (Wed, Jan 9), Kim Glas, deputy assistant secretary for textiles and apparels of the US Department of Commerce stressed proposals that may appease concerns of US garment and clothing importers concerned about restrictive ‘yarn forward’ rules in the draft TPP.…

THE CREATION of a harmonised customs system within the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by 2015 should be better exploited by its regional clothing and textile industry through better vertical integration, a conference was told this week.…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS; AND HEATHER TAN, IN SINGAPORE

THE WEALTHY southeast Asian market of Singapore should welcome imports of European manufactured cars based on European Union (EU) technical and safety standards and approvals under a new trade deal finalised this week.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL AND JOHN PAGNI, IN HELSINKI

THE DEVELOPMENT of nanotechnology, especially in commercial consumer products such as textiles and clothing, is being stunted by continuing concerns over health risks, an international conference has been told.

The International Congress on the Safety of Engineered Nanoparticles and Nanotechnologies (SENN2012), in Helsinki, staged by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health (FIOH) received a series of papers on the latest research into nano-silver, a key anti-bacterial input of known worth within the textile and clothing sector.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

Significant questions about the re-elected US Administration’s readiness to stand up for American textile interests in the upcoming negotiations for expanding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal are looming in the wake of President Barack Obama’s re-election. Important decisions will be needed soon about the terms for including Vietnam in the TPP and its associated yarn forward rule of origin.…

BY JULIAN RYALL, IN TOKYO

THE JAPANESE government is staging a diplomatic campaign aimed at boosting its beef exports worldwide, through securing international recognition for its beef as having "negligible risk" of BSE. It has already filed an application with the Office International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation to confirm the safety of Japanese beef when it next general session meets in May.…

BY MARK ROWE

The cosmetics market for Asian men is thriving where other sectors struggle. "Men’s skin care products appear to exist in a different economic world to much of rest of the industry," said Diyva Sangameshwar, a spokeswoman for market researchers Euromonitor based in Singapore.…

BY CONNLA STOKES, IN HO CHI MINH CITY

As one of the world’s fastest-growing accountancy bodies, ACCA is attracting more finance and management professionals in Asia eager to get to the top. This is certainly the case for Shanghai, China-born Katherine Wu.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, IN LONDON

Professor Guido Rasi, executive director of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), has told Manufacturing Chemist of his concerns about the availability of medicines in the European Union (EU).

Speaking in his office at EMA headquarters in London’s Canary Wharf, Professor Rasi said EMA wanted "to see what role we can play and what counsel we can give in respect of the problem of the (drug) shortages."…

BY HELEN CLARK, IN HANOI

Fast food consumption has risen quickly in Vietnam. With rapid economic growth in the past decade or more and a rising middle class in the cities with more disposable income many foreign chains have opened up in recent years.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI

"A NEW and superior urban form of living," is how India’s first airport city, Durgapur Aertropolis, in West Bengal, is being defined by its promoter and main contractor, Changi Airports India Pte Ltd, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Changi Airport International.…

BY ROB GILHOOLY, IN TOKYO

When New Kansai International Airport Co. took over the operation of Japan’s partly state-run Kansai International Airport facility this April through a plan by the government to jump-start Japan’s air travel market, it also took on an estimated Japanese Yen JPY1.3 trillion (USD16.5 billion) in interest-bearing debt.…

BY JULIAN RYALL, IN TOKYO

AT present it takes one hour and 32 minutes to complete the transfer between Tokyo’s two main airports Narita and Haneda, hampering the city’s efforts to be seen as the most important aviation hub in western Asia.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER, IN SÃO PAULO; RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI; HELEN CLARK, IN HANOI; AND WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

THE GROWTH in outsourcing has been maybe the most important trend in the clothing and textile sector in the past decade, with emerging market countries offering increasingly reliable and sophisticated services.…

BY ROBERT STOKES IN MÁLAGA

THIS year I have abandoned my premium brand sun screen in favour of a Deliplus private label product sold by the Spanish supermarket group Mercadona for around EUR 5.00, saving around EUR 12.00 into the bargain.…

BY POORNA RODRIGO

Niyaz Ibrahim

* May 2011 to present – Auditor General of the Maldives

*May 2010 to present – member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)

*August 2010 to present – Lecturer Villa College, the Maldives

*March 2010 to May 2011 – Chief Internal Auditor – Maldives Ports Limited

*November 2008 to January 2009 and June 2009 to February 2010 – Deputy Director General of Audit – Maldives Auditor General’s Office (AGO)

*September 2008 to Nov 2008 – Assistant Director General of Audit – AGO

*July 2004 to Sept 2007 – Assistant Auditor – Audit Office

*October 2000 to Sept 2002 – Accounts Officer Trainee – Audit Office

*July 2004 to Sep 2007 – Manager – Gothic Construction Private Limited

*July 2004 to present – Private practising (Auditing, accountancy, financial and management services)

*January 2009 to June 2009 – ACCA Professional Examinations: (FTC Kaplan, Singapore)

*September 2007 to September 2008 – MSc.…

BY MARK GAO

A MIX of R&D, new capacity and government relations are helping international coatings companies stay on top in China’s booming coatings market, especially in the key niche market of specialist high-tech product. Promoting innovation in the Chinese market clearly helps and majors such as Dow Coating Materials (DCM) have the marketing clout to achieve this.…

BY KARRYN MILLER, IN HANOI

WITH similar tropical and sub-tropical climates giving personal care product consumers some similar requirements as regards skin care, the 10 countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region could be regarded as one by lazy marketers.…

BY DAVID HAYHURST, IN PARIS

CHANTAL Ronceray is targeting fast growth in turnover at Jamal Paris, a small but ambitious halal cosmetics products company she co-founded in 2007. It is an act of faith in the long-term potential for sales among France’s 4.7 million Muslims, Europe’s largest such population.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

AS global demand continues to grow for oil and gas, and energy prices increase – with companies drilling deeper; sending oil rigs out further out to sea; and exploring new regions with extreme climates – industry coatings are undergoing much development and innovation.…

BY MARK GODFREY, IN BEIJING

WHILE delegates at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) annual general meeting in Beijing remained concerned about the impact of the European Union’s (EU) emissions trading scheme (ETS) on global aviation, there was general consensus that the industry is growing healthily.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

SOUTH Korea’s paint and coatings market may be mature but that has not stopped it from showing steady growth. According to business research firm Timetric, which has a South Korea office, the country’s architectural paint market was worth USD582.9 million in 2010 and USD600.8 million in 2011.…

BY WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

Japanese beverage giant Suntory’s subsidiary, Singapore-based Suntory Beverage & Food Asia, is planning to manufacture beverages in India, a spokesman told just-drinks. It will in June buy 51% stocks in Narang Connect, a Mumbai-based subsidiary of India’s leading food and beverage distribution company Narang Group.…

BY JONATHAN DYSON, IN AREQUIPA, SOUTHERN PERU

PERU’S Inkabor, one of the world’s leading borates producers, is significantly increasing its product range as it capitalises on growing demand in several key sectors, senior managers told Industrial Minerals. Speaking at its Rio Seco boric acid and borax plant in Arequipa, southern Peru, Flavio Magheri, Inkabor managing director, said that Inkabor’s sales grew by 15% in 2011, with 10% growth forecast for 2012.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

SWITZERLAND just signed a so-called ‘Rubik deal’ with Austria to safeguard Swiss banking secrecy in return for it levying withholding taxes anonymously on undeclared savings and investments held in Switzerland by Austrian nationals.

