Podcasts about North Asia

Manpreet speaks to Raymond about whether the US equity market rebound has legs, why we still expect a soft landing and our top views across global equity, bond and currency markets. Read our latest Global Market Outlook here. Speakers: Manpreet Gill, CIO of Africa, Middle East & Europe (AME/E) and Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Strategy, Standard Chartered Bank Raymond Cheng, CIO of North Asia,  Standard Chartered Bank For more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go or subscribe to Standard Chartered Wealth Insights on YouTube.

Both the US and China are claiming victory in a tariff ceasefire, but will this put the Asian superpower back on track to achieve 5% growth.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The rise of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology has been nothing short of transformative , reshaping global finance and wealth management. According to Multipolitan's latest report, The Future Is Onchain, this revolution is gaining unprecedented momentum, fueled by key geopolitical shifts and demographic changes. One key insight from the report is the emergence of crypto-friendly cities as the new epicenters of wealth and innovation. Cities such as Ljubljana, Hong Kong, Zurich, and Singapore are now vying to become the global hubs for crypto wealth, driven by favorable regulations and strong tech infrastructure. So, how is blockchain transforming the way we invest? What can cities, investors, and individuals do to position themselves at the forefront of this new digital economy? On The Wealth Tracker, Hongbin Jeong speaks with Nirbhay Handa, CEO of Multipolitan & Chuan Wei Foo, Partner for North Asia at Multipolitan to find out more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paul Everingham joins Ray and Jim to explain that liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand in Asia is expected to nearly double by 2050. The initial growth will be driven by North Asia (especially China), with South Asia and Southeast Asia becoming the main growth centers after 2035. This surge is tied to Asia's rapid economic development, growing energy needs, and the region's transition from coal.Asia is projected to account for 50% of global economic growth and a growing share of global emissions. Addressing energy needs and emissions in Asia is crucial for global climate goals and humanitarian progress, as many Asian countries still rely heavily on coal and lack access to clean energy and modern amenities.Paul describes LNG as more than just a bridge to renewables—it's vital for economic and national security, and asserts that LNG is cleaner than coal and oil and provides reliable "baseload" and "peaking" power, which renewables like wind and solar currently can't match due to their intermittency and storage limitations.The Biden administration's pause on US LNG export facilities was discussed, with Paul arguing that such moves are more political than scientific. He stresses that immediate transitions from coal to renewables aren't feasible in Asia due to infrastructure and storage constraints, and that gas is essential for meeting Paris climate commitments.Despite a slowing economy and population decline, China's energy demand is rising as it seeks to reduce new coal plant construction and diversify gas imports away from reliance on Russia. China is investing in both renewables and LNG to ensure energy security.The conversation highlights that global energy demand is rising, not just shifting. Coal use is at record highs, and the US is facing new surges in energy demand due to AI and data centers. Paul advocates for an "all of the above" approach, including nuclear, gas, and renewables, to meet growing needs.Paul says LNG offers more flexible supply options than pipeline gas, reducing dependency on single suppliers. However, building out LNG infrastructure is capital-intensive and complex. The US, Qatar, and Australia are the dominant LNG exporters, but the US is expected to become the leading supplier by 2040, especially as Asian demand grows.Qatar is a major player due to its vast gas reserves and strategic, conservative development. Indonesia and Malaysia were early LNG exporters, but their fields are now in decline. The US, with its massive shale gas reserves, is poised to shape global markets, especially as new fields come online.The vulnerability of LNG supply lines to blockades (e.g., Taiwan) and the strategic importance of the South China Sea's energy resources were discussed. China's control over disputed areas impacts the ability of countries like the Philippines and Vietnam to develop their own gas fields.Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast; or on LinkedIn or BlueSky.Follow Ray Powell on X (@GordianKnotRay) or on LinkedIn.Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn.This podcast is sponsored by BowerGroupAsia, a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific.

