President Xi says China to set up stock exchange in Beijing - The Straits Times

BEIJING (BLOOMBERG, REUTERS) - China's President Xi Jinping on Thursday (Sept 2) said the country would set up a stock exchange in its capital, Beijing, to serve small and medium-sized companies.

China’s two major stock exchanges are in the financial hub of Shanghai and in the southern city of Shenzhen, on its border with Hong Kong. 

“We will continue to support the innovation-driven development of small and medium-sized enterprises by deepening the reform of the New Third Board and setting up the Beijing Stock Exchange as the primary platform serving innovation-oriented SMEs,” Mr Xi said in a video address at the opening of the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS). 

Mr Xi did not give a date for the establishment of the new board or any further details, but said it would “provide a platform for innovative small and medium-sized enterprises”.

The National Equities Exchange And Quotations, an existing Beijing-based exchange which launched in 2013, would be “reformed", he said.

Beijing has said it wants to raise the share of equity financing in its bank-dominated financial system as part of a campaign to reduce debt-levels in its economy.

The country launched a new exchange in Shanghai known as the “STAR Market” in 2019 to provide more financing for tech companies.

“Deepening the reform of the New Third Board and establishing the Beijing Stock Exchange is an important measure to implement our national innovation-driven development strategy and continue cultivating new drivers of development,” the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement after the speech.

“It is also an important measure to deepen structural reform of the financial supply side.” 

The New Third Board is another name for the NEEQ.
  
Mr Xi did not comment on any of the government’s recent regulatory moves, which are part of a broad campaign recently to rein in Internet platform and education companies which have rocked financial markets in recent months. 

During the speech to a government-run summit on trade in services, Mr Xi emphasised China’s gradual opening to foreign investment in service sectors such as finance and healthcare, where Beijing sees the introduction of foreign competition as a key part of modernising its economy.  

Mr Xi said that China would continue opening services by “exploring” setting up a designated innovation zone for trade in services and via a nationwide “negative list”.

Such lists have previously been issued by China to name proscribed sectors for investment, with investments in other areas being allowed. 

“China is willing to work with all parties to continue open cooperation,” Mr Xi said, adding that China would “share the development opportunities of trade in services, so as to promote the recovery and growth of the world economy”.

The collapse in international tourism, which has plunged globally due to the pandemic, has hit the global trade in services. 

China’s imports and exports of services dropped 15.7 per cent year on year to 4.6 trillion yuan (S$957 billion) in 2020 mainly due to the sharp decline in tourism, according to official figures.

Because Chinese tourists spent much more abroad than overseas tourists spend within China, the country has run a persistent deficit in the services trade, exceeding 1.5 trillion yuan in 2019. 

That deficit has narrowed in recent years due to rapid growth in service exports, in part due to the overseas success of technology companies such as TikTok owner ByteDance. 

China tightly restricts access to foreign companies in some sectors such as digital services, effectively banning overseas social networking platforms such as Facebook from serving consumers in the country. 

The country has more restrictive policies on services trade than the average seen in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), according to an index compiled by the club of mostly wealthy economies. 

However, China has strategically opened some sectors in recent years and its services trade restrictiveness has seen one of the largest declines of any country since 2014, according to the OECD.

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2021-09-02 12:39:13Z
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113 unlinked COVID-19 cases among 187 new locally transmitted infections in Singapore - CNA

SINGAPORE: Singapore reported 187 new locally transmitted COVID-19 infections as of noon on Thursday (Sep 2), including 113 infections with no links to previous cases.

This is the third consecutive day where unlinked locally transmitted cases have surpassed linked cases.

Fifty-six of the new infections were linked to previous cases and had been placed on quarantine.

Another 18 linked infections were detected through surveillance testing, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) in its preliminary daily update.

Among the new cases, three people above the age of 70 were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated and at risk of serious illness, said MOH.

There were also four imported cases, bringing the total number of new cases on Thursday to 191.

This is the highest number of locally transmitted cases since Aug 7 last year, when there were 236 infections among dormitory residents and the community.

