SEOUL: After spending two years being socially distanced in his home country of South Korea, Kim Hoe-jun booked a last-minute flight to Hawaii, where he had enjoyed his honeymoon six years ago, giving in to his craving for overseas travel.
"I bought the ticket just a week ago, but it was rather a no-brainer. It felt like I was making up for those two years not being able to go abroad often as I used to before COVID," he said, before boarding the plane from Incheon International Airport on Friday (Mar 31).
Vaccinated and boosted, Kim and his wife are among South Koreans joining in a rush for "revenge travel" - a term that has been trending on social media as people scramble to book overseas trips that were delayed by coronavirus restrictions.
The boom started after Mar 21 when South Korea lifted a seven-day mandatory quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers arriving from most countries. The restriction had been eased last year but was reimposed in December as the highly infectious Omicron variant spread.
The country has largely scrapped its once-aggressive tracing and containment efforts despite a record COVID-19 wave, joining a growing list of Asian countries which have eased quarantine rules, including Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Koreans now appear more ready to travel. Polls showed people are less worried about the implications of catching the virus, and increasingly see its prevention as out of their hands.
Sales of overseas flight tickets on 11st, an e-commerce unit of SK Telecom, South Korea's top mobile carrier, rose more than eight-fold compared with a year before between Mar 11, when the lifting of quarantine was announced, and March 27, the company said.
Kim Na-yeon, 27, was excited to return to Hawaii where she used to live.
"I couldn't dare to travel even in Korea because of COVID," she said. "But now I feel a bit freer with the exemption, so I've decided to go meet old friends and do some sightseeing."
The Helix Bridge is seen next to the Marina Bay Sands integrated resort, during dusk in the central business district of Singapore, November 13, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lam
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MUMBAI, March 30 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Singapore’s centre of gravity is shifting. The pandemic burnished its reputation as a haven for rich Asians looking to park their money. But beyond its role as a “Switzerland of the East”, entrepreneurs, executives and investors — especially from China — are looking at the tiny country as a destination for more active business investment.
The Lion City, home to 5.5 million people at the tip of the Malay peninsula, has benefited enormously from political uncertainty and pandemic pains elsewhere. Take $68 billion DBS Group (DBSM.SI), the top local lender: net new money inflows into its private bank from overseas logged an astonishing 170% increase year-on-year in the first half of 2020, and remain robust. Single-family offices in the city multiplied fivefold between 2017 and 2019, and stood at around 400 in 2020, per official estimates. All the signs suggest that pace is picking up.
Singapore is also slowly shedding its unwelcome nickname “Singa-snore”, referring to the city’s easy pace. Frustrated Western finance executives fleeing Hong Kong’s ham-fisted Covid-19 policies have started relocating to the hub, generating flattering headlines. Much more significant, however, is Singapore’s increasing attractiveness to technology firms.
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The local stock exchange still struggles to attract hot initial public offerings. But that is less of a sore point now that tech champions like Grab , Sea (SE.N) and GoTo are using the city as a base to tap Southeast Asia, home to a population more than twice the United States. Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google and Zoom (ZM.O) are ramping up for similar reasons. The International Monetary Fund’s ASEAN-5 grouping, including Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam, comprise a $3 trillion economy forecast to grow at almost 6% in 2022.
Cryptocurrency geeks are popping up too. Though regulators are being picky about approvals for licences to trade, shunning big names like Binance, they are tentatively embracing the industry with an eye on the potential of related blockchain technologies. That stands in sharp contrast to bans elsewhere. The absence of a tax on capital gains is a sweetener.
But the most striking trend, which gathered pace through the pandemic, is the scaling up of the mainland Chinese presence even as Singapore leans West diplomatically. The government ditched its famous neutrality to sanction Russia read more and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was welcomed read more in the White House on Tuesday.