According to research from Gartner, channel partners are crucial levers of revenue generation, accounting for up to 75% of revenue income. So how can you build efficient and deeply engaged channel partner relationships to optimize channel sales? Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Shawnna Sumaoang. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Jason Singh, the head of global partner marketing at Meta. Thank you for joining us. Jason, I’d love for you to tell us about yourself, your background, and your role. Jason Singh: Thank you very much for having me. So I look after partner marketing for business messaging, specifically at Meta, which is our conversational platforms around Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. Being in B2B, marketing, sales, and marketing my entire life. We started in Australia and then moved over to Singapore and then New York about five years ago. What we do is three main things. We focus on ensuring that our partners have all the information that they need to be able to run their programs that they want to around business messaging. The second thing that we do is ensure that they have the right tools and materials. They’re able to grow their business. So that’s partner enablement, whereas where a lot of the Highspot focuses is within. And then lastly, it’s partner demand generation. So making sure that partners have the right investment from us, whether it’s time, dollars, et cetera, to be able to add fuel to their demand generation five. So those are three different programs that we have and where we focus a lot of our attention. SS: I’m excited to have you here, Jason, as a fellow marketing leader, and as you mentioned in your introduction, you have extensive experience across multitudes of regions, including Australia and Asia, and you really have a global perspective on how to bring the channel partner ecosystem to life? How has this diverse background shaped your approach to channel enablement? JS: The role that I have now is my first full-time role where I focused purely on partners previously being in and out of partner marketing and partners as a key audience over the past 15 years. But I took on this partner marketing leadership role officially about 24 months ago. And one of the things that I found out in that, firstly in the first 90 days, I think I met our top 35, 40% of our partners because I didn’t want to assume what they needed to know and the information they need to have and the formats that they needed to have it in and read rates of emails and, and downloads of contents. And I didn’t wanna assume. And so I spoke to a lot of them and it was super, super interesting that there were hardly any patterns. If you spoke with APAC partners, you would think you’d be able to put them into a category if you spoke with India partners similarly versus Latam, Spanish speaking Latam versus Brazil, North America… There weren’t really any regional patterns or trends. It was only when you looked at all partners globally, were you able to look at how partners operate and start compartmentalizing them into different groups, which would then give you a cohort to then cater around in terms of enablement, content, information, demand generation, et cetera. So I think one of the things that, having a diverse background where I. Help me to figure out is don’t assume in the first place, don’t assume more partners are the same. When I, when I was based in APAC, you would think Southeast Asia would be compartmentalized North Asia, so Japan, Korea, China could be compartmentalized and there we have these sub regions within the APAC region where we say, oh, okay, they operate the same, but it’s actually quite different. And so I think that really helped me coming into this global role because I was able to remove that assumption that we have these groupings, these cohorts, that because they’re based in certain regions, because they’ve got certain demographic attributes which are similar, but they’ll work the same way. And so instead of relying on those assumptions, what we did was just net new partner discovery, speaking with partners, getting, building really strong relationships with a lot of our great partners, and then figuring out what those groups are outside of. Demographic regional assumptions. SS: I love that you went in there unassuming and just really kind of learned what the partner ecosystem needed in today’s fast pace evolving environment. What would you say you were hearing are maybe some of the top challenges in channel partner sales and how are you addressing some of these challenges? JS: There is so much opportunity for the channel that they often struggle with. Prioritizing opportunities. If you look at any one of our partners, they partner with us somewhat exclusive, but many partners, partner with a number of other technology providers, and then within each technology provider there are end number of products of go-to market motions of incentives of programs. That they could be a part of. And within each of these standard operating procedures, there are processes, there are portals, there are hubs to sign into, passwords, usernames to remember. And then you’ve got the teams within these organizations that they need to make sure that they’re building relationships with the incumbent partner teams, the the senior leadership marketing teams like myself, et cetera. So it’s no surprise that when you speak to a partner that they’re often doing this. Inner calculation in their head around how important is this? Is this opportunity right now? Is this new product that we’re launching, A new program that we have is our H two market development fund, which we’ll launch in June. How important is this to me right now in the near future and in the long term? And how do I figure out what level of resources to invest? And that could be turning up to a meeting, that could be turning up to a webinar, or that could be. Injecting