The bilateral treaty with Austria, start date 2013, follows those with Britain and Germany, and has raised the hackles of the European Commission, which has questioned these agreements’ legality under the European Union (EU) Savings Tax Directive, which tries to erase loopholes allowing depositors to squirrel money away from tax assessors.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, IN BRUSSELS

Improving research cooperation between South Korea and the European Union (EU) was a key focus of a summit in Seoul this week (Wednesday, 28 March). In a speech in South Korea, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso noted higher education links between both sides were weak: "There are fewer researchers from South Korea participating in EU research programmes than researchers from many other countries."…

BY LEAH GERMAIN

THE USA’s Under-Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sánchez has told just-style he is optimistic about the impact on the American textile and clothing sector of new bilateral trade deals struck by the Obama administration with South Korea, Panama and Columbia.…

BY WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

STRONG government support paired with a huge domestic market has China’s already booming pharmaceutical industry undeniably heading towards an even more prosperous future. However, while companies are eager to expand in China, they all seem to be coming up against the same challenge – finding the right employees.…

DESPITE the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last May, Al Qaeda and its affiliated groups remain a global money laundering and terrorist financing concern. Yet a decade on from the September 11 attacks, counterterrorism specialists say there has been too much focus on Al Qaeda itself (it means The Base in Arabic) but not enough on associated and other militant groups that pose significant threats.…

BY MARK GODFREY, IN BEIJING

IT is a sign of a mature market that all social groups are offered products in a sector, with all kinds of retailers selling across a country – and China is certainly maturing in this way as regards the personal care product sector.…

BY WANG FANGQING

THE INDONESIAN government has yet to impose comprehensive and specific environmental controls on its domestic coatings industry, but manufacturers, especially multinationals, are ready to move one step ahead and reduce their pollution footprint.

The issue was a key focus of the 12th Asia Coatings Markets conference held on November 2 in Jakarta, with debates on cutting carbon emissions associated with production and making eco-friendly paints and coatings.…

BY JULIAN RYALL

THERE is no single secret to creating the best soy sauce in the world, according to the head of the Japanese company that first produced the seasoning as far back as the 17th century. Rather, the secret is a combination of three things, Yuzaburo Mogi, honorary CEO and chairman of the board of directors of Kikkoman Corp.,…

BY MARK ROWE

FOR the past decade, innovative paints and coatings manufacturers have been creating a buzz around sustainable, ‘smart’ coatings that self-clean, do not chip, and are more aerodynamic. Many of the claims for such materials were made while the inventions were still in the laboratory.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, terrorist attacks thrust anti-money laundering (AML) and counter terrorist financing (CTF) initiatives into the spotlight as the United States embarked on its ‘war on terror’. A decade later, tremendous progress has been made in tracking and seizing dirty money.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

POLICE agency Interpol is planning to open a Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore which will undertake research and development on identifying crimes and criminals, building law enforcement capabilities. This would benefit all Interpol member countries, said an agency communiqué, which stressed the centre would prioritise work on fighting the abuse of communication technologies, notably cybercrime.…

BY WANG FANGQING

WHILE soybean oil still remains the main cooking oil of choice used in China, the country’s manufacturers have recently been experiencing a shift – with a growing demand for diversity in terms of cooking products in large and small cities.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE WESTERN financial system is undergoing profound change, of weakened trust in the sector, heightened tax regulations, pressure to curb banking secrecy and tougher regulatory compliance. As a result, the owners of legal and extra-legal capital who are looking for a safe haven for their money are starting to consider destinations outside the established offshore jurisdictions – the less regulated financial centres of the Middle East and Asia.…

BY JULIAN RYALL

UNIQLO thinks big, talks big and has big ambitions – and analysts believe the company does indeed have what it takes to become the biggest clothing retailer in the world within the next decade.

It will clearly face a series of obstacles on its way to that title.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INDIA’s first ‘airport city’, Durgapur Aerotropolis, is to be up and running by the end of 2012 in the eastern state of West Bengal, (which could be soon renamed ‘Paschimbanga’ by its government). The 880-acre greenfield project will include airport infrastructure and urban development, and will employ 90,000 people.…

BY MINDY RAN

ROTTERDAM is already Europe’s largest port and hence of importance for the import and export of waste materials from and to the European Union (EU) and this role is to strengthen.

For Rotterdam, the world’s fourth largest industrial port, behind China’s Shanghai and Ningbo, then Singapore, already utilises 26,000 acres, of which 12,500 acres are commercial sites and 13,500 acres water docks, rail lines, roads and pipeline zones.…

BY MARK GODFREY

ANYONE who has eaten croissants and Danish-style pastries smothered with mayonnaise, chopped sausages and pork floss will appreciate that Beijing bakeries have a style all of their own. Yet the unorthodox approach is popular with local consumers, judging by how bakery chains are growing here: aside from locally-owned chains such as Holiland and Weiduomei and there has been an influx of regional chains, for instance Kiss n Bake from Taiwan and Singapore’s BreadTalk.…

BY MINI PANT ZACHARIAH

FieldFresh Foods, a venture between India’s Bharti Enterprises and Singapore-listed Del Monte Pacific, has launched pasta sauces across India.

The venture has started to sell the products throughout India as demand for Italian food grows and producers vie for market share.…

BY MARIANNE BROWN and KEITH NUTHALL

A CHINK of light in the gloom spread over the nuclear industry by Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster can be seen to the south, where south-east Asian governments seem keen to push ahead with their nuclear expansion plans regardless.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

THE UNITED States garment industry is supporting a "yarn forward" rule of origin proposed by the US Trade Representative (USTR) during the latest round of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement negotiations. Both the US and Vietnam want to join the TPP trade agreement, which currently includes Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore.…

BY WANG FANGQING

Major Japanese oils and fats manufacturer Fuji Oil is to open two research centers in Bangkok, Thailand, and Guangzhou, south China, in August, targeting local bakery snacks manufacturers. "The two research centres will help our local clients develop new products through designing menus using our products, such as margarine and cream," said a Fuji spokesman, adding the two centres themselves would not develop final consumer brands.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

THE UNITED States Trade Representative has proposed a ‘yarn forward’ rule within negotiations for Washington to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, to protect the US textile industry from Vietnam’s state-subsidised textile enterprises. America and Vietnam want to join the TPP, currently including Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

United States House of Representatives members linked to the textile industry are urging USA Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk in a letter received yesterday (June 1) to ensure an proposed expanded multi-lateral Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement does not flood American markets with Vietnamese clothing.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

"VIETNAM is making a big push to improve all aspects of infrastructure nationwide," said Adam Bury, senior manager of the research and consulting department of CB Richard Ellis in Ho Chi Minh City: "…and this includes airports." The property sales firm put it simply, "The better connected the country is, both domestically and internationally, the better it is for the people and the economy in general."…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WITH 3D technology selling movies and electronics, it only makes sense that fashion marketing is focusing on this cutting edge trend. Certain brands are currently exploring ways in which 3D technology can enhance everything from their couture shows to advertisements to e-business; but while the drive for innovation is there, some industry experts are saying that technology still has a way to go before 3D fashion marketing and online fitting rooms are mainstream.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SECRETARY general of Interpol has asked the international air industry to help governments check whether passengers are carrying stolen or lost passports. Speaking at the 2011 International Air Traffic Association (IATA) AGM in Singapore, Ronald K Noble warned governments failed to undertake these checks for 50% of 2010’s 935 million international air arrivals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INDIA and Brazil have joined the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD) chemical safety data mutual acceptance system. It means regulators and companies in these countries will used OECD methods for non-clinical tests on chemicals. As a result, other participating countries (all 34 OECD developed country members plus South Africa and Singapore) will accept Indian and Brazilian test results, promoting their chemical exports.…

BY MARK ROWE

WITH awareness growing in regards to their impact on the environment, the chemical make-up of fire retardants is becoming increasingly targeted by legislation around the world, and the Asia-Pacific region is no exception.

