MUMBAI, Oct 31 (Reuters) - The Indian rupee chalked up its tenth straight monthly fall after slipping versus the dollar on Monday, on concerns over oil prices and in line with losses in most other Asian currencies.
The rupee last traded at 82.78 per U.S. dollar on Monday, compared with 82.47 in the previous session.
The currency depreciated 1.8% in October. The last time it had a positive month against the dollar was in December 2021.
Losing streak
This is rupee's longest monthly losing run since 1985. The string of monthly losses has put the rupee on course for its worst annual performance in almost a decade.
"Fundamental issues such as high current account deficit and persistent inflation remain impediments (for the rupee)," Srinivas Puni, managing director at QuantArt Market Solutions, said.
Among the rupee's Asian peers, the offshore Chinese yuan and the Indonesian rupiah dropped about 2.4% each in October, while the Malaysian ringgit fell 2% and the Thai baht 0.6%. The Korean won outperformed, inching up.
The prospect of more U.S. Federal Reserve rate hikes alongside worries over the Chinese economic outlook impacted the demand for Asian currencies.
Expectations of the Fed slowing its pace of rate hikes have increased in recent days, though the U.S. central bank is poised to deliver yet another super-sized 75 basis point rate hike this week.
Meanwhile, Brent crude rose more than 8% this month, set to halt a four-month losing run, after OPEC+ key agreed to production cuts.
The rupee's losses this month would have been deeper had it not been for the Reserve Bank of India's intervention. The central bank sold dollars to boost the rupee, likely via the forward market, traders said.
RBI's forward dollar sales and higher Treasury yields pushed rupee forward premiums lower. The 1-year USD/INR implied forward rate dropped to near 2.40% from 2.81% in September.
Reporting by Nimesh Vora; Editing by Dhanya Thoppil
Malaysian comedian and actor Ronny Chieng is under fire for his stand-up skit on “The Daily Show” in which he joked “Indians are not Asians.”
Days after former finance minister Rishi Sunak was announced as Britain’sfirst Asian prime minister, Chieng appeared on “The Daily Show” and joked about how “Indians are not Asians” and how he does not feel represented by Sunak.
“I know everyone is excited that this is the first Asian prime minister, but let’s be clear: Indians are not Asians, OK? They’re still people — great people — just not Asian people,” Chieng said in hismonologue. “If this guy is Asian, how come when he became prime minister, I felt absolutely nothing?”
“When I was down at the Dim Sum Palace this morning, me and the fellas weren’t like, ‘Oh sh*t, that’s me up there! I feel seen.’ I love how Indians try to have it both ways, like being Indian and Asian,” he added.
“Pick a lane, OK? I bet if I show up in a Bollywood film, I’m just going to blend right in, right? Because we’re all just one people just having a good time.”
Chieng, who was born in Malaysia and now lives in New York, was criticized by many viewers who called his skit “racist” and “tone deaf.”
“@ronnychieng this was racist af!” one usertweeted. “Have you seen the map of Asia? Just because Hollywood treats East Asians as mainstream Asians, does not give you the right to strip us of our identity!”
“It’s tone deaf of @ronnychieng to make jokes about Indians not being Asian,” another usersaid. “He’s a Malaysian Chinese that grew up in Singapore. These countries actively discriminate Indians and dark-skinned minorities.”
“So you’re telling me the Daily Show just let a Chinese Singaporean American rant for several minutes about how Indians aren't real Asians and he can't relate to them?” one personwrote.
In Britain, the term “Asian” generally refers toSouth Asians, including Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, as they make up a large percentage of the country’s Asian population.
In a separate segment, “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah alsoreceived criticismfor claiming Rishi Sunak experienced “racist backlash” after becoming the United Kingdom’s first British Asian prime minister. Viewers were also angered by Noah’s usage of an Indian accent to imitate Sunak, who was born in England.
Chieng and “The Daily Show” have not commented on the backlash.
The Japanese yen and Chinese yuan are as different as chalk and cheese. The yen is free floating and the yuan is rigidly controlled. But as the dollar strengthens in Asia due to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s tightening policy, the central banks in Tokyo and Beijing find themselves on the same course of keeping their monetary policies loose.
