Scrapping stock trading link means a missed opportunity
HAVING scrapped the high-speed rail (HSR) link with Singapore, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed announced last week that he now wants to review the planned stock market trading link between the two countries, which is supposed to be operational by the end of the year.
Banker to central bankers
EVEN before he turned 50, Agustin Carstens was a veteran at handling economic and financial crises, as a central banker and finance minister.
COMMENTARY: TRADE WAR LOOMS
Trump's unfair tariffs will achieve little, and hurt many
WITH the ink barely dry on the executive order authorising tariffs on steel and aluminium, US President Donald Trump has dramatically upped the ante by threatening to impose a draconian set of protectionist measures on China.
The EU's straight-shooting trade chief
WHILE pursuing her degree in political science at Gothenburg University in Sweden in the early 1990s, the European Union's Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström financed her studies by working as a psychiatric nurse for three years...
Talent crunch will set back innovation
WHAT'S the No. 1 item on the wish list of local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)?...
Intrapreneurs in big firms bloom when bosses supply the mulch
BIG companies are not known to be entrepreneurial. Many of them don't know, or don't believe, they have entrepreneurs in their midst. Indeed, they are often quicker to stamp them out than seek them out...
Minding the skills gap
THIRTEENTH out of 63. That's how Singapore ranks in the latest World Talent Report, released recently by the Swiss Business School IMD. Not a bad showing, you might say, which is true. There is good news but there's also bad news. The good news is that Singapore scores high (2nd) on its...
Behavioural economics has far-reaching effects
ALL his working life, Richard Thaler, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics last month, said he has been pleading with his fellow economists that they should be studying real people, not the idealised, so-called "rational" beings around which much of mainstream economics revolves. ...
INSIDE VIEW
Of red carpets and bilateral deals
1 What do you think was the most remarkable thing that happened recently?
Global economic recovery is now strong & broad-based: IMF chief
THE global economy is enjoying a strong and broad-based recovery, and will grow even faster in 2018, but there are still risks that need attention, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde.
COMMENTARY
Jerome Powell - a worthy successor to Janet Yellen
AMONG all the high-level appointments US President Donald Trump has made - many of them of questionable - his choice of the next chairman of the US Federal Reserve is probably the most likely to ensure continuity of policy and operating style. Although he is a Republican, 64 year old Jerome Powell...
Jerome Powell - a worthy successor to Janet Yellen
AMONG all the high-level appointments US President Donald Trump has made - many of them of questionable - his choice of the next Chairman of the US Federal Reserve is probably the most likely to ensure continuity of policy and operating style.
Innovator-mentor
TAIZO SON vividly remembers one of his earliest introductions to the wonders of the Internet. As a college student in the early 1990s, he met one of the founders of Yahoo!, Jerry Yang.
India's richest state, Maharashtra, undergoing major makeover
INDIA'S richest state, Maharashtra, which includes the country's financial capital Mumbai is in the throes of a major makeover - and the results are already showing, in the form of rising foreign investment and buoyant growth...
Airbnb mixes business with leisure
INITIALLY targeted at mainly tourists, the home-sharing platform Airbnb is now becoming increasingly popular among business travellers in the Asia-Pacific (APAC), according to David Holyoke, the company's global head of business travel...
SUPPORTING BUSINESS: COMMENTARY
A merger to better serve Singapore Inc
UP until around the turn of the century, the conventional wisdom about corporate evolution was that companies should establish themselves in their domestic market first, and then venture overseas. In the 1990s therefore, it would have been typical for a seasoned tycoon to advise a young...
Airbnb offers concessions to get home-sharing rules relaxed
HOME-sharing platform Airbnb is willing to let building managements in Singapore access its booking system to monitor the comings and goings of Airbnb guests, according to the company's co-founder and chief strategy officer Nathan Blecharczyk. ...
Turkish PM hails FTA with Singapore
TURKEY'S Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has hailed the Turkey-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (TSFTA), which was ratified by the Turkish parliament on Aug 16, suggesting that it could lead to a boom in bilateral trade between the two countries...
India's economy: a story of success, failure, hope
ON THE eve of India's independence from Britain 70 years ago, The Times of India reported "frenzied enthusiasm" and "wild scenes of jubilation" across the land. But despite the triumph of having overthrown colonial rule, the country was in a dire state. It had just been...
The prescient iconoclast
MEGHNAD Desai is a polymath of the social sciences. He has been a professor at the London School of Economics. He has also been a politician, affiliated to Britain's Labour party and a member of the UK House of Lords since 1991. ...
COMMENTARY
A milestone in the disruption of retail - for now
TODAY, Singapore's e-commerce witnesses its big bang...
INSIDE VIEW
Singapore property at a turning point?
What was the most significant development this week?
COMMENTARY
India's GST could lead to chaos, but then be a game changer
TODAY, India introduces a goods and services tax (GST) in what is billed as its greatest tax reform since independence. But a closer look suggests that this has the potential makings of a transformational idea on paper botched in practice. The tax, as designed, will be so complex to administer that...