According to global paints and coatings company AkzoNobel (SPELLING CHECKED) – which recently opened a EUR7 million fire protection laboratory in the UK to serve as its global headquarters for fire retardant research – increasingly stringent worldwide regulations mean that the demand for more environmentally-conscious fire retardants will double by 2018.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INDIA’S multi-billion dollar ‘2G’ scam is a startling example of extreme arbitrariness and blatant disregard to rules during a tendering process to make illicit money. Raghavendra Verma in New Delhi explains how the manipulation in the government’s distribution of mobile telephony frequency became the country’s biggest ever financial scandal.…

BY MARK GODFREY

WITH the fast-growing Chinese economy looking increasingly to overseas expansion and foreign mergers and acquisitions, it is not surprising so-called second tier accountancy alliances such as BDO and Crowe Horwath are keen for a piece of the action in China.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

THE ASSOCIATION of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) covers 10 distinct countries, each with a unique culture, mirroring the personal care product markets of the European Union (EU). However, these nations do share some similarities – and maybe more than northern, southern and eastern Europe, especially when it comes to what ASEAN consumers have inside their cosmetics cabinets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has indefinitely delayed a planned April 29 end to European Union (EU) airport bans on carrying duty-free liquids, such as perfume, bought outside the EU onto connecting flights. International airports in all 27 member states were supposed by then to have sufficient screening to ensure such liquids were safe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has told manufacturers of intermediate chemicals – including those used in the paint, coatings and solvent sectors – they may have to submit more information under REACH chemical control system. ECHA screened more than 400 dossiers of substances declared as intermediates and has said that 86% have not proved that this special status should apply – the agency requires less information on intermediates than standard chemical substances.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has delayed the planned April 29 end to European Union (EU) airport bans on carrying duty-free liquids bought outside the EU onto connecting flights. International airports in all 27 member states were supposed by then to have sufficient screening technology and procedures to ensure such liquids were safe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRAZIL is the latest major emerging market country to have joined the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD) chemical safety data mutual acceptance system. It means regulators and cosmetics companies in Brazil will use OECD methods for non-clinical tests on their chemicals.…

BY WANG FANGQING

Major Japanese dairy product manufacturer Meiji Holdings is planning to boost its south-east Asia sales to Japanese Yen JPY20 billion (USD244.5 million) from the current JPY9.7 billion (USD118.6 million) through a five-year investment plan (2011 to 2015) carried by its Bangkok-based joint venture CP-Meiji, with the Thai conglomerate the CP Group.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

European Union (EU) member states have been asked to approve extending import duties on US-made biodiesel after hearing evidence that US exporters had been evading special EU import tariffs imposed in 2009 by shipping via Canada or mixing it with weaker blends.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, KEITH NUTHALL and RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

THE INTRODUCTION of new global accounting standards through the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) which began some five years ago and will take 10 or more years to achieve is a massive undertaking which will revolutionise corporate bookkeeping and lead to an international standard matrix of values allowing for much greater transparency and facilitating country-by-country financial comparisons.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

ON first impressions Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s two largest metropolises, seem a far cry from the fashion capitals of the world. Their wide boulevards overflow with heavy traffic and are mostly lined with small family-owned stores and restaurants, rather than well-known brands.…

BY JULIAN RYALL

NEARLY two months after northern Japan was shaken by a magnitude-9 earthquake and then inundated by a tsunami that in places reached a height of 38 metres and devastated the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the final toll has not been calculated.…

BY MARK ROWE

SINGAPORE weathered the global economic crisis better than most, and its GDP grew by a staggering 10% in 2010, driven in part by the development of two casino-based resorts. The future also looks bright for the paint industry, with a seemingly endless list of ambitious developments planned for coming years, proposed by the city state’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, a government department that makes decisions, down to the last square centimetre, on how Singapore makes use of the limited land available to it.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PLANNED attempt this year by the European Commission to table a nanotechnology regulation that gives legal controls to this emerging science will be a tough task, a senior official has admitted to a Brussels conference. Henrik Laursen, from the Commission’s environment directorate general told the fourth annual European Union (EU) ‘Nano’ conference there was no emerging consensus on framing a legal definition of nanoparticles and nanotechnology, which is increasingly used in the paints and coatings sector.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INVESTIGATORS of India’s ‘2-G’ multi-billion dollar telecommunications scam have approached authorities in Singapore, Cyprus, Jersey and the British Virgin Islands to track laundered money in the case, the lawyer representing the government agencies told country’s Supreme Court on March 16.…

BY WANG FANGQING

Nissin Foods Holdings, the Japan-based instant noodle manufacturing multinational, will invest about Japanese Yen JPY 3.4 billion (US dollar USD41.5 million) to build an instant noodle plant in Vietnam to meet growing demand in this key emerging market.…

BY AHMAD PATHONI

INDONESIA’S paint and coating market has grown by about 3-4% annually by average over the past decade. Indeed, consumption rose to 688,863 tonnes in 2010, from 646,700 the previous year, according to the Indonesian Paint Manufacturers’ Association.

And a mini-boom could be approaching.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INVESTIGATORS from the European Commission and the European Union’s (EU) anti-fraud office OLAF should report on May 11 about whether American biodiesel exporters are illegally evading EU countervailing and anti-dumping duties on their product. A probe will examine whether US biodiesel is being illicitly routed through third countries, especially Canada and Singapore, to avoid paying the duties: between Euro EUR211.20 and EUR237/tonne for the countervailing (antisubsidy) duties and EUR23.60 and EUR208.20/tonne for the anti-dumping tax.According…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

May 31, 2009, a quiet Sunday morning at Mumbai’s ChhatrapatiShivaji International Airport: Air India flight 348 to New Delhi and Jet Airways 651 to Calcutta had accelerated on their runways to 180 km per hour when just seconds before take-off they made emergency stops.…

BY Karryn Miller

An innovative foreign higher education park scheme in South Korea is set to proceed, even though the worldwide recession has caused some overseas universities to postpone plans to locate branches at the Songdo Global University Campus.