For very different macroeconomic reasons, the Bank of Japan and the People’s Bank of China have loosened the reins and seem content to see their currencies substantially weaken against the dollar. But the lax monetary policies of the region’s two biggest economies will be a concern for the rest of Asia, which have been raising interest rates due to capital outflows and the dollar’s rise. A weakening yuan, in particular, has the ability to blunt the export competitiveness of rivals, potentially triggering a wave of competitive devaluations.
The Japanese yen is, of course, the poster child for monetary profligacy. Since 2013, the Bank of Japan, under the stewardship of Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, has bravely attempted to arrest a long slump in consumer prices by flooding the financial system with an estimated $5 trillion in easy money, larger than the GDP of the country. The proximate objective of this easy policy was to influence consumer and corporate behavior, attuned to two decades of deflation and to push inflation above the BoJ’s baseline 2 % range.
“It’s desirable for inflation to stably achieve our 2% target accompanied by wage rises,” Kuroda said on October 24. At the same time, the BoJ has been watching closely as the yen plunged to a historic low of 150 against the dollar and has confused markets by intervening in foreign exchange markets to arrest the slide.
South Korea and Taiwan, two of Japan’s immediate neighbors, are bearing the brunt of the BoJ’s bold experiments in influencing price behavior. This is because the troika produce and export high-end electronics and automobiles, so a weak yen provides Japanese manufactures with a significant price advantage. The Korean won, to be sure, has also weakened against the dollar this year (by an estimated 15% compared with the yen’s 20% decline). The risk for regional economic stability stems from the Bank of Korea embracing the doctrine of a weaker won, under pressure from Korean exporters.
These risks get magnified when China and a weak yuan enter the conversation. While Japan is deeply integrated into Asian manufacturing, the supply chains tend to be bilateral in nature. Southeast Asian manufacturers don’t tend to compete with Japanese firms in the global marketplace. But this is simply not the case with China, which is deeply embedded into regional supply chains as the final assembly point for products destined for world markets.
Much of the components are sourced from the region and China is simultaneously a competitor with the rest of Asia on other products and services. While the yuan’s weakness is more measured compared with the yen’s tumble, it has the potential of destabilizing regional stability if the PBOC allows the currency depreciate further.
Chinese policymakers are worried about a slowing economy, with the IMF projecting GDP growth this year at only 3.2 %, a historic low in several decades. Slowing growth can mainly be attributed to suffocating Covid restrictions, but with President Xi Jinping having already secured a third-term in office, Chinese officials might be tempted to loosen conditions even further.
In previous destabilizing economic episodes, 1998 and 2008 come to mind, China has projected itself as a regional leader by not depreciating the renminbi. The rest of Asia will expect the PBOC’s magnanimity to remain in place. However, there is no regional forum where Asian central bankers could sit across the table and discuss cross-border impacts of monetary policy. In theory at least, central bankers will say that such forums exist, but difficult topics are seldom raised.
To be fair to the PBOC and the BoJ, the Federal Reserve is not beholden to the global implications of its policies, which is already having a negative impact on emerging markets across the world. In Asia’s case, it is feeling the impact of second-round effects of U.S. monetary policy via lax policies in two systemically important countries. China and Japan should demonstrate regional leadership by arresting the decline in their currencies and promote regional economic stability. If they fail, a regional currency war will almost certainly be the result.
Asia-Pacific has more to lose than any other region if the global trade system splits up in the wake of geopolitical tensions, the International Monetary Fund warned.
Asia and Pacific countries could lose over 3% in gross domestic product if trade is cut off in sectors hit by recent U.S. chip sanctions on China and if non-tariff barriers in other areas are raised to "Cold War-era levels," the IMF said in research released on Friday.
That's twice the amount of projected global annual losses.
Sectors in Asian countries forced to contract because of reduced trade could suffer average employment losses of as high as 7%, the IMF added.
"When we talk about progression from rising trade uncertainty and more restrictive measures, [it] will eventually escalate into fragmentation where the world is divided," Krishna Srinivasan, director of the Asia and Pacific Department at the IMF, said at a press conference in Singapore on Friday.
Asia has more to lose than any other region if the global trade system splits up, the International Monetary Fund warned.
