South Korea economy shrank in 2020 for first time in over two decades
South Korea’s central bank says the country’s economy shrank for the first time in 22 years in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic destroyed service industry jobs and depressed consumer spending.
Preliminary data released by the Bank of Korea on Thursday showed the country’s gross domestic product last year contracted 1 percent from 2019. It was the first annual contraction since 1998, when South Korea was in the midst of a crippling financial crisis.
The economy would have been even worse if not for the country’s technology exports, which saw increased demand driven by personal computers and servers as the pandemic forced millions around the world to work at home.
The bank expects South Korea’s economy to manage a modest recovery this year driven by exports. But it says it would take a longer time for the job market to recover from the damage to services industries such as restaurants and transportation.
The bank since March last year has maintained its policy rate at an all-time low of 0.5 percent to help pump money into the economy. But experts say traditional financial tools aimed at lowering borrowing costs have had only limited effect during the pandemic that has damaged both supply and demand.
The country reported another new 424 cases of the coronavirus on Thursday, bringing its national caseload to 91,240, including 1,619 deaths.
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Gant takes direct control of China business
Gant has taken direct control of its China business, after a 16 year partnership between owner MF Brands Group and former exclusive distributor Langhao Holdings, according to a Forbes China report.
The exchange in control of Gant’s operations in China was long planned; Longhao and Gant had agreed to the transfer back in 2019, but it only came into effect this year.
Gant said it will continue to build its China business on the foundation laid by Langhao. The brand’s presence in the world’s largest fashion market includes 83 stores, flagships on both Tmall and JD.com, as well as a WeChat store. In 2021, Gant plans to open new China stores in five key cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Hangzhou.
The US retailer joins a cohort of other international brands, including luxury menswear label Canali, that have taken direct control of their China operations recently.
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Cashify raises $15 million for its second-hand smartphone business in India
Tens of millions of people each year purchase a second-hand smartphone in India, the world’s second-largest market. Phone makers and giant online sellers such as Amazon and Flipkart are aware of it, but it’s too much of a hassle for them to inspect, repair and resell used phones. But these firms also know that customers are more likely to buy a smartphone if they are offered the ability to trade-in their existing handsets.
A startup that is helping these firms tackle this challenge said on Thursday it has raised $15 million in a new financing round. New York-based Olympus Capital Asia made the investment through Asia Environmental Partners, a fund dedicated to the environmental sector. The five-year-old startup, which counts Blume Ventures among its early investors, has raised $42 million to date.
Cashify operates an eponymous platform — both online and physical stores and kiosks — for users to sell and buy used smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, laptops, desktops and gaming consoles. But 90 percent of its business surrounds the smartphone category, explained Mandeep Manocha, founder and chief executive of Cashify, in an interview with TechCrunch.
“For consumers, our proposition is that we make it easy for you to sell your devices. You come to our site or app, answer questions to objectively evaluate the condition of your device, and we give you an estimate of how much your gadget is worth,” he said. “If you like the price, we pick it up from your doorstep and give you instant cash.”
A few years ago, I wrote about the struggle e-commerce firms face globally in handling returned items. There are many liability challenges — such as having to ensure that the innards in a returned smartphone haven’t been tempered with — as well as overhead costs in reversing an order.
Manocha said that phone makers and e-commerce firms have found better ways to handle returned items in recent years, but they still lose a significant amount of money on them. These challenges have created a big opportunity for startups such as Cashify.
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Indonesian payments infra startup Xendit raises $64.6m in accel-led series B
Indonesia’s Xendit, a startup focused on building digital payments infrastructure for the region, has just raised $64.6 million in a Series B led by Silicon Valley heavyweight Accel. The funding brings the total amount raised by the Jakarta-based company to $88 million since its 2015.
Notably, Y Combinator also participated in the financing. In fact, Xendit is the first Indonesian company to go through Y Combinator’s accelerator program. It also was ranked No. 64 on Y Combinator’s top 100 companies (by valuation and top exits) list in January 2021.
Xendit works with businesses of all sizes, processing more than 65 million transactions with $6.5 billion in payment value annually. Its website promises businesses that “with a single integration,” they can accept payments in Indonesia and the Philippines. The company describes itself as building out financial services and digital payments infrastructure “in which the next generation of Southeast Asian SaaS companies can be built on top of,” or put more simply, it aspires to be the Stripe of Southeast Asia.
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Pakistan, Bangladesh discuss trade ties
Trade and economic ties could help Pakistan and Bangladesh move forward, said Bangladesh High Commissioner Ruhul Alam Siddique.
At a meeting with Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) President Mohammad Nasir Mirza, the envoy stressed that Bangladesh attached great importance to its relations with Pakistan and there were deep historic ties between the two countries.