Full report on University World News site.…

BY WANG FANGQING

IN maybe one of the most telling signs that China is opening up to the west, as much as it is exporting products there, that Chinese consumers are purchasing more olive oil and moreover, they are using it in a shift to a more cosmopolitan diet, including healthy Mediterranean-based recipes.…

BY MARK GODFREY

VIGOROUS economic growth and stimulus spending in key growth markets such as Indonesia, Thailand and India is ensuring Asia remains a bright spot in the global US dollar USD100 billion paint and coatings sector. Yet in terms of raw material supplies, south-east Asia and India are not as geared towards production as China, which has been ramping up chemicals refining capacity largely through ventures between local and multinational firms.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WITH sales of biofuels still very much in their nascent stage and concerns rising about the environmental impact of biofuels growing, research and development into ‘second-generation’ biofuels is going ahead apace. And a key element of this work is lowering CO2 emissions from fuel by using waste alternative sources of material for conversion to biofuel.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

DESPITE the global economic downturn of the last few years Vietnam’s paint industry has continued to experience growth. According to Vietnam’s General Statistics Office 234,000 tonnes of paint was produced in Vietnam between January 2010 and November 2010.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WITH sales of biofuels still very much in their nascent stage and concerns rising about the environmental impact of biofuels growing, research and development into ‘second-generation’ biofuels is going ahead apace. And a key element of this work is lowering CO2 emissions from fuel by using waste alternative sources of material for conversion to biofuel.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

DESPITEthe global economic downturn of the last few years Vietnam’s paint industryhas continued to experience growth.According to Vietnam’s General Statistics Office234,000 tonnes of paint was produced in Vietnam between January 2010 and November 2010.In the same period last year production was at 181,200 tonnes.Sales…

BY JOHN PAGNI

NORDICS take their global civic responsibilities seriously – paying more than mere lip-service to requests to cut global warming emissions especially. Finland is a case in point, putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to renewable fuels.…

BY WANG FANGQING

AS e-commerce continues to boom in China, increasingly Chinese women are buying their favourite beauty products online. Internet sales of beauty and personal care products in China reached (China Yuan Renminbi) CNY1.3 billion (US dollars USD195.3 million) in 2010, and are expected to double in 2015, according to London-based research firm Euromonitor International.…

BY KEITN NUTHALL

30

THE NORTH Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is taking the threat of cyberattacks on business and government computing networks so seriously, it is staging cyberwarfare trials. The world’s strongest military alliance in November held the Cyber Coalition 2010 exercise near Mons, Belgium, and remote locations to test cyber-attack agencies and NATO strategic decision making.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

18

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the takeover by Unilever of Sara Lee’s body and laundry care businesses, on condition it sells off the US company’s Sanex brand and related business in Europe. Following an inquiry as the European Union’s (EU) lead competition authority, Brussels concluded there were particular concerns regarding Unilever’s future dominance of some EU deodorant markets.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS, KEITH NUTHALL

THE KNITWEAR sector, especially at the higher end of the market spectrum, is a prey for organised counterfeiters. Sophisticated illicit manufacturers, especially in emerging markets, create copies of established brands, that can be high enough quality to fool, but poor enough to disappoint the consumer after a few wears.…

BY MARK GODFREY

Albert Ng, Ernst & Young

Managing partner and chairman of E&Y’s China business, Hong Kong native Albert Ng has over 25 years of professional experience in the accounting industry in China and Australia. That background will be valuable as he moves the firm on from an embarrassing settlement over its auditing of Akai Holdings, a bankrupted Chinese electronic manufacturer and retailer.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

MORE than 13 million passengers per year use Auckland International Airport – indeed according to Richard Llewellyn, senior communications manager for the airport : "More than 70 per cent of all visitors to New Zealand arrive or depart through it."…

BY KEITN NUTHALL

RUSSIA is so corrupt, it is regarded as having more graft than earthquake-shattered Haiti, the 2010 corruption perceptions index of Transparency International has declared. It placed Russia at 154th out of 178 countries in its corruption rankings, level with failed narco-state Guinea-Bissau and worse than Haiti (146th) and Pakistan (143th).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

COUNTRIES negotiating a plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) fighting fake products have announced that all remaining problems have been resolved and a final text is being drafted. This will allow the European Union (EU) and its member states, Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the USA to ratify the treaty.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE PERSONAL care product sector should benefit from a new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), now largely negotiated. A draft text has been released by the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Switzerland.…

BY BILL CORCORAN, DINAH GARDNER, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, KEITH NUTHALL

IF there is one good indicator that niche spirit markets are developing in emerging markets, it surely has to be sales of single malt Scotch. And by that rough and ready yardstick, such markets are well on their way.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

DEFINING a niche drink is an arbitrary matter and what may pass as niche today may well be considered mainstream tomorrow. Flavoured vodka, for instance, had a relatively specialised following in Europe until a few years ago – now it is classified as an official spirit drink under European Union (EU) regulations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

9

A UNITED Nations campaign could – if successful – significantly increase worldwide demand for soap. Its Global Handwashing Day has highlighted how diarrhoeal and acute respiratory diseases kill 3.5 million children aged under five annually, and that washing their hands after using toilets and before handling food can reduce such deaths by 40% and 23% respectively.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

THE INDIAN luxury apparel market is starting to take off and major international brands are preparing to exploit the opportunities, a New Delhi conference was told this week. Speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and The Economic Times-organised ‘Dialogue on Luxury, Making India a Source and Destination of Luxury’ event, Angela Ahrendts CEO of Burberry said her company was well placed to capitalise on this growing market segment.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INDIA continues to attract international cosmetic and perfume brands as its consumer base and their spending grow. According to the United States Trade Mission to India, the country’s USD2.68 billion beauty and wellness market is growing at 15-20% annually, almost twice as fast as the United States and European markets.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INDIA’S booming fashion market has encouraged international brands to change their strategy and start sourcing garments from local manufacturers to meet domestic demand. Donna Karan New York (DKNY), Gant, Arrow, Marks & Spencer and others are also avoiding high import duties in this way, making their products more competitive and in some cases even creating additional sourcing bases for their international operations.…

BY MARK ROWE

IN the truly global market of the paint industry, nowhere has the maxim of work local, sell local, been adhered to more rigorously than in southeast Asia. The region’s paint market is fiercely competitive, driven by developed nations such as Singapore and populous rapidly developing countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines.…

BY MARK GODFREY

GEORGIA’S wine industry took every opportunity to bask in the limelight when the 2010 International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) Congress was staged in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi. Opening the June congress, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT) even took the opportunity to praise local product as a "freedom wine", boasting that Russia’s four-year ban on Georgian wine has only improved its quality.…

BY MICHAEL MACKAY

THAILAND’S CP Meiji is to invest up to Thai Baht THB 800 million baht (US dollar USD26 million) to increase capacity at its Saraburi plant, senior company officials have told just-food. The central Thailand factory currently produces 200 tonnes of dairy products daily and although the scale of the expansion is not yet finalised, "we are going to be bigger" said one manager.…

Kencho Wangdi

The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is renowned for its untouched mountainous beauty. It is also known for its political innovation: it tobacco sales ban and use of ‘gross national happiness country’ as a yardstick for development. But it may soon become known as a higher education hub of Asia, if current plans go well.…

BY KARRYN MILLER, AHMAD PATHONI, MARK ROWE

SOUTHEAST Asia is a growing and diverse market for international personal care product brands, despite the challenges (and some losses) cased by the recession. The region contains relatively rich emerging markets (and the very rich city state of Singapore), and its major poorer countries, notably Vietnam and Indonesia are growing fast and emerging robustly from the recession.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE PHILIPPINES paint market may be small, but it has punched above its weight during the global recession, retaining its distinctive feature of a manufacturing base dominated by local players. According to the Philippine Association of Paint Manufacturers (PAPM), the country has just five major paint manufacturers, with a 70% market share being enjoyed by Pacific Paints (Boysen), followed by other local players Charter Chemical & Coating Corporation and Asian Coatings Philippines, Inc.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

PAINT companies looking for an edge may very well find themselves turning to robots, as the industry in the Asia-Pacific region increasingly embraces automation. Cost effective, efficient and consistent, robots are indeed replacing employees in paint manufacturing processes and applications of coatings to products such as cars and machinery.…

BY MARK GODFREY

EVEN as the Burmese government embarks on construction of an airport in its middle-of-nowhere capital Naypyidaw, traffic remains underwhelming at the county’s main international hub in Rangoon, officially known as Yangon.