Olivier Douliery | Afp | Getty Images
"Asia risks losing a lot because it is a key player in global supply chains and in a fragmented world, it risks losing more than anybody else."
U.S.-China trade tensions
Signs of global fragmentation emerged during the trade war between the U.S. and China in 2018. But more worrying signs, such as the Russia-Ukraine war, have since emerged. Sanctions on Russia have added even more uncertainty around trade relations, the IMF said.
Policy uncertainty around trade, not just the restrictions themselves, could hamper economic activity as firms pause hiring and investments and new firms postpone entries into markets, the IMF said.
The impact of trade fragmentation is greater for emerging markets in Asia and for firms with high debt.
The IMF said while its research focused on the impact of fragmentation on trade, there could be other deeper downsides, such as the "unraveling of financial ties."
"Financial fragmentation may lead to short-term costs from a rapid unwinding of financial positions, and long-term costs from lower diversification and slower productivity growth because of reduced foreign direct investment," the IMF said.
The international body is urging countries to roll back damaging trade restrictions and reduce uncertainty through clearer communication of policy objectives.
"Greater emphasis can be placed on digitalization, investing in education … but most importantly, international cooperation, because we want to avoid the risk of fragmentation … it's important that we all act now, act together," Srinivasan said.
Capital flows
There have been concerns over capital flows out of Asia as interest rates in the region lag behind those of the United States. But so far, they are still "manageable," Srinivasan said.
The situation in Asia has been mixed, Srinivasan added.
"For example, we saw a lot of capital flow for India, we saw capital flows for Taiwan, China, and moderate flows from Indonesia, moderate flows for Malaysia, but we saw some net inflows into Thailand. And more recently, we see flows back into India. So the picture is a bit mixed," he said.
Oct 27 (Reuters) - Foreigners turned net sellers of Asia ex-China bonds in September as concerns mounted over the region's weaker growth outlook, slowing exports, and the U.S. Federal Reserve's aggressive tightening measures.
Overseas investors last month net sold a total $2.9 billion worth of bonds in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand, data from regulatory and bond market associations showed.
Foreigners had been net buyers of Asian bonds in the previous two months.
Indonesian bonds and Thai bonds faced outflows worth $1.9 billion and $725 million respectively in the last month, while South Korean bonds had net sales of $681 million.
By contrast, Indian bonds received an inflow of $510 million in the month, the data showed.
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yields jumped 67 basis points in the last month, and were yielding 4.0632%.
"The external environment looks challenging into year-end, and further portfolio outflows are likely, as U.S. yields and the USD head higher and weigh on asset markets in Asia," said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at ANZ in a report on Thursday.
(Reporting By Patturaja Murugaboopathy and Gaurav Dogra in Bengaluru; editing by Barbara Lewis)
The magazine "Giant Robot" is a cult classic for the Asian American alternative scene.
Starting in 1994, the magazine challenged the model minority myth of Asian identity and filled a gap in many alternative Asian American representations by showing Asians as they were — cool.
Eric Nakamura speaks to Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about co-founding the magazine and what it became for Asian American culture. A documentary airing on Los Angeles' KCET Wednesday, Oct. 26, explores the magazine's history and impact.
Hor Chou wants someone in charge of coronavirus business relief to walk along South 7th Street to gauge the need of the corridor’s storefronts.
The buzzing strip of grocery stores, jewelers, cafes, dress shops and salons catering to Philadelphia’s Southeast Asian population was, like many local business districts, rocked in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And even today, almost three years since the pandemic first hit, many of those businesses have not fully recovered.
When the federal government released hundreds of billions of dollars in aid as part of the Paycheck Protection Program, details trickled in slowly to the area’s mostly Cambodian and Vietnamese businesses.
“Information that is needed for survival, or information that is needed for economic stability, comes to our community too late,” Chou, the owner of New Happy Garden takeout restaurant, said through a Khmer(Cambodian language)interpreter.
Interviews conducted over the span of more than a year with Asian American small business owners, community groups, corridor managers and local government officials revealed barriers that preventedAsian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI)monolithentrepreneurs in Philadelphia from obtaining PPP loans or slowed their process of receiving financial assistance.
Those challenges ranged from language barriers and digital literacy, to banking relationships and even cultural attitudes. In some cases, something as simple as not having an email address deprived businesses from the opportunity to receive assistance.
