Nikkei Asian Review
China's chill hits banks' bottom lines
Unable to shrug off its disappointing performance of the preceding year, Asia’s financial sector registered a second straight year of decline in its bottom line in 2016. Net profit for the sector came in at $173.1 billion, a decline of 8.8% compared to 2015 and ...
The magic in Myanmar's numbers
Societies often treat numbers with care, even reverence. They may be mystical, magical, symbolic or simply a mnemonic tool. During World War II, the combination of the safe in the German Embassy in Turkey was Hitler’s birthday. Many years ago, the combination code of the ...
ADB report poses $26tn question for Asia
Back in 2009, the Asian Development Bank estimated the region would need $8 trillion worth of infrastructure investment between 2010 and 2020. Now, for the 15 years from 2016 to 2030, the bank reckons $26 trillion is in order to sustain current levels of growth. ...
Fast-growing Cambodian bank eyes cross-border growth
When In Channy took over the Association of Cambodian Local Economic Development Agencies (Acleda) in 1993 he found himself managing an odd assortment of loan officers. “I was from a refugee camp in Thailand, some of my colleagues used to work for the government, and ...
Energy giant PTT upbeat on Trump's oil pipeline plan revival
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to revive plans for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline could spur Thai energy giant PTT to resume development of an oil sands project in the Canadian province of Alberta, the state-owned company’s chief executive said Wednesday. Just after taking ...
Peninsula chain adds carefully chosen links in Myanmar, elsewhere
As it expands into Myanmar and Turkey, the operator of the Peninsula hotel chain is sticking with its signature formula of opening in the best of the best locations. The Peninsula Yangon will form a key part of a broader redevelopment project around the historic ...
Nickel market roiled by supply outlooks in Indonesia, Philippines
The nickel market has been undergoing wild swings this year, pummeled by Indonesia’s move to relax an export ban but later buoyed by expectations of a supply decrease from the Philippines. The Philippines said last Thursday that it will close mines responsible for roughly half of the ...
Expansion work starts at Myanmar's Thilawa industrial park
An expansion project at Myanmar’s first modern industrial park began Tuesday, as the government concluded negotiations related to resettling residents of the development area. The Thilawa special economic zone, which came about as a public-private effort between Japan and Myanmar, will undergo a roughly 100-hectare ...
Myanmar lures visa, other foreign credit card issuers
Overseas credit card companies are looking to Myanmar as the country shifts from cash to card payments. U.S.-based Visa teamed up with Myanmar’s Co-operative Bank (CB Bank) on Jan. 17 to issue credit cards with limits of between 4 million kyat and 5 million kyat($2,946 and ...
As America retreats, Asia is the last hope for free trade
Fukunari Kimura, a professor at Keio University and an expert in Asian trade, indicated in a Nikkei interview that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a proposed free trade agreement, should be a stronghold of free trade, since the Trans-Pacific Partnership has suffered a setback with ...