Officially opened in May 2007, Yangon International Airport has so far struggled to justify its ambitious capacity of 2.7 million passengers per year set by Burma’s (official name Myanmar) Department of Transportation, which oversees the country’s airports.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

SILK is deeply ingrained in the cultures of south-east Asian countries. "In Laos every stitch of clothing used to be made of silk, even baby diapers," said Mark Sloneker, founder of sustainable, fair-trade website Orijyn (www.orijyn.com), which sells Laotian silk products abroad.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

AS trade barriers continue to diminish, clothing brands are becoming more global. However it is not as easy for the sizes of their goods to be quite as worldly. International players need to adapt their fits for different target markets but that level of adaptation varies by country.…

BY MINI ZACHARIAH

MTR Foods, one of the top five processed foods manufacturers in India, owned by Norwegian conglomerate Orkla, aims to double turnover to Indian Rupees INR5 billion (US dollars USD106 million) by 2012 by focusing on its core business of spices and masalas, instant mixes and vermicelli.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

SILK is deeply ingrained in the cultures of south-east Asian countries. "In Laos every stitch of clothing used to be made of silk, even baby diapers," said Mark Sloneker, founder of sustainable, fair-trade website Orijyn (www.orijyn.com), which sells Laotian silk products abroad.…

BY MARK ROWE

REMEMBER swine flu? While minute-by-minute updates in the international media have evaporated, the H1N1 virus has not, and airports around the world are being advised to maintain elevated levels of vigilance and good hygiene.

In June 2009, the World Health Organisation (WHO) raised the H1N1 virus alert to ‘Phase Six’ – signifying a pandemic – where it remains at the time of writing.…

BY JULIAN RYALL, FRANCES WANG, AHMAD PATHONI, WILLIAM BARNES, KARRYN MILLER and KEITH NUTHALL

THE PEOPLE of Okinawa are famous – even in ageing Japan – for their longevity. The women of this sub-tropical chain of islands have the longest life expectancy in the world, at nearly 89 years, they have the lowest mortality rate from chronic diseases linked to ageing and the highest ration of centenarians in the world – nearly six times the rate in other industrialised nations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PEER reviews have begun assessing the banking and tax transparency systems promoted by the G20 group of nations following the international contagion of financial problems sparked by the credit crunch. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD) Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information will undertake the process.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RICH country cosmetics companies maybe able to avoid undertaking chemical safety tests in key emerging markets because of an Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) mutual acceptance of data system. Using the unlikely acronym MAD, this procedure enables signatory countries to accept chemical safety tests carried out in fellow member states.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A PROGRESS report issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) has claimed almost 300 tax transparency agreements have been signed by jurisdictions since the April 2009 G20 summit in London. This called on governments and sub-national administrations worldwide to adopt the OECD’s standards on revealing and exchanging tax information.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RICH country textile and clothing chemical and dyes companies maybe able to avoid undertaking chemical safety tests in key emerging markets because of an Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) mutual acceptance of data system. Using the unlikely acronym MAD, this procedure enables signatory countries to accept chemical safety tests carried out in fellow member states.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RICH country textile and clothing chemical and dyes companies maybe able to avoid undertaking chemical safety tests in key emerging markets because of an Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) mutual acceptance of data system. Using the unlikely acronym MAD, this procedure enables signatory countries to accept chemical safety tests carried out in fellow member states.…

BY GAVIN BLAIR, FRANCES WANG, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA and KARRYN MILLER

The Asian beer market, having overtaken Europe, is now the largest in the world, according to Japanese brewery Kirin. The region accounts for 31.7% of global consumption, compared to 30.8% for Europe, claims the annual report from the Kirin Institute of Food and Lifestyle.…

BY ALAN OSBORN,ANCA GURZU and KEITH NUTHALL

THE GLOBAL trade in illicit tobacco is huge and growing and a significant source of dirty money worldwide. Tobacco multinational British American Tobacco (BAT) estimates that 6.3% of cigarettes worldwide are illicit products (either counterfeit, smuggled or sold domestically on the black market), which makes 332 billion sticks, and that is a lot of cigarettes.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA

INTRODUCTION

"INDIA can emerge as a leader in the global food processing industry," said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in December 2009 while addressing a conference of food processing ministers of different Indian states in New Delhi, noting the country’s US$100 billion food processing sector grew by 14.7% in 2009.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

OFFSHORE oil rig builder Singapore-based Keppel Corp has won a US$200 million contract to build a semi-submersible drilling tender assist rig for PetroVietnam. With delivery planned for 2011’s fourth quarter, this would be Vietnam’s first such rig. Keppel praised its "resilience and suitability" for many "challenging environments."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CORRUPTION in Greece is now considered as bad as in Romania and Bulgaria – European Union (EU) member states investigated by the European Commission over graft. Greece’s slide from 57th in last year’s Transparency International (TI) corruption perception index to 71st in this year’s report will concern its new left-wing PASOK government.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ONE of the lynchpins of the European Union’s (EU) single market is its public procurement rules, which try to ensure pubic authorities, and some utilities and transmission operators, openly tender for their major purchases. The aim is that all EU suppliers have a fair crack of the whip in offering them goods and services.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

ANDREA Perrone talks of when he was a child, and his father – a lawyer and the CEO of Brioni Retail – used to bring home customers from South America for lunch or dinner at the family’s residence in Abruzzi, Italy.…

BY KARRYN MILLER, KEITH NUTHALL and ALAN OSBORN

DESPITE following the global trend of increasing anti-smoking campaigns and placing stronger warning labels on cigarette packets, tobacco sales in South Korea are not declining. In fact, the industry has seen a slow but steady rise in total sales over the last few years.…

BY WILLIAM BARNES

IN Southeast Asia confectionery is important, perhaps deceptively so.

"No Asiatic regime practices the art of confectionery," opined Richard Sterling in his robust book, "The Fearless Diner."

Sterling may have been to too many Chinese-style banquets, where an abrupt finish is common.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AN INTERNATIONAL research project has shown immunity to malaria can be developed by patients inoculated with intact parasites whilst being treated with the common anti-malarial chloroquine. This kills the parasites towards the end of their life in the human body, apparently giving immune systems enough time to develop resistance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE GLOBAL body helping to fight maritime pirates has advised the paint and coatings industry to look hard at their supply routes and prepare contingency plans in case cargoes sail close to global piracy hotspots. At present, two problem areas stand out: off Somalia, in and out of the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea; and to a lesser extent off western Africa, especially near the Niger Delta.…

BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ

NURSING of course is a profession that expands beyond cold medical science – it is about care. It is the prime motivation behind the wish of Pushpa Ramyani Zoysa, 42, a senior nurse at Sri Lanka’s leading government-owned 3,000 bed National Hospital of Sri Lanka, in Colombo, to give her workplace a more homely atmosphere.…

BY MARK ROWE

SINGAPORE enjoys an international reputation for rigour when it comes to implementing and adhering to industry standards, and its paint sector is no exception. This approach is being applied, or has already been applied, to all the key major international regulations, including the European Union’s (EU) VOC (volatile organic compounds) directive 2004/42/EC, International Maritime Organisation (IMO) coatings rules, the UN’s Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, and the EU chemical control system REACH.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

WHO regulates money laundering at the stock exchange listings of companies around the world? If this is a beguilingly simplistic question, then the answer is anything but.