A LOOK AT THE NUMBERS
Chou, president of the Cambodian American Business Community, estimates that there are about 40 Southeast Asian-owned businesses on his corridor, which runs from Jackson Street to Oregon Avenue.
In the census tract covering Wolf Street to Oregon, forgivable loans went out to 14 different S. 7th Street businesses, a group that included numerous independent contractors and sole proprietors, according to data collected by Metro, The Inquirer and Resolve Philly.
Irza Hajati, who lives in South Philadelphia, did not even seriously consider applying for PPP.
She immigrated to the United States along with her husband, Aditya Setyawan, from Indonesia two decades ago, and together they run a catering business, Pecel Ndeso.
Pecel Ndeso prepares food for weddings, sets up at festivals, and even delivers orders to clients in New York and Washington, D.C. Last summer, they joined the popular Southeast Asian Market at FDR Park.
Hajati said she was too busy with her son’s online schooling at the height of the pandemic to consider business relief programs, even though Pecel Ndeso was struggling. She was also focused on providing free food packages tofood-insecure members of the city’s AAPI communities, formerly through Kampoeng Indonesia, and currently with Gapura Philadelphia, the area’s first Indonesian community nonprofit that the couple co-founded.
“The other reason is because we don’t have a real business, like a restaurant,” she said.
But the catering business, which was established in 2004, is her full-time job, and PPP was open to sole proprietors and self-employed persons, regardless of brick-and-mortar presence.
Traffic drives down 10th Street in the Chinatown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Friday, July 22, 2022.AP Photo/Matt Rourke
A joint data analysis between Resolve Philly, Metro Philly and The Inquirer attempted to understand the distribution of PPP loans among AAPI businesses in Philadelphia.
But lenders were not required to collect or report racial or ethnic information on business owners to the federal government, which means barely a quarter of the data could be used to directly determine how many AAPI-owned businesses received loans.
This means the data alone cannot indicate any disparities in the largest effort to aid businesses in the pandemic.
However, initial PPP relief flowed disproportionately into majority-white communities, according to research conducted by University of California, Santa Cruz economics professor Robert Fairlie and University of Nevada, Reno professor Frank Fossen.
Much of the money from the program’s first round, in April 2020, went to businesses with longstanding banking relationships or was sent through financial institutions in rural areas, they wrote.
Distribution to minority communities was better in the second round and improved significantly in the third round in 2021, when the Biden administration reopened PPP exclusively for businesses with under 20 employees for a two-week period.
“Did that delay make a big difference? We don’t know,” Fairlie said in an interview. “We just don’t know the answers to those questions.”
HOW RACE PLAYED A ROLE
The Resolve Philly, Metro and Inquirer analysis did find that, locally, the number of loans, as well as the average loan amount, changed significantly for AAPI business owners based on whether the business was located in a census tract that was majority-white or majority-Black.
In mostly white census tracts, the median loan was more than $20,000 — and among 10,472 loans that came out to more than $320 million. In tracts where the largest demographic was Black, there were only 3,466 loans which were usually around $19,165 and totaled $66 million.
Dan Tang, owner of Tang Pharmacy in Olney, a diverse area where 46% of residents, a plurality, are Black, said he believes the neighborhood generally receives fewer resources.
“Like if you look at certain pockets in the city, they’re blooming,” he said.
Fern Rock Hardware, also in Olney, received about $5,000 in PPP money, and owner Justin Lee, through a Korean interpreter, said he only applied for one of the program’s two rounds of funding.
Justin Lee, 65, owner of Fern Rock Hardware, helps a customer inside his shop in Philadelphia.Tyger Williams / Philadelphia Inquirer
He explained that he likely would have had difficulty going through the process at all without the help of the North Fifth Street Revitalization Project, a neighborhood business group, and Noah Bank, a financial institution in Elkins Park serving the Korean community.
Other AAPI small business owners were not as successful as Lee, primarily due to language hurdles and technology challenges.
LANGUAGE BARRIERS
The city’sAAPI communitiesare far from a monolith, with dozens of languages and ethnicities.
“It’s not like Hispanics,” said Narasimha B. Shenoy, founder and chairman of the Asian American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia. “They have to just interpret Spanish. We have to do a lot more than that.”
