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The global economy faces a new turning point amid a polycrisis. Over the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical conflicts have overshadowed economic growth. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2023 revealed that these conflicts and geo-economic tensions have sparked a series of interconnected global risks, including energy and food supply shortages, cost of living crises and debt servicing challenges, and these are likely to persist for the next two years. While tensions between China and the US show promising signs of easing, uncertainty remains. Nevertheless, at ...

Few think of the ocean as an epicenter for human ingenuity, but our history and future can be charted by our life on the seas. From the extraordinary voyages of my ancestors and other early Pacific Island peoples millennia ago to the trade, multilateralism and security provided by today’s container ships and cargo vessels, many of our greatest leaps came from the innovation needed to cross the ocean. Today, about 80% of everything we eat and use comes to us by sea – an astonishing, often-overlooked indicator of how important ...

India’s current account deficit narrowed sharply in the January to March quarter, helped by a smaller trade gap and increased services exports, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Wednesday. The current account deficit (CAD) stood at $1.3 billion, or 0.2% of gross domestic product (GDP), in the fourth quarter of the 2022/23 fiscal year, compared with the previous quarter’s revised deficit of $16.8 billion, or 2% of GDP. The deficit had stood at $13.4 billion in the same period a year earlier, the data showed. The sequential decline ...

Asian clean tankers freight will likely come under downward pressure in the next few weeks due to weak demand to load naphtha from the Persian Gulf and India as buyers in the Far East step up purchases from Malaysia and Singapore instead, several market participants said June 26. The clean tanker route from Singapore to Japan and South Korea, which turned illiquid, or became a rarity in the last 12 years, was experiencing a gradual revival. “With Russia diverting its own naphtha to Asia, some of it is finding its ...

Partnerships, consortiums, and combined studies will be pivotal to the realisation of zero-emissions shipping. As the second of two panel discussions at Inmarsat’s Shaping Connected Future Seminar during this year’s Singapore Maritime Week, Sustainability: Delivering Change explored how the maritime industry could enable high-value connected solutions to address its environmental challenges. Moderated by Chakib Abi-Saab, Chief Technology, and Innovation Officer at Lloyd’s Register (LR), the discussion drew on the insight of panellists Elisa Woodward, Chief Operations Officer, Vallianz Holdings; Lynn Loo, Chief Executive Officer, Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD); ...

A sharp fall in the rate of inflation for goods being sold by manufacturers offers a good indication that British consumer price inflation should fall steeply, Bank of England policymaker Swati Dhingra said on Tuesday. “There are some promising signals that CPI inflation should ease, and that’s mostly coming from … one of the best leading indicators … of the long-run evolution of prices in this country, producer price inflation,” Dhingra said in a speech to Britain’s Royal Economic Society. Source: Reuters (Reporting by David Milliken,Editing by William Schomberg)

China’s new offshore listing rules for domestic companies have left bankers and lawyers who work on listings unsure how to take on liabilities and avoid breaching tightened confidentiality rules, Asia’s largest financial lobby group said on Tuesday. China’s long-awaited rules for offshore stock exchange listings came into effect on March 31 as part of a regulatory tightening on cross-border listings after years of a laissez-faire approach. There is “a lot of nervousness” among the bankers, lawyers and accountants who are now required to formally pledge with China’s securities regulator within ...

Asia’s naphtha refining profit margin rose slightly on Tuesday but continued to trade deep in the negative amid poor demand fundamentals from petrochemical units. The crack rose by $2.35 to minus $50.03 a metric ton over Brent crude. Markets flipped to backwardation on Monday, with the first-half August naphtha trading $1.50 higher than the following month. On the supply side, Russian naphtha arrivals into Asia soared to an over one-year high of 800,000 mt this month, while shipments from the Mediterranean nearly doubled month-on-month to 500,000-600,000 mt, assessments by Refinitiv ...

China has made significant breakthroughs in the development of unmanned ships, as drone vessels are now not only undergoing testing but also seeing practical deployment, the country’s national broadcaster said in a recent report, with experts saying on Monday that China is in the first tier in unmanned ship technologies. Unmanned ships can carry out missions like autonomous patrol, reconnaissance, detection as well as search and rescue independently or in cooperation with others, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Sunday. Faster and more maneuverable than traditional vessels, drone ships are ...

The Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (the Hong Kong Convention) is set to enter into force within 24 months, after Bangladesh and Liberia became Contracting States to the Convention. The Hong Kong Convention is aimed at ensuring that ships, when being recycled after reaching the end of their operational lives, do not pose any unnecessary risks to human health, safety and to the environment. The Hong Kong Convention will enter into force 24 months after the following required criteria have been met: ...

NASDAQ-Adv: 2,039 Dec: 2,357 NYSE-Adv: 2,573 Dec: 1,350 (Source: Nasdaq)

U.S. natural gas futures held near a three-month high on Tuesday, on a drop in output and forecasts for the weather to remain hot through mid-July, especially in Texas. That lack of price movement came despite forecasts for less demand this week than previously expected, due in part to a decline in the amount of gas flowing to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s power grid operator, again projected electric use would break records, this time Tuesday and Wednesday, June 27-28. ...

2023 has been so far a positive year for global iron ore trade. In Jan-May 2023, global loadings of iron ore increased by +3.1% y-o-y to 620.9 mln tonnes

Sentiment in the German export industry has deteriorated noticeably in June, a survey by the Ifo Institute showed on Tuesday. The Ifo export expectations index fell to minus 5.6 points in June from plus 1.0 points in May, dropping to its lowest level since November 2022. “In addition to weak demand on the German domestic market, we are now also seeing fewer orders from abroad,” said Klaus Wohlrabe, head of surveys at Ifo. “This is bad news for Germany’s export economy.” The majority of sectors forecast exports to decline over ...

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Argentine counterpart Alberto Fernandez on Monday reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthen bilateral economic ties. During a meeting at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lula highlighted the importance of economic and financial integration, and proposed to help Brazilian exporters maintain their presence in the Argentine market amid the latter’s economic woes. “We are working on creating a comprehensive line of financing for Brazilian exports to Argentina. It does not make sense for Brazil to lose space in the Argentine market ...