Region Asia-Pacific Financial News

Stock markets in the Asia-Pacific region fell for a second day, hot on the heels of the US S&P 500, which had its worst day since Covid crashed the economy in 2020. Nike, Apple and Target were among big consumer names worst hit, all of them sinking by more than 9%. ALSO READ: An article on Warren Buffett acquiring Elon Musk's Tesla for $1 trillion caused huge confusion online. Here's why

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A global technology outage involving airline reservation platform Navitaire briefly disrupted operations of carriers including IndiGo and Akasa Air on Thursday morning, before systems were restored within about half an hour, according to two people familiar with the matter. No major flight delays were reported.

image generator, OpenAI has revealed plans to launch a new open language model—its first since GPT-2. To shape its development, the company is seeking input from developers, researchers, and the wider AI community through a feedback form. Open-source language models (OS LLMs) are designed to understand, generate, and manipulate human language, leveraging large datasets and sophisticated algorithms to perform a variety of language-based tasks. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce the news, stating, “We are planning to release our first open-weight language model since GPT-2. We've been thinking about this for a long time, but other priorities took precedence. Now it feels important to do.” Altman added that before the model is released, OpenAI plans to evaluate it using its preparedness framework, the same process applied to all its models. “And we will do extra work given that we know this model will be modified post-release,” he stated in the post.

Alton Aviation Consultancy. Bullish on aviation prospects in India, Ng said the country, which contributes approximately 10 per cent of Asia Pacific's domestic and international air traffic demand, has already returned to pre-pandemic levels. «Such growing demand in turn supports India's massive aviation development programmes including setting up of 150 airports across the country,» Ng told PTI on Friday. He further noted that «India's passenger traffic is expected to grow at a strong pace of 7 per cent in 2025, supported by an order book of nearly 1,900 aircraft among airlines based in the country.»

Make in India’ and ‘Bangga Buatan Indonesia’ (Make in Indonesia) initiatives are complementing each other, as both countries work towards their shared goal of becoming developed nations by the centennials of their independence, Indonesian officials said.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. OpenAI said it would set up a new office in Zurich, Switzerland, as part of efforts from the ChatGPT maker to bolster its presence in Europe as the continent emerges as a key battleground for regulating artificial intelligence. The startup said Zurich would be its fifth location in Europe after opening offices in Dublin, London, Paris and Brussels over the past two years.

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) had condemned China and Russia for escalating tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. The council's statement on Friday highlighted Chinese military activity in the Taiwan Strait and joint military operations between China and Russia, which breached South Korea's air defence identification zone (KADIZ) earlier this week, Taipei Times reported. These actions have raised concerns about increasing instability in the region.

The company, which provides safety monitoring for infrastructure assets across sectors such as aerospace, defence, oil and gas, is also rebranding itself as Avathon. “India is at the heart of Avathon’s roadmap, with AI projected to contribute over 50% of the Asia-Pacific region’s growth in traditional industries by 2028. India will play a pivotal role in our expansion, serving as a hub for product engineering, delivery, support and R&D," Johar said.

Trump set to become the next US president after the recently closely contested president polls, India and other Asian countries are expected to benefit due to rising US-China tensions and potential investment restrictions in strategic sectors, as per Moody's Ratings. «In the Asia-Pacific region, trade and investment flows might be further diverted away from China as the US tightens investments in strategic sectors, which would negatively affect China's economy and consequently dampen regional growth. However, this shift might benefit India and ASEAN countries,» the global rating agency said. The global agency anticipated a significantly shift under the Trump administration across fiscal, trade, climate, and immigration issues, departing from the approach of the administration of the current US President Joe Biden.

Tanzeel Akhtar has been covering the cryptocurrency and blockchain sector since 2015. She has written for the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine.

Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday and discussed the ongoing Ukraine conflict. During their discussion, both leaders reiterated the sanctions imposed by the Western countries' violated UN Security Council resolutions and undermined global economic stability. «Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi mentioned that Western countries' illegitimate sanctions imposed in circumvention of UN Security Council resolutions are unacceptable as they undermine the stability of the global economy and universal forms of trade and economic cooperation,» the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

International Solar Alliance (ISA) announced the winners of the SolarX Startup Challenge 2024: APAC edition during the International Solar Festival held at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi. Building on the success of the Africa edition, which attracted 182 applications from 28 countries and produced 20 winning companies, including seven women-led ventures, the APAC edition continues this momentum by addressing the unique energy needs and opportunities within this diverse region. The SolarX Startup Challenge is designed to develop scalable and replicable business models that accelerate global energy transitions. The APAC edition, which also included a dedicated segment for India, highlighted ways to enhance solar deployment through localised solutions and entrepreneurial efforts across the Asia-Pacific. Ajay Mathur, Director General, ISA said in a statement, «This challenge emphasises our focus on developing scalable solutions tailored to the diverse energy needs of this dynamic region.»

Blackstone Inc. has agreed to acquire AirTrunk in a deal valuing the Australian data centre operator at A$24 billion (US$16.1 billion), including debt and capital expenditure for committed projects.

Marc-Andre Blanchard, executive vice president and global head of sustainability at CDPQ, one of the biggest global investors in infra-related assets in India. «When we talk about ESG and sustainability, we're really talking about good management and value creation,» Blanchard said. «As a pension fund, we are driven by the desire to build businesses that drive performance and progress. For us, capital takes on its full value when it generates positive change.» The Canadian leader stated that CDPQ is a global investment group with over $452 billion in assets under management, including 12% in the Asia-Pacific region. What sets CDPQ apart is its dual mandate: generating returns for its depositors-representing over 6 million Quebecers-while contributing to Quebec's economic development. CDPQ is also Canada's second-largest pension fund, he said.

Indian shoppers are continuing to buy from retail chains especially when it comes to premium products and during big discount days or festive periods, as per a latest study by market researcher NielsenIQ. The study shows that these big shopping periods contribute 20% of incremental sales for FMCG and 60% for consumer electronic products. Non-food categories grow 1.8 times faster than food during these periods, driven by deep discounts and consumer preference for non-essentials. Categories such as toothpaste, toilet soap, and washing powder lead the charge, benefits with 20-30% incremental sales during big days, it said.

Avalara, a cloud-based tax compliance solutions provider, plans to onboard about 1,000 new employees in the next nine months across engineering, tax, content, sales support and professional services functions. The move is part of its efforts to establish India as a centre of technical excellence and its planned expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a company statement. “Despite India’s competitive employment market, the US-based solutions provider remains committed to enhancing capabilities in tax technology, legislation, e-invoicing, and global tax compliance by investing significantly in the country's technological talent,” the company said.

Water on an Alaska Airlines flight from Hawaii to Alaska entered the cabin from a flooded bathroom, crew tried to mop it up. (Credit: Dustin Parker/Facebook)

real estate investments in the Asia-Pacific region, attracting 9% of the total volume of investment within the region in the first half of 2024, showed a Knight Frank India study. The total cross-border investments in the Asia Pacific region during this period reached $11.5 billion, with India receiving $3 billion from global private equity investors. In terms of investment in Indian real estate, the office sector accounted for 36% of the total global capital allocation, reflecting the strong appeal of commercial real estate assets. The industrial sector followed closely with 30% of the investment share, while the residential sector received 15%, and retail accounted for 10%.

Hong Kong is introducing a new Bitcoin exchange-traded fund that allows investors to bet against the cryptocurrency, even as the market reaches near 6-week highs.

South China Sea this week to successfully rehearse anti-submarine operations, naval combat and providing air defence to vessels, Russia's TASS news agency reported on Thursday. TASS cited a statement from Russia's Pacific Fleet as saying that the drills — dubbed 'Maritime Cooperation 2024 — had now finished. The opening ceremony of the exercise took place in the Chinese port of Zhanjiang, the Russian defence ministry said earlier this week.