Chou said details involving government programs are rarely available in Khmer, Cambodia’s most widely-spoken language.
The disconnect extended to information about the pandemic, including COVID-19 vaccines, according to Nary Kith, who runs KITHS, a local Cambodian social services organization.
“People were so afraid that, if they contracted COVID, that’s it,” she said. “That’s a death sentence.”
Even for more widely spoken languages in the United States, PPP instructions weren’t initially available.
James Wang, president and CEO of the Chinatown-based Asian Bank, said an application was not available in simplified Chinese until at least mid-way through the first round of loans.
“We have a lot of clients that really don’t speak the language,” he explained. “I think that, for one, is a huge barrier. And then for them to go online and access anything that’s in English is very challenging.”
DIGITAL DEMAND
Elisa Kim, whose family owns T-House Inc., a screen printing shop in Olney, said many neighboring business owners do not have an email address, a concern echoed by Kiths, Shenoy and others.
“With all these applications that require you to have an email and for you to check your email on a regular basis, that’s not something some people are familiar with,” said Lamei Zhang, former projects manager for the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation.
A lack of digital literacy further inhibited some businesses along South 7th Street that did not have websites, let alone the sophisticated online ordering systems that have become commonplace during the pandemic.
Pedestrians walk along 10th Street in the Chinatown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Friday, July 22, 2022.AP Photo/Matt Rourke
In addition, manyAAPI-ownedbusinesses, particularly mom-and-pop shops, had trouble getting financial statements and up-to-date tax forms prepared.
Even when they could locate those documents, some business owners were hesitant to hand them over to the federal government or they were not willing to ask for assistance, Shenoy said.
“They’ll not come out and look for help. Only a few of them do,” he said. “That is the culture. It’s a pride.”
“As you get closer to the ground level and you get closer to the smallest types of businesses, the biggest barrier for most people, I think, is trust,” said James Onofrio, a program manager at the Philadelphia Department of Commerce.
Onofrio, who works closely with corridor business managers, said some shop owners are suspicious of government help, based on their experiences as refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia.
Though none of the business owners that spoke to the Metro and Inquirer personally experienced first-hand AAPI bias or harassment, it’s difficult to measure how attitudes around the virus may have impacted cash flow.
“A double whammy,” Shenoy added, referring to the pandemic’s toll on all small businesses combined with anti-Asian sentiment.
Community leaders said there needs to be more awareness of the barriers facing AAPI business owners, perhaps particularly in light of the “model minority” myth — a belief that Asian Americans are more successful in work and school than other people of color.
“I think the pandemic was a wake up call for the city in just seeing where there isn’t enough access, especially for immigrant communities,” said Stephanie Michel, executive director of Olney’s North Fifth Street Revitalization Project.
“It should be a priority to make sure that those immigrants have access to information and funding as well, especially when the world is falling apart, literally, and impacting businesses,” she added.
This story was a collaboration of the Inquirer, Metro and Resolve Philly and made possible through the Future of Work program.The story grew from the work of Resolve Philly’s Community Engagement Team.
Asian stock markets followed Wall Street higher on Wednesday as hopes rose that the Federal Reserve might ease off plans for interest rate hikes and Britain installed its third prime minister this year.
Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney gained. Oil prices declined.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index gained after bond prices rose, suggesting some investors expect the Fed to ease off rate hikes as economic activity cools.
Traders see weaker U.S. housing prices and other data as support for a “dial back” of Fed plans at its December meeting, said Vishnu Varathan of Mizuho Bank in a report.
The new British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, warned Tuesday of a “profound economic crisis,” but his arrival appeared to reassure markets that were rattled by his predecessor’s economic plans. The battered pound edged higher against the U.S. dollar.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.9% to 3,001.44 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 0.9% to 15,300.40.
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo advanced 0.8% to 27,466.82 ahead of the expected release of a stimulus package this week that reportedly could exceed 20 trillion yen ($140 billion).
The Kospi in Seoul added 0.6% to 2,248.73. Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 rose 0.2% to 6,810.90 after the government reported Australian inflation rose to 7.3% in the three months ending in September.