Highlighting the potential sectors, he said trade opportunities between Pakistan and Bangladesh could be explored in construction material, light engineering, surgical goods, sports goods, food processing, cotton yarn, tourism and pharmaceutical sectors.
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Russia tells biden admin not to ‘play with fire’ with new sanctions
The Russian Foreign Ministry urged the US administration ‘not to play with fire’ after Washington announced sanctions against Russian individuals and entities over the alleged poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
In an online statement on Tuesday, the foreign ministry called the US sanctions “a hostile anti-Russian attack” under an absurd pretext, Xinhua news agency reported.
“Entangled in its own internal problems, the White House is again trying to cultivate the image of an external enemy. We have repeatedly commented on this American policy, which is devoid of logic and meaning and only more and more worsens bilateral relations,” it read.
The ministry said Russia will retaliate based on the principle of reciprocity and continue to resolutely defend its national interests.
The ministry asked the United States to honour its obligations and destroy chemical weapons, which Russia does not have since 2017.
The United States has been deprived of the moral right to lecture others since it is a serial violator of international treaties and agreements in the field of arms control and non-proliferation, it said.
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Want to go to the moon? Japan billionaire seeks crew for space trip
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has thrown open a private lunar voyage to eight people from across the globe. The online fashion tycoon has launched the search for eight lucky ones to join him as the first passenger on a journey around the moon with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The entrepreneur has paid for the entire trip himself, comprising eight passenger seats he said he’d be giving away for free. Maezawa was the first man to reserve a spot aboard the lunar spaceship, which is still in development, in 2018.
The billionaire, who ponied up an undisclosed amount for the trip slated for 2023, initially said that he contrived to invite six to eight artists to join him as co-astronauts on the expedition.
However, on Wednesday, March 3, Maezawa posted a video on his Twitter handle, where he disclosed a broader application process.
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Switzerland-Vietnam business group debuts
The Vietnamese Embassy in Switzerland has recently held a ceremony to launch the non-profit Switzerland-Vietnam business group (SVBG), which aims at promoting exchanges and investment and trade cooperation between enterprises of the two nations.
Based in Lausanne, the SVBG, the first of its kind founded by Vietnamese expatriates in Switzerland, has been set to focus on offering trade information via workshops, forums, and internal bulletins; providing legal consultations and guidance; developing links for technological transfers and improvement; and introducing quality human resources. It will also make recommendations for more favourable business climate to competent agencies of both nations, while organising socio-cultural activities serving its goals.
Speaking at the debut ceremony, Vietnamese Ambassador Le Linh Lan stressed the group came into being at a special time as Vietnam has placed the COVID-19 pandemic under control and prepared best conditions possible to welcome Swiss investors.
In 2020, Vietnam’s economy grew 2.91 percent, making it one of the few countries that have maintained positive GDP growth while many others in the world fell into severe recession. Also in August last year, the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement took effect, opening up huge trade and investment opportunities for both sides. In last November, as the Chair of the ASEAN, Vietnam successfully pushed the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), establishing the biggest free trade area worldwide.
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Push to end tourist quarantines in Thailand as shots rolled out
One of the most tourism-dependent countries in the world, Thailand is eyeing plans for vaccine passports and quarantine waivers as the global Covid-19 inoculation drive gathers pace.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha this week ordered officials to look into vaccine certificates for international travel after signaling the nation — famed for its palm-fringed beaches, temples and backpacker culture — is open to scrapping the two-week quarantine for inoculated visitors. The local tourism industry wants mandatory quarantines to be lifted from as early as July 1 so it can open to potentially millions of vaccinated tourists.
A successful reopening by Thailand could spur other tourism-reliant nations to follow suit, as countries like the U.K. set out ambitious timelines for easing restrictions on their populations and resuming international travel. While the World Health Organization warned this week about the risks of loosening up too fast, places like Thailand — which saw almost 40 million overseas visitors in 2019 — are seeing long-lasting damage to their economies with global travel paralyzed and borders closed a year into the pandemic.
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Foreign firms should suspend all Myanmar business, former U.N. expert says
Foreign firms should suspend all business in Myanmar to send a clear message to the military that its coup will hurt its people and ruin its economy, a former United Nations expert on the country said on Wednesday.
Chris Sidoti was part of a U.N.-led fact-finding mission which in 2019 urged foreign firms to cut business ties with Myanmar’s military over human rights abuses and pursue private sector investments there instead.
That position has hardened since a Feb. 1 coup and an ensuing bloody crackdown on protesters, Sidoti said, because the military has retaken control of the country it ruled for almost half a century, making it now risky to do any business there.
“If businesses are responsible, they will put everything on hold at this point,” said Sidoti, who has formed an independent advisory group on Myanmar with some other former U.N. investigators.
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