Some ultra-rich Chinese may be seeking a buffer between their wealth, businesses, and the constant crackdowns from Beijing: Singapore allows family office principals with net investible assets of at least S$200 million ($147 million) to apply for permanent residence. Yet the trend also coincides with excitement about the accelerating digitisation of developing Asia, so there’s a business logic too. ByteDance’s short-video streaming app TikTok has set up shop, while the city is home to Tencent’s (0700.HK) biggest office outside of China for its global interactive entertainment operations. Chinese investment funds are coming too: Sean Tong, co-founder of Chinese private equity firm Boyu, is among the high-profile investors to have relocated.
This is a natural extension of Singapore’s $150 billion relationship with its top trading partner, facilitated by another advantage the city has over Hong Kong; in Singapore 30% of the population speaks Mandarin - the most common dialect in mainland China – as the primary language, compared to only 2% of Hong Kong residents. This is reinforcing its advantage as a place where those doing business in India, Southeast Asia and China can comingle.
Its lenders and airlines look strong too, buttressing its hub image. DBS is leading an overseas push by Singaporean banks into India, China and Taiwan, making bolt on acquisitions partly filling in a retail banking gap left in markets abandoned by Citi (C.N). And its national carrier is in strong position to support regional connectivity. Sovereign wealth fund Temasek threw Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) a first-class financial lifeline early during the pandemic; Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific (0293.HK), in contrast, is still struggling.
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
Nothing complicates social relationships like success, however. While rich Singaporeans benefit from the increase in business, many nevertheless bemoan the tacky Bentleys acquired by mainland China arrivistes clogging parking lots. The cost of a large car permit has more than doubled in three years to about S$90,000 ($73,000). Rents for high-end property are soaring and slots at top private schools are growing scarce.
Among the nearly 80% of the population who live in government-developed housing, Singapore’s welcoming attitude to the monied risks driving up the overall cost of living. Headline inflation rose at 4.3% in February, its fastest pace in nine years. So while Singapore quietly courts the wealthy, it is loudly tightening up on employment visas. The government plans to raise goods and services taxes next year and is exploring ways to get more out of the wealthy.
The sustainability of Singapore’s advantage will get a more thorough test after the pandemic disruptions in Asia ease. For all the worries about immigration, the city’s population contracted a second consecutive year in the twelve months through June 2021, driven by a nearly 11% drop in non-residents. Other headwinds include crashing valuations in the tech sector and the risk that Beijing will get prickly about how the hub is helping Chinese capitalists hedge against government policies. Rebalancing Singapore is a delicate affair.
(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
CONTEXT NEWS
- Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong visited the White House on March 29.
- U.S. President Joe Biden planned to discuss Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's role in the Indo-Pacific with Lee at the meeting, Reuters reported, citing a senior administration official.
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Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.
HONG KONG: Hong Kong will gradually resume public services from Apr 1, the government said on Friday (Mar 25), with the global financial hub posting its lowest number of daily infections in about a month.
Government departments will return to normal service by Apr 21, it said in a statement, part of a broader easing of strict coronavirus measures which have created widespread frustration for residents and businesses.
Leader Carrie Lam this week announced the lifting of measures including a ban on dining in restaurants after 6pm, and the reopening of most public venues and sports facilities.
Schools are also due to resume face to face classes by Apr 19.
Many people in the Chinese ruled territory have been working from home since February when a wave of the highly transmissible Omicron variant swept through the city.
The government's announcement signals that many of Hong Kong's 7.4 million residents will return to offices in line with civil servants guidelines.
Health authorities reported 10,405 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, down from 13,074 the previous day. The city hit a record high of over 58,000 infections on Mar 9.
Hong Kong has officially stuck to a "dynamic zero" coronavirus strategy, which aims to curb outbreaks as they occur with contact tracing, testing and isolation. The policy largely protected it from the virus until the beginning of this year.
However the latest wave came as large numbers of elderly remained unvaccinated, causing a spike in infections with Hong Kong registering the most deaths per million people globally in recent weeks.
Since the pandemic began in 2020, Hong Kong has recorded more than 1.1 million infections and more than 6,700 deaths - most of them in the past month.
A photograph taken on March 9, 2022, shows a BP petrol station in the town of Chekhov outside Moscow, Russia. (Photo: AFP)
China’s oil refiners are discreetly purchasing cheap Russian crude as the nation’s supply continues to seep into the market.