New Zealand and Southeast Asian markets rose. Indian markets were closed for a holiday.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 gained 1.6% 3,859.11. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.1% to 31,836.74. The Nasdaq advanced 2.3% to 11,199.12.
Tech stocks, retailers and communication companies were among the biggest drivers.
Investors are looking at corporate results to see how inflation that is at multidecade highs is affecting consumer spending.
General Motors rose 3.6% after delivering solid results. United Parcel Service slipped 0.3% after the package delivery service beat earnings and revenue forecasts.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, slipped to 4.09% from 4.23% late Monday. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which tracks Federal Reserve action, fell to 4.45% from 4.50% late Monday.
The Fed and other central banks have been raising interest rates to slow economic growth and reduce pressure for prices to rise. Investors worry that might tip the global economy into recession.
Traders have become more confident the Fed will reduce its rate hike plans from three-quarters to half a percentage point at its December meeting, according to CME Group.
The U.S. economy is already slowing down and actually contracted during the first half the year. The government will release its third-quarter gross domestic product report on Thursday.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude lost 63 cents to $84.69 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 74 cents to $85.32 on Tuesday. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, shed 85 cents to $90.89 per barrel in London. It gained 26 cents the previous session to $93.52.
The dollar slipped to 147.58 yen from Tuesday’s 147.97 yen. The euro advanced to 99.70 cents from 99.66 cents.
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A person wearing a protective mask walks past signage for Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. (HKEX) displayed at the Exchange Square complex in Hong Kong, China, on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.
Roy Liu | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Hong Kong stocks were volatile while mainland China markets continued to slide Tuesday, while other major Asian markets rose after Wall Street's second straight positive session.
Chinese tech stocks in the U.S. and the Hang Seng index and dropped sharply to start the week with investor sentiment turning following the conclusion of the China's party congress and the release of a slew of delayed economic data.
Mainland China's Shanghai Composite was about flat at 2,976.28, while the Shenzhen Component lost 0.512% to 10,639.82.
The Nikkei 225 added 1.02% to 27,250.28 and the Topix climbed 1.06% to 1,907.14. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.28% at 6,798.60.
South Korea's Kospi was fractionally lower at 2,235.07, while the Kosdaq gained slightly to 688.85. The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was about flat.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 417.06 points, or 1.3%, to close at 31,499.62. The S&P 500 rose about 1.2% and closed at 3,797.34. The Nasdaq Composite added nearly 0.9% to end at 10,952.61.
Despite significantly easing travel restrictions recently, popular Asian destinations such as Japan, Indonesia, and Hong Kong face an uphill climb in their recovery with Chinese visitors still largely barred from overseas travel. So they’re looking to fill that void by dangling incentives to international travelers, reports Asia Editor Peden Doma Bhutia.
Hong Kong is one of those destinations, and the territory announced it’s giving away 500,000 airline tickets once it lifts its remaining Covid restrictions. In addition, Japan, which resumed visa-free entry for independent travelers earlier this month, is launching a domestic travel initiative offering transportation and accommodation discounts.
Bhutia cites Indonesia as another Asian destination taking major steps to entice international travelers. Its government has introduced a flexible digital nomad visa, which allows remote workers to stay tax free in Bali for five years. Indonesian officials referenced a survey stating 95 percent of digital nomads were willing to travel to the country.
Speaking at a recent conference in Buenos Aires, Gol CEO Celso Ferrer said that a decline in business travel demand drove the company to operate fewer flights to corporate-heavy markets. Gol’s corporate demand is between 60 and 70 percent of 2019 levels. But Ferrer said Gol would restore pre-pandemic flight schedules to major business markets in Brazil, adding the company expects corporate demand to surge in the fourth quarter.
Meanwhile, Russell writes that executives at Azul, Gol, or Latam didn’t express many concerns at the conference about possible economic turbulence in the near future, unlike other Latin American airline leaders.
Nagy, who moderated the discussion with Akili at the forum, writes he wanted to explore why Akili’s work was meaningful amid the hospitality industry’s effort to reboot stalled sustainability efforts. Nagy highlights Potato Head practices such as creating candles from used cooking oil and developing hotel amenities out of ocean waste. In addition, Potato Head has launched the Sweet Potato Project, which provides locally grown food to Bali residents.