MOH will release further updates on the COVID-19 situation in Singapore on Thursday night.

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2021-09-02 10:23:00Z
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Taliban preparing to reveal new Afghan government amid economic turmoil - CNA

The supreme Taliban leader has three deputies: Mawlavi Yaqoob, son of the movement's late founder Mullah Omar; Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the powerful Haqqani network; and Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the founding members of the group.

An unelected leadership council is how the Taliban ran their first government which brutally enforced a radical form of Sharia law from 1996 until its ouster by US-led forces in 2001.

The Taliban have tried to present a more moderate face to the world since they swept aside the US-backed government and returned to power last month, promising to protect human rights and refrain from reprisals against old enemies.

But the United States, the European Union and others have cast doubt on such assurances, saying formal recognition of the new government - and the economic aid that would flow from that - is contingent on action.

"We're not going to take them at their word, we're going to take them at their deeds," US Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland told a news briefing on Wednesday.

"So they've got a lot to prove based on their own track record ... now they also have a lot to gain, if they can run Afghanistan, far, far differently than they did the last time they were in power."

Gunnar Wiegand, the European Commission's managing director for Asia and the Pacific, said the European Union would not formally recognise the Islamist group until it met conditions including the formation of an inclusive government, respect for human rights and unfettered access for aid workers.

"There is no doubt among (EU) member states and in the G7 context: We need to engage with the Taliban, we need to communicate with the Taliban, we need to influence the Taliban, we need to make use of the leverages which we have," he told members of the European Parliament in Brussels.

"But we will not rush into recognising this new formation, nor into establishing official relations."

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2021-09-02 05:14:46Z
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Taliban says it has surrounded Afghan resistance fighters, calls for peace - CNA

The Taliban have declared an amnesty for all Afghans who worked with foreign forces during the past two decades but crowds fearing reprisals have continued to flock to the borders in an attempt to flee the land-locked country.

Motaqi said the Taliban had made many efforts to negotiate with leaders of the opposition forces in Panjshir, "but unfortunately, unfortunately, without any result".

NO REASON TO FIGHT

Taliban forces are making preparations around the four sides of the Panjshir valley and there is no reason to fight, Motaqi said, adding that the anti-Taliban forces should keep in mind that it had not been possible to defeat the Taliban even with the support of NATO and US forces.

"But we are still trying to ensure that there is no war and that the issue in Panjshir is resolved calmly and peacefully," Motaqi said.

The remarks came after at least seven Taliban fighters were killed during an attempt to advance into the valley, according to two resistance leaders.

A spokesman for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, which groups the forces in the Panjshir valley, said on Wednesday Taliban forces had launched an offensive two days ago, and had been attacking in three or four different areas but had so far been pushed back.

The spokesman said he had no fresh details on any casualties.

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2021-09-01 15:48:43Z
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New era for Afghanistan starts with long queues, rising prices - CNA

Taliban officials have said the problems will ease once a new government is in place to restore order to the market and have appealed to other countries to maintain economic relations. But the structural problems run deep.

Even when its economy was floating on a tide of foreign money, growth was not keeping pace with the rise in Afghanistan's population.

Apart from illegal narcotics, the country has no significant exports to generate revenue, and aid, which accounted for more than 40 per cent of economic output, has abruptly disappeared.

A new central bank chief has been appointed but bankers outside Afghanistan said it would be difficult to get the financial system running again without the specialists who joined the exodus out of Kabul.

"I don't know how they will manage it because all the technical staff, including senior management, has left the country," one banker said.

In a sign of the pressure on Afghanistan's currency reserves, the Taliban have announced a ban on taking dollars and valuable artefacts out of the country and said anyone intercepted would have their goods confiscated.

Some US$9 billion in foreign reserves is held outside the country and out of reach of the Taliban's embryonic government, which has still not been officially appointed, let alone recognized internationally.

To add to the problems, a recent suicide attack by an Afghan offshoot of Islamic State on crowds waiting to get a place on evacuation flights brought a chilling reminder that the bombings that were a regular feature of life in the past may not be over.

