Indonesia’s Press Council has taken a step further toward producing a regulation that will require big internet firms in Indonesia to pay news outlets for content. Press Council head of inter-institutional relations Agus Sudibyo handed on Wednesday an academic paper on regulating publishers’ rights to Communications and Information Technology Minister Johnny G Plate. The paper will provide the policy groundwork for a draft regulation on the matter to be submitted to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo. A first draft was submitted to the ministry in October last year. “This is a step further to realize the regulation of publishers’ rights in…
Author: Asia News Network
South Korea’s central bank on April 14 raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.5 per cent, with an official warning of growing inflationary pressure and slower-than-expected economic expansion. The Bank of Korea’s (BOK) six-member monetary policy board unanimously voted to raise the base rate to 1.5 per cent – the highest level since July 2019 – during a rate-setting meeting. It marks the central bank’s fourth pandemic-era rate hike, dating to August last year when the BOK raised its record-low rate of 0.5 per cent by a quarter percentage point. The latest rate hike comes…
Vietnam has among the lowest costs of doing business in its neighbourhood, with only Cambodia and Myanmar being cheaper, business transformation consultancy TMX has said in a report. “The Great Supply Chain Migration – Breaking down the Cost of Doing Business in Asia” says Vietnam has average operating costs of $79,280-209,087 a month. Its average warehouse rental is the fourth lowest at $5 per square metre per month behind only Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia. This trend is expected to continue since the country is seeing a lot of warehouse construction. In the report, experts also assess Vietnam as having the…
Many Vietnamese banks have announced plans to increase capital strongly in the ongoing season of general meetings of shareholders (GMS) this year. The capital increase plans mainly include paying dividends in shares, making private placement to foreign strategic investors or employee stock ownership plans (ESOP). SeABank was the latest to announce plans to increase its charter capital from 16.59 trillion dong to 22.69 trillion ($742 million to $991 million) in 2022. The bank’s capital increase, which is aimed to continually improve its financial capacity, supplement capital for business activities and achieve set growth goals, will come from issuing shares to…
A rule requiring Japanese companies to report their performance to the government every three months is likely to be scrapped, the Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. Companies that raise funds from investors through the issuance of stocks or bonds are required to submit quarterly reports to the finance ministry. However, the business community has called for a review of the practice, citing the heavy administrative burden as it overlaps with the quarterly financial briefings listed companies have to submit to bourses such as the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It has also been claimed that quarterly reports might encourage businesses to pursue short-term…
The decision on who will be finance minister Lawrence Wong’s deputy will be made later by him in due course, said Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on April 16. He was speaking at a press conference at the Istana two days after Wong, 49, was named the leader of the ruling People’s Action Party’s (PAP) fourth-generation (4G) team, following a consultation exercise led by former party chairman Khaw Boon Wan. PM Lee said the exercise was to choose the leader of the 4G team. “It was not to choose his deputy. It was not to choose a 5G leader.…
Thailand’s Democrat Party has found itself mired in a sex scandal with its deputy leader, who was expected to quit all his party posts last week, facing three counts of sexual assault charges. Four women have filed complaints against Prinn Panitchpakdi and police are seeking an arrest warrant for him, said Police Major General Trairong Piwpan, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau. The scandal involving the 44-year-old prominent politician erupted after an 18-year-old student alleged that he had sexually harassed her at a rooftop bar in Bangkok on April 11, according to local media reports. Prinn, who is the…
Whether the members of K-pop sensation BTS should be granted military exemptions has become the talk of the town, with the final date for the enlistment of the seven-member group’s oldest member, Jin, near the end of the year. In South Korea, nearly all able-bodied men in their 20s are obliged to serve in the military for about 18 months. There is an exemption and alternative service system where athletes and artists recognized to have promoted national prestige – winning designated international awards or national contests – are granted an exemption. While this system has largely limited the awards to…
One of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s campaign promises is to transform South Korea into a leader in STEM research. The promise follows decades of presidential efforts to promote science and technology as part of the broader economic and social development plans. Presidents have come and gone, but each effort has built on the other, leaving the country in a strong position to achieve the president-elect’s promise. The quantification of academic activity has produced various indices of research output in English. One of the most prestigious is the Nature Index, a measure of locations and institutions producing high-quality research according to publication…
When Malaysia’s National Property Information Centre (Napic) released its overhang numbers for 2021 recently, it revealed that the Southeast Asian country is still far from resolving an issue that has been plaguing the property market for years. Not only are the numbers up on a year-on-year basis, but the statistics also showed that the level of overhang in the country is at its highest since 2018. This, says PPC International managing director Siders Sittampalam, is a cause for concern. “The level of overhang is even higher than when they were during pre-pandemic levels,” he tells StarBizWeek. Despite the higher year-on-year…