The reply depends not only upon which country one is referring to but also on which companies list in which market and in which stock exchange sector.…

BY PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy; KARRYN MILLER, in Tokyo; and LUCY JONES, in Dallas

IT almost seems commonsense to say that an industry providing such a human product as clothing has to take account of cultural sensibilities in target markets.…

By Keith Nuthall

The diplomatic stars are lining up for a World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal at the Doha Development Round next year, which could significantly liberalise access to higher education markets round the globe.

Detailed talks have now restarted on the lynchpin agricultural portion of the round, which must succeed if there is to be a deal on updating the general agreement on the trade in services (GATS), which covers higher education.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

GLOBAL initiatives designed to promote sustainable practices in the bio-based oils and fats industry are making strong progress. The key Roundtable on Responsible Soy (RTRS) has now released "principles and criteria" designed to ensure soy production does not cause long term damage to the environment and society.…

BY MARK ROWE

AIRLINES and airports are perfect carriers for infectious diseases and have helped swine flu to spread around the world within a matter of weeks, to the extent that it is now classified as the first pandemic of the 21st century.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

FACED with a global recession caused partly by commercial financial crime, governments have been pushed into taking action against tax evasion in recent months by ending the practice of banking secrecy. Is it the end of the road for tax havens as protected jurisdictions where illicit transactions can hide?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IT has long been outmoded and inaccurate to split the world into two camps: industrialised developed economies, and largely agricultural developing countries. The growth of the 1990s and the current decade means there is a wide range of social and economic sophistication and wealth amongst the poorer of these two old-fashioned categories.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE DEBATE over alternative sources of energy for aviation has not been confined to aircraft. The issue has airport managers pondering how such fuels would be used on the ground and at the same to seek to reduce the carbon footprints of their own ‘mini-cities’.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INDIA’S cosmetics industry appears to have taken the international economic downturn in its stride as the US$950 million market grew by more than 15% in 2008-09, according to the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).

All the major brands speaking to Soap Perfumery & Cosmetics are registering a positive growth and companies remain confident about the future prospects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, JULIAN RYALL, in Tokyo, EMMA JACKSON and LEAH GERMAIN

TIME was when counterfeit personal care products were commonly crude fake perfumes pedalled in markets and workplaces during the Christmas and other festive periods to bargain hunters who knew they were buying rubbish.…

BY MARK ROWE and SUZANNE KOELEGA

THE ISSUE of decommissioning rigs is an increasingly pressing one. According to consultants Wood Mackenzie up to half of the North Sea’s 600 installations – first installed nearly 40 years ago – are scheduled for decommissioning by 2021, while more than 4,000 are scheduled for removal worldwide.…

BY JULIAN RYALL

THEY may be putting off the new car purchase and the long-haul holiday this year, but Japanese consumers are finding that they cannot do without all their little luxuries.

For the 25th consecutive month, confectionery sales increased in Japan in January.…

BY LUCY JONES

KNITWEAR featuring Barack Obama’s image stole the limelight at the Paris fashion week last autumn but whether the love will be returned to the global knitwear industry has yet to be seen.

Indeed, there is cause for concern, because Obama used protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE THUMBSCREWS are being turned on the world’s tax havens, preventing their banks hiding assets from tax investigators worldwide. A comprehensive communiqué from April 1 and 2s’ G20 meeting in London committed member governments "to take agreed action against those jurisdictions which do not meet international standards in relation to tax transparency."…

BY KARRYN MILLER

AUSTRALIA, as with the bulk of westernised nations, has classified butter as a staple food rather than a luxury item. Sales of the dairy spread have long reflected this and Aussie butter has enjoyed steady demand both locally and abroad.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THOUGH its top trading partners continue to stick with the fair value or mark to market principle set by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), China remains unwilling to embrace the principle. Though Beijing, keen to nurture its companies into global corporate champions, has been bringing its Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises (ASBE) closer to the IFRS it won’t require listed firms to use the fair value approach – “not for the foreseeable future,” Dickson Leung, partner at the Beijing offices of Lehman Brown has told Accountancy Age.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

JAPAN’S 98th airport, Mt Fuji Shizuoka Airport, is set to open on June 4, 2009: despite the launch being delayed twice. The initial March opening was moved back because the owner of 150 nearby trees refused to chop them down or even shorten them.…

BY MARK ROWE

INDONESIA’S paint industry appears likely to weather the worst of the global economic downturn. Indeed, Indonesia may be one of the few major countries where sales of paint for industrial and domestic use will rise. In January 2009, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono forecast economic growth of 6.2% for the year in a budget that revealed capital spending plans that were 14.3% up on 2008.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy; PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; DOMINIQUE PATTON, in Beijing; KARRYN CARTELLE, in Tokyo; and LUCY JONES, in Dallas

Where is the best cutting edge research for the textile and clothing industry? Which are the best design schools, the best fabric developers and the best industrial innovators in the sector?…

BY MARK ROWE

THE PSYCHOLOGY of colour has fascinated philosophers and scientists down the ages, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the world’s paint companies devote much of their time to working out why consumers prefer certain colours for certain everyday items – and why these tastes vary so much across the world.…

BY DINAH GARDNER

THERE has not been a military clash over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea since 1988 when China and Vietnam engaged in a brief naval spat over three reefs. Dozens of sailors perished in that conflict.…

BY WILLIAM BARNES

A WOMAN brushes past palm fronds into the pastel lights of a busy Bangkok salon. At the counter she turns what looks to be a flawless, ivory face towards a woman in a vaguely medical uniform: "Aiyee! I am getting so old.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 attacks on the US resulted in a raft of regulations to curb terrorist financing, but seven years on Al Qaeda is still at large, has adapted to the new regulatory environment to raise funds, and morphed into an international terrorist Hydra.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE THAILAND Tobacco Monopoly (TTM) has sets its sights on securing export markets in eastern Europe, planning to launch new brands in the region, with a special focus on Poland and Russia. Looking to offset declines in sales in the Thai domestic market, the state-owned trading company noted that cigarette trading restrictions were weaker in parts of eastern Europe than in Thailand.…

BY JULIAN RYALL, JAMES BURNS, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA and PHILIPPA JONES

"IT is better to be beautiful than to be good," wrote Oscar Wilde in ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. Many cosmetics and personal care companies worldwide may still believe this statement to be true, but being, or at least claiming to be, "good" has become an essential part of the sector’s public image.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

OIL-REFINING and transport industries operating within the European Union (EU) will be under further pressure to produce cleaner fuels and less polluting vehicles through a new air quality directive setting strict limits for ultra-fine PM 2.5 particulate matter in air.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

THE AUTOPARTS and automotive industries are calling for far tighter world-wide enforcement against counterfeiting, as influential countries meet in Geneva to thrash out more details of a global Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