A person wearing a protective mask walks past signage for Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. (HKEX) displayed at the Exchange Square complex in Hong Kong, China, on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.
Roy Liu | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Hong Kong stocks were volatile while mainland China markets continued to slide Tuesday, while other major Asian markets rose after Wall Street's second straight positive session.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong recovered slightly to trade 0.87% higher after falling earlier in the session. Hang Seng Tech was nearly 4% higher after losing more than 3% at the open.
Chinese tech stocks in the U.S. and the Hang Seng index and dropped sharply to start the week with investor sentiment turning following the conclusion of the China's party congress and the release of a slew of delayed economic data.
Mainland China's Shanghai Composite also reversed its direction to rise 0.74% while the Shenzhen Component added 0.524%.
The Nikkei 225 added 1.21% and the Topix climbed 1.25%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.25%.
South Korea's Kospi was 0.35% higher, while the Kosdaq gained 0.17%. The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ticked up 0.44%.
Singapore is due to release inflation data on Tuesday.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 417.06 points, or 1.3%, to close at 31,499.62. The S&P 500 rose about 1.2% and closed at 3,797.34. The Nasdaq Composite added nearly 0.9% to end at 10,952.61.
LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Rishi Sunak is set to become Britain's first prime minister of colour on Tuesday, an achievement that many, particularly in the Asian community, held up as a cultural milestone standing out above the economic chaos and political tumult.
News that a Hindu son of Indian immigrants had won the race to lead the ruling Conservative party raised cheers from the streets of New Delhi, packed with Diwali-celebrating crowds, to the shopping thoroughfares of west London.
Out on Southall High Street, pensioner Asma Choudry said she had been living in Britain for 42 years. "So it’s a long time ... Anything can happen, you know, when you are living in a multicultural society."
“Yeah it’s a proud feeling as an Indian, I like him," said 25-year-old businessman Rishabh Sharma.
Further afield, Sunak's ascent drew admiring comments from across the English Channel - a rare thing since Brexit.
"It’s worth noting Sunak will be the first British prime minister of Asian descent. I find it fascinating that it doesn’t seem to cause any problem in Britain," a senior European diplomat told Reuters.
"Let’s imagine the same situation in France or Germany. It’d be much more complicated. I find this remarkable."
In Britain, recognition even reached across political divides. Anas Sarwar, leader of the opposition Labour Party in Scotland, tweeted that it was important to mark the significance of the moment.
"It’s not something our grandparents would ever have imagined when they made the UK home," he wrote.
YOUTH, WEALTH AND RACE
Sunak's family migrated to Britain in the 1960s, a time of social upheaval and widespread racism.
They joined a small but growing slice of society. There were 1.66 million people of Indian ethnicity living in England and Wales in 2019, equivalent to 2.8% of the population, according to official statistics.
Sunak was born in southern England and rose through some of the country's top educational institutions - Winchester College and Oxford University - before rising higher still through a career in finance and a marriage to the daughter of the billionaire founder of IT firm Infosys.
Some suggested that his upward mobility may have at least eased his way across racial barriers. Articles from newspapers across Britain's political spectrum focused on his youth and riches as much his ethnicity - the 42-year-old is one of the wealthiest politicians in Westminster.
"The change in British politics really is that it is more open across ethnic and faith grounds and gender grounds to people with the right professional credentials," said Sunder Katwala, director of think tank British Future.
Whatever the driving forces, Sunak will climb even further on Tuesday to take the top job in the land.
Rishi Trivedi, 50, a chartered accountant and Conservative Party member from West Drayton in west London, said he was "happy beyond belief", though worried that wealthy Sunak might lack the common touch.
"He's part of the global elite ... He's not an ordinary person who goes to work and faces the problems which I face."
Jignesh Patel, a 49-year-old mural painter and another Conservative Party member from nearby Hounslow, just saw "a proud moment" and a potential turning point.
"As Indians ... we are peaceful people, we come here, we do our job, we pay taxes, we earn money. But we are very far from politics from some reason," he said.
"I truly believe the time has come for Indians to be part of politics, no matter the ideology. If we have a problem, we can't just complain. We need to be part of the solution too."
Additional reporting by Michel Rose in Paris; Writing by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Toby Chopra
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