Unlike India’s state-run oil refiners, which have issued a number of tenders seeking to buy Russia’s flagship Urals crude among other grades, traders say China’s state processors are negotiating privately under the radar with sellers. The nation’s independent refiners are also quietly buying, according to traders who asked not to be identified as the information is confidential.
Most buyers are shunning Russian crude after its invasion of Ukraine, fearing damage to their reputation or falling foul of sanctions. China’s independent refiners, which account for a quarter of the nation’s processing capacity and are mainly based in Shandong province, bought some ESPO oil that’s loaded at Russia’s eastern port of Kozmino, according to traders.
The recent ESPO purchases by independent refiners, known as teapots, are for May-loading cargoes, and the Chinese processors are continuously making inquiries about Russian oil, traders said. ESPO is a favored grade because it can be shipped to their smaller ports -- that are unable to unload larger vessels -- from a shorter distance, cutting down costs.
Some teapots are working with traders on financing options and checking on the availability of vessels to ship the crude at a reasonable price, and are also considering buying Urals, said traders. The cargoes of Urals purchased by state-run processors are for June delivery, they added.
Trading of Russian oil has mostly shifted away from the public eye after its invasion of Ukraine. Willing buyers and sellers are being forced to engage in private negotiations after some tenders attracted zero bids. Shell Plc got heavy criticism after its purchase of Urals not long after the war started.
Another of Russia’s Far East crude grades -- Sokol -- is also flowing to India. State-run Indian Oil Corp. and Hindustan Petroleum Corp. bought some Sokol loading in May from ONGC Videsh Ltd, an equity partner in the Sakhalin-I project, according to traders. Cargoes are loaded from the De-Kastri terminal.
Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and ONGC declined to comment.
Japan’s Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co known as SODECO, which also has an equity interest in Sakhalin-I, declined to comment on its future exports of Sokol crude. Traders said some buyers in North Asia are likely to take their already-committed cargoes of the grade in May.
India has so far bought at least 13 million barrels of Urals since late February, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, with Indian Oil purchasing a further 3 million barrels in its latest tender. Volumes to the nation averaged about 128,000 tonnes a month in 2021, Bloomberg calculations based on ship-tracking data show. Urals is shipped from ports in the Baltic and Black Seas.
WASHINGTON: About one-in-three COVID-19 cases in the United States are now caused by the BA.2 Omicron sub-variant of the coronavirus, according to government data on Tuesday (Mar 22) that also showed overall infections still declining from January's record highs.
Despite the rise of the extremely contagious sub-variant also seen in other countries, US health experts say a major wave of new infections here appears unlikely.
US COVID-19 infections have receded sharply since January, although a resurgence in parts of Asia and Europe have raised concerns that one will follow in the United States given previous patterns during the two years of the pandemic.
In the Northeast, including New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, Omicron BA.2 now makes up more than half the cases, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
It accounted for 35 per cent of US infections for the week ending Mar 19, CDC said. That compares with 22.3 per cent for the week ending Mar 12, which was revised down from 23.1 per cent, according to a CDC model that estimates proportions of circulating variants.
Top US infectious disease official Dr Anthony Fauci said at a Washington Post event on Tuesday that he does not believe there will be a major surge soon, "unless something changes dramatically".
Still, Fauci noted that cases in the United States generally lag around three weeks behind the United Kingdom, "so if we are going to see an uptick, we should start seeing it within the next week or so".
Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of division of infectious diseases at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, said there was no evidence yet that the rise of BA.2 is pointing to an increase in cases.
"I think the one concern and where people need to remain vigilant is that as we have relaxed many restrictions around masking and gathering, there is a potential opportunity for BA.2 or any variant to gain a foothold," Kuritzkes said.
The sub-variant is more transmissible than the Omicron BA.1 variant that caused the massive winter surge, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. It does not appear to cause more severe disease, however, and early data showed that infection with BA.1 offers strong protection against reinfection with BA.2, the WHO said.
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