First mooted by the Office of the US Trade Representative in October 2007- and pursued aggressively by the US Chamber of Commerce – Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates have since come on board to try to develop ACTA.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A GROUP of influential countries are debating forging an international anti-counterfeiting of goods agreement, fighting fake food and drink products. Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States have been discussing the idea.…

BY KARRYN CARTELLE

SEPARATED by a short plane ride across the Tasman Sea, Australia and New Zealand are clearly two distinct countries – in the physical sense – but when it comes to the cosmetics industry in these neighbouring lands it is clear that things are merging into one.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A POWERFUL international bloc is debating forging an international anti-counterfeiting of goods agreement insisting upon cooperation over fighting fake drinks products. Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States have been discussing the idea in Geneva.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE NUMBER of counterfeit personal care products seized by European Union (EU) customs teams fell by a quarter in 2008, compared to 2007, the latest European Commission figures claim. There were still many fake cosmetics, perfumes and personal soaps discovered however – 4.58 million items, in 2,134 cases however.…

By Keith Nuthall

WE all know about Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. These social utility websites allow us all to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, exchange messages, post pictures and play silly games – such as throwing a digital sheep at someone or giving them a pixellated hellraiser cocktail.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A POWERFUL international bloc is debating forging an international anti-counterfeiting of goods agreement insisting upon cooperation over fighting fake food products. Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States have been discussing the idea in Geneva.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A GROUP of influential countries are debating forging an international anti-counterfeiting of goods agreement, which would see them cooperate against the production and trade in fake tobacco products. Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States have been discussing the idea in Geneva.…

BY KARRYN CARTELLE

AUSTRALIA is currently ranked as the eighth largest market in the world – third largest within the Asia-Pacific region after Japan and Hong Kong – in terms of its total stock market capitalisation of AUD$1.63 trillion (USD$1.53 trillion) in 2007 (World Federation of Exchanges figures).…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi

THE SUDDEN and phenomenal rise in the cost of raw materials over the past year for the US$2.6 billion Indian paint and coating industry has made business conditions tough for this formerly thriving sector. It is unlikely sustain the 18% growth rate achieved last year.…

By Alan Osborn

The Paris-based educational consulting company Eduniversal, part of the SMBG group, has published a list of 1,000 top business schools ranking them by their "capacity for international influence" and grouped into nine geographic regions. SMBG, which specialises in reference services and publications for educational and higher educational institutions, claims that the Eduniversal initiative is "the first stone of a global federation of education."…

BY ALAN OSBORN

YOU would think it would be possible to ensure that liquids capable of making explosives are not taken on to aircraft without at the same time requiring the confiscation of countless bottles of duty-free from passengers at airports every day.…

BY DINAH GARDNER

SINGAPORE may rank highly on global anti-corruption ratings league tables but it has been coming under considerable fire recently for its strict bank secrecy laws. Last October, in the wake of the brutal crackdown on protests in Myanmar, the island state was accused of being a money laundering hub for top junta officials.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Damascus and Beirut, and HELENA FLUSFELDER, in Jerusalem

INTRODUCTION AND THE GULF

THE DENIM sector in the Middle East is as diverse as it is fragmented, with strong demand in the Gulf and Israel for major brand names and the latest trends, while in the less economically developed parts of the Levant international brands are of less importance than style.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FOOD and drink manufacturing industries could get a big shot in the arm this year, if the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) seven-year-old Doha Development Round reaches a successful conclusion, as planned. If it does, all import duties on their products traded worldwide would be significantly reduced and there is a chance many of them could be eliminated altogether.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

WHEN hostilities resumed in Sri Lanka’s long-smouldering civil war in July 2006, fish production in the country’s eastern province that year dropped two-thirds to 26,680 metric tonnes from 72,580mt in 2003, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) seven-year-old Doha Development Round maybe drawing towards a close, the cosmetics, soap and perfumery industries might start considering that a final deal may lead to the elimination of most import duties on their products, worldwide.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) seven-year-old Doha Development Round maybe drawing towards a close, the plastics industry might start considering that a final deal may lead to the elimination of most import duties on its products worldwide.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FISH and seafood processing industry could get a big shot in the arm this year, if the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) seven-year-old Doha Development Round reaches a successful conclusion, as planned. If it does, all import duties on fish and fish products traded worldwide would be significantly reduced and there is a chance they could be eliminated altogether.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IT is a curious quirk of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that it considers fish and fish products to be industrial goods, while almost anything else edible is regulated as the fruit of agriculture – but this anomaly may help the fishing sector this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AIRPORTS Council International (ACI Europe) has warned air passengers arriving in the European Union (EU), Switzerland, Norway and Iceland with duty free alcohol purchased at non-EU airports or non-EU airlines still cannot take these products onto connecting flights.…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas; ALAN OSBORN, in London; KARRYN CARTELLE, in Tokyo; BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg; PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut; RACHEL JONES, in Caracas; MARK ROWE; and KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round being slow to proceed since its 2001 launch – and only this year approaching something resembling and end game – free traders wanting to encourage global commerce have looked to bilateral and regional trade deals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) seven-year-old Doha Development Round maybe drawing towards a close, the pharmaceutical industry might start to consider that a final deal could lead to the elimination of most import duties on drugs and medicines, traded worldwide.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) seven-year-old Doha Development Round maybe drawing towards a close, the paint industry might start to consider that a final deal may well lead to the elimination of most import duties on paints and coatings, worldwide.…

BY KEITH NOYAHR, in Colombo

SRI Lanka’s Tamil Tigers have stepped up commercial crime across continents to fund what they call the "final war" of separation, now the formal ceasefire with the govern,ent has ended. But, the foundation to pursue such sophisticated crime was laid during Sri Lanka’s highly internationalised peace process, reports Keith Noyahr from Colombo.…

BY MARK GODFREY, in Beijing

A YEAR after China began enforcing its Law of the People’s Republic of China on Anti-Money Laundering – effective from January 2007 – observers are wary about the ability of the country’s understaffed enforcement agencies to keep pace with huge inflows of questionable funds into China’s booming economy.…

BY MARK GODFREY, in Beijing

LONGYAN Cigarette Factory reflects the kind of good fortune and ambition which characterised China’s tobacco industry in 2007. Located in the city of the same name in southeastern Fujian province, the factory’s almost US$1 billion revenues for 2007 are a 24.5% increase on figures for the previous year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SINGAPORE’S Changi airport has become the first airport approved by the European Commission as having sufficient security controls on the sale of duty-free liquids to allow transferring passengers to retain their purchases when catching connecting flights within the European Union (EU).…

BY KARRYN CARTELLE

THE SIGNING of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between South Korea and the United States is expected to fuel an already booming seafood trade. And with the Koreans having a host of other FTAs in the works, it appears this seafood-producing nation will use free trade agreements to push its seafood products to every continent.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

Brussels

A TEAM of European and Asian researchers has linked more than 40,000 computers across 45 countries to speed studies into developing an anti-viral drug that can defeat bird flu. Funded by the European Union’s (EU) Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) project, the computing grid is analysing the potential of more than 500,000 drug-like molecules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A TEAM of European and Asian researchers has linked more than 40,000 computers across 45 countries to speed studies into developing an anti-viral drug that can defeat bird flu. Funded by the European Union’s (EU) Enabling Grids for E-sciencE (EGEE) project, the computing grid is analysing more than 500,000 drug-like molecules.…

BY MARK GODFREY, in Yunnan province, China

"MEDIOCRITY and non-merit are wrong!" The resolute call to excellence in Chinese characters greets visitors the lobby of the twenty floor hemispherical office tower to which visitors to Yuxi Hongta cigarette plant.