"The market situation had slightly improved in the last few days," said one vendor at a Kabul street market where people sell household goods to raise cash. "But it completely collapsed after the suicide attack near the airport."

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2021-09-01 14:34:00Z
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Vaccinated Singapore eases into reopening as other nations watch for lessons - TODAYonline

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Vaccinated Singapore eases into reopening as other nations watch for lessons  TODAYonlineView Full coverage on Google News
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2021-09-01 08:10:23Z
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Vaccinated Singapore eases into reopening as other nations watch for lessons - Yahoo Singapore News

By Aradhana Aravindan and Chen Lin

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Ronney Ng, who sells souvenirs in Singapore's Chinatown, can hardly wait for the country to reopen its borders now that 80% of its population has been inoculated against COVID-19 - one of the world's best vaccination rates.

"Our business depends almost entirely on tourists; it is very tough for us if they are not visiting Singapore," said Ng, who added that he can no longer afford three meals a day.

The regional travel hub, with about 5.7 million residents, is among the first countries to reopen in the region, albeit slowly. Masks are still mandatory in almost all public settings, group sizes are limited and a contact-tracing app is required.

Starting next week, Singapore will allow quarantine-free entry to vaccinated visitors from just two countries: Germany and Brunei.

Although such a guarded approach is likely to delay recovery of the tourism industry, other nations with low infection rates will be watching.

"Singapore is a good example for Australia to pay attention to because we are probably going to be in a similar situation - we need to open up and we need to do it in a way that COVID-19 is going to become endemic," said Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Canberra Hospital.

Others in Asia Pacific such as New Zealand and Taiwan also had early success against the virus, but remain shut.

Israel, with a population of 9.3 million and a high vaccination rate, reinstated many curbs, including mandatory masks indoors and quarantine for most arrivals, after a surge in cases due to the Delta variant.

Meanwhile the United Kingdom is sticking to its easing plans, including looser quarantine rules, despite a high number of daily cases.

STEP BY STEP

"We will move step by step - not in one big bang like some countries, but cautiously and progressively, feeling our way forward," Singapore's prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said on Sunday, reiterating that it was not possible to bring cases down to zero even with long lockdowns.

New daily cases have stayed over 100 in the last week, close to recent peaks that had prompted tightened curbs. But the number of those seriously ill is low; on Sept. 1, 19 patients required oxygen and five were in intensive care, according to government data.

In Singapore, most of those 12 and older have been vaccinated, and the government is looking at inoculating children early next year. After a slow start, rates among those 70 and older have been pushed up to 84%.

"If you even have 20% of your population not protected, that is a real challenge in terms of this virus. It will still cause potentially increased occurrence of cases and hospitalisations," said Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, who praised Singapore for information sharing on vaccine breakthrough cases.

Vaccination is the pillar of Singapore's reopening plans, and, with an economy that shrank by a record 5.4% last year, it cannot afford to stay closed for too long.

India and Singapore's Southeast Asian neighbours are still battling high infection numbers and low vaccination rates, and the odds of welcoming many travellers from China, with its zero-COVID strategy, are low.

"Even if you're in rich countries like Singapore and Australia ... it's in all our self interests to make sure we get vaccinations to everybody," Collignon said.

In 2019, Singapore welcomed a record 19.1 million travellers - more than three times its total population, with China, Indonesia and India contributing 40%.

Sung Eun Jung at Oxford Economics estimates travel and tourism contribute as much as 11% to Singapore's economy. But Singapore's strict reopening plans mean the industry may reach pre-pandemic levels only by 2023, she said.

The country's economy is forecast to grow 6%-7% this year after 2020's record recession.

For now, the hard-hit tourism industry does not dare feel too hopeful. Several shops in Singapore's most-visited spots only have tales of woe - tanked sales, store closings and job losses.

Amir Khan, who sold carpets to customers from Southeast Asia, Europe and China before the pandemic, said there are days his store in a Malay heritage enclave does not have a single customer.

"The slower the reopening is, the longer we suffer," Khan said.

(Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan and Chen Lin in Singapore. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

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2021-09-01 06:59:33Z
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