Search Results for: Singapore

International commodity trading conglomerate Trafigura has been fined almost USD127 million in a US court after admitting to bribing officials at Brazilian state oil company Petrobras between 2003 and 2014 to gain and retain business, violating the USA Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).…

Food innovation centres (FICs) have become a feature of the global food production landscape over the past few decades and now play a significant role in the research and development of edible products.

The first purpose built FICs started to appear in the final quarter of the 20th century, with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the US’s Midwest Corn Belt, an early mover in this field, opening its Food Processing Center in 1983 (1).…

Anti-money laundering (AML) has developed in a top-down manner, with global standards prompting legislation and hence policies and programmes. But the development of AML utilities, sharing CDD resources, has been more bottom up, with programmes developed through trial and error. And while they can give obliged entities more autonomy in how to comply with resulting AML and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) demands, development has been slow and uneven.…

We asked the experts

Even senior experts in AML/CFT need to keep reading and watching to keep abreast of the ever-evolving global trends in the field – after all, curiosity and wide learning is how they gained their prominence in the first place.…

Singapore is to force telecommunications operators to share with banks some costs of phishing scams when criminals used their networks for text or WhatsApp messages, from December 16. Jointly developed by the city state’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), this Shared Responsibility Framework (SRF) establishes the responsibilities of phone operators and financial institutions in preventing phishing.…

Chinese brands selling knitwear and other apparel are thriving overseas, thanks to aggressive expansion policies tapping into young consumers’ desire for fashionable, yet affordable, fast fashion. Following the example of now Singapore-based fast fashion retail giant Shein, which reported revenue of USD23 billion in 2022 and until that year was based in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, China, Chinese clothing companies are looking to foreign markets to maintain strong growth.…

As construction ramps up, paint and coatings companies are eyeing lucrative opportunities in Indonesia’s new capital Nusantara, with several recent project launches promising a significant boost to the industry.

Outgoing President Joko Widodo recently inaugurated several key projects in Nusantara, including the emerging city’s international airport, hospitals, schools and housing.…

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has appointed a new president – Elisa de Anda Madrazo, of Mexico, as the global AML body faces the launch of its next and fifth mutual evaluation round (MER) later this year (2024).

Ms de Anda Madrazo, FATF vice president from July 2020 to June 2023, will take over from Singapore’s T.…

Six months after the European Union (EU) and the Philippines announced their intention to explore relaunching negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA), observers in this south-east Asian outsourcing hub are optimistic that the FTA will be realised. But they are prepared to haggle, seeing the impact on Philippines on garment exports as depending on the detailed agreed text.…

China still enjoys its dominance in the global garment supply chain, despite the “friendshoring” and “nearshoring” strategies used by western companies leveraging the geopolitical tension between China and the West in recent years.

A key reason is China’s longstanding track-record as a reliable clothing and textile supplier to global markets: “China is one of our top five largest sourcing markets.…