Run by the state-owned Hongta group, the Yuxi plant hires a staff of 2,500 to produce an annual 2.5 million cases of cigarettes, including iconic local brands like Yuxi, Hongmei and Hongtashan, as well as Imperial Tobacco’s West brand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE USA’S National Science Foundation has tried to put a positive gloss on the latest global comparative scientific publishing figures, saying that although the American industry is less prolific than that in Europe, it is still more important.…

BY MARK ROWE

WEATHER-resistant and anti-corrosion coatings and sealants are being developed with the aid of nanotechnology that will significantly enhance the lifetime operation of buildings and property across the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. Most of the developments are expected to be particularly welcome in the Asia-Pacific region, where the hot and humid climate imposes a more onerous regime on paints and coatings.…

BY KARRYN CARTELLE

AS paint and coatings demand abroad looks increasingly enticing, players in the South Korean paint and coatings industry are expanding their global reach, seeking to improve brand recognition and their sales prospects.

With limited growth potential predicted among players in the mature South Korea domestic market, companies are also looking to emerging paint and coatings technologies and other areas within the Asia-Pacific region to drive sales forward.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE
SLATED European Union (EU) free trade agreements (FTA) with South Korea, India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will dramatically boost commercial activity in the leather industry if the agreements are passed, claims a study by Copenhagen Economics for the European Commission.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

SLATED European Union (EU) free trade agreements (FTA) with South Korea, India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will dramatically boost commercial activity in the leather industry if the agreements are passed, claims a study by Copenhagen Economics for the European Commission.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

SLATED European Union (EU) free trade agreements (FTA) with South Korea, India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries would dramatically boost commercial activity in the clothing, textile and apparel sectors if the agreements are passed, European Commission analysis says.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE
SLATED European Union (EU) free trade agreements (FTA) with South Korea, India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries would dramatically boost commercial activity in the clothing, textile and apparel sectors if the agreements are passed, European Commission analysis says.…

BY MARK ROWE
INTERNATIONAL cosmetics companies are increasingly casting an eye over south-east Asia. In the middle of the first decade of the 21st Century it would appear to offer all things to all companies.

With Asia (including nearby China) representing half of the world’s population and an economic growth rate ranging between 5 and 10%, many companies are interested in entering or developing these markets.…

BY MARK ROWE
AN EXHIBITION centre in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou will next month (March) be the venue for Asia’s largest personal care trade conference. Manufacturers, formulators, scientists and suppliers will converge to promote new ranges to what is now recognised as being the world’s most burgeoning market: China.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi

"REFINERY Process Outsourcing" or simply RPO is an exciting buzzword in the otherwise hard-pressed Indian petroleum industry, as the term represents newly found and highly profitable venture of operating refineries to fulfil surging international demand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A COOPERATION deal has been signed by seven of the world’s richest development banks to squeeze fraudsters out of projects they fund and oversee. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the African Development Bank Group, Asian Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank Group have agreed a common anti-fraud strategy.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

WITH the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the midst of an unprecedented construction boom, the paint sector is flourishing with contracts of up to half a million dollars underway, 200% growth in fire-resistance paints, and over 16% growth predicted for the sector as a whole this year.…

BY JANE MOIR, in Hong Kong

TAIWAN’S paint and coatings industry is holding steady as the economy remains solid and demand for high-quality products increases, although smaller players are finding it tougher to compete in a market dominated by a few big firms.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London

EUROPEAN Union (EU) lawmakers are stepping up the development of a legally binding technical standard to ensure the safe operation of hydrogen fuel cells in road vehicles. The European Commission has begun a public consultation (which runs until September 15) on the matter, seeking to ensure that the rapid technical development of hydrogen power by automakers is not held back by safety fears and conflicting national safety rules.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

AMERICAN researchers have found that paint manufacturers continue to produce and sell consumer paints with dangerously high levels of lead in countries with weak environmental health controls. A University of Cincinnati study, to be published in the journal Environmental Research, found 75% of all tested paint in India, China and Malaysia contained high levels of lead, with more than 50% of samples containing levels 30 times higher than the permitted US standard.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

LEAD manufacturers may be able to increase sales by offering their product to paint companies in developing countries without restrictions on consumer paint production, US researchers have indicated.

The University of Cincinnati analysed 80 consumer paint samples of various colours and brands from India, Malaysia, China and Singapore to determine the amount of lead and compare them with the US’s stringent standards.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

AMERICAN researchers say paint manufacturers continue to produce and sell consumer paints with dangerously high levels of lead in countries with weak environmental health controls. A University of Cincinnati study found 75% of all tested paint in India, China and Malaysia contained high levels of lead, with more than 50% of samples 30 times higher than the permitted US standard.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has approved linking the European Union’s (EU) design protection system to that run globally by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). This will formally tie the EU’s design protection regulation to WIPO’s Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement concerning the international registration of industrial designs.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, in New Delhi

India – US$692 billion economy, 10th largest in the world and growing at 8% annually – has finally put an official anti-money laundering public organisation in place. Its Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), as required by the Prevention of Money Laundering Act-2002 (PMLA), which came into force in July 2005, has become fully operational.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, in London

THE POLITICAL institutions of the European Union (EU) are debating how to join an international system that would protect EU manufacturers’ design rights across a wide range of non-European countries in one simple operation. In an initiative that could help auto manufacturers secure the creative aspects of their vehicle design from plagiarism, the European Commission wants to link the EU’s existing Community Design system, (which protects manufacturers’ designs within the 25 EU member states), to a global design registration system run by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a UN agency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NEW tough fuel and road transport pollution standards have been proposed for the European Union (EU) by the European Commission, removing a loophole enabling sports utility vehicles (SUVs) to be covered by looser emission limits currently allowed for commercial vans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) general council has permanently amended the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to make permanent a 2003 waiver helping poor countries obtain generic medicines during health emergencies. The TRIPS amendment enables any WTO member country to export generic pharmaceuticals made under a compulsory licence to assist countries lacking their own manufacturing capacity and whose nurses and doctors would otherwise be unable to deal with a serious disease problem.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has warned “bottlenecks in Indian and Pakistan airspace” are being caused by “route and level restrictions and limitations within the Kabul FIR”, in Afghanistan. The problem has caused traffic intended for the Kabul-controlled area to be diverted via Iran.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ASSOCIATION of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has agreed how its member governments should cooperate in the event of a major disaster, such as another Tsunami or earthquake. The international organisation, which includes such major countries as Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, has approved a comprehensive deal that lays down how they should mitigate disaster damage, reducing the insurer payouts in a region increasingly interested in insurance.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MINERALS and mines ministers of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed wide-ranging cooperation plans to promote their respective mining sectors. At the first of a series of ministerial meetings, (in Sarawak, Malaysia), an ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan (AMCAP) 2005-2010, containing 19 actions was approved.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MINES and minerals ministers of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have agreed wide-ranging cooperation plans to promote their respective mining sectors. At the first of a series of ministerial meetings, (in Sarawak, Malaysia), an ASEAN Minerals Cooperation Action Plan (AMCAP) 2005-2010, containing 19 actions was approved.…