a couple hundred thousand dollars. That is, I would say by far, the most top of mind thing right now with our channel partners is. What is the actual opportunity with this thing that we’re being positioned with right now, and what do we need to do around this? SS: Yeah, absolutely. Kind of building on that, what do you believe are the key building blocks then for being able to foster really strong and effective partnerships with those channel sales teams? JS: I mean, I think I touched on that first point a little bit, so I’ll expand. Not assuming firstly and not doing groupings or categorization by those assumptions is super important because all of our partners operate probably a little bit differently to how we expect them to operate. The second bit is, I’ll speak my partner marketers lens specifically is learning about how these partners operate. You’ve gotta know who these partners are. You have to build relationships with partner marketers, salespeople, alliance managers. Marketing operations people within the partners. I’m very fortunate to have built a pretty strong relationship with probably about 40 or 50 people within our top 40, 50 partners in different partner groupings for our strategic partners, our tech partners, our service partners, where I’m starting to build a little bit more relationships now with our agency partners as well. And so I’m starting to get a really strong idea about how these partners operate. When I say how they operate, I’m talking about what are their incentives, what are their KPIs? What are the needles that they’re trying to move? Number two is how they actually work internally. So what are the processes? What are the procedures? What are the operating models? What are the systems? What are the tools that they use internally to help them get their work done? And lastly, it’s what are their expectations and what are their needs from us? What do they actually need right now? And that could be something as simple as one of the biggest things that we did. I think last year we’ll start rolling out more decks in Google Docs because we found that a lot of our partners wanted Google Docs because that’s how they operate and wanted the option of Google Docs as well as PowerPoint. And that subtle shift made, I don’t know, 10 partners to be able to work with our content from. Four days, two instantly because from Highspot, they could download that and ship it straight away, or just share organically within Highspot as opposed to having to download it, manipulating it, and then distribute it. And so you’ve really gotta invest the time and the effort to intentionally want to learn about your partners. It’s not a tick in the box of, oh hey, I can show my leadership that I met with 10 partners in Q1. It’s you being able to represent the partner voice. Across all of the different touch points that you have within the organization, whether that’s building content, building plans, talking with leadership. I would say once you get them out of email into a WhatsApp group or a WhatsApp chat, that’s where the real sort of connection happens, and that’s when you can start, like what I do now is when we’ve got a new piece of content, a new program that we’re building, I will take a screenshot of that and I’ll send it to about 12 different people from a different partners on WhatsApp just to get their input and they’ll respond very quickly within a couple hours globally, and they’ll start tell me what they like, what they don’t like, how it’ll work, how it won’t work, and that sort of instant feedback loop that I get with the partners have been cultivated over six months of getting to know them. So I won’t provide like three things that you need to do. I’ll provide, I’ll make it super simple with. The P zero thing that you need to do is build a relationship with your partners, really intentional, meaningful relationships with your partners and get to know them. SS: I think that’s fantastic advice. Jason, to shift gears a little bit, you developed a framework — Learn, Adopt, and Grow to keep channel partners engaged, kind of beyond the onboarding portion of coming on with Meta. Can you tell us more about this framework and what each of the phases entails? JS: Definitely. Before I took over partner marketing, we had a really strong content development arm, but we, we lacked a little bit in the structuring of our content and from a partner point of view. Some of the feedback that we had from our partners when I took on the role and start a meeting with them was, got too many assets on there. There’s there’s too much stuff. We don’t know where to start. One of the assumptions that we made internally actually right at the start was, oh, we need to split this by product type partners, want to know individually by products. And that’s when we sort of paused a little bit. ’cause that didn’t make a whole bunch of sense to me and a few of the other folks in my team. And we went to our partners and plus it didn’t specifically tell us this, it was very clear that partners had different levels of maturity. And within their teams there were different levels of maturity. So partner A may have a sales team that’s super advanced, but their marketing team hasn’t yet really been enabled on business messaging on WhatsApp Messenger or Instagram Direct. And so what we decided to test was how do we group our programs, our content, our materials that aligns with partner maturity. So we split these in, into three different cohorts of partners. Number one, they’re the partners that just kicked off, just finished onboarding, like you said, and, and they’re looking to learn. They’re looking to learn about the products, the platforms, the incentive, our programs, how we go to market. It’s a learn phase. And so we built this category of, of learn, and we started mapping almost, I think two years ago or 18 months ago, we started mapping all of our 101 content and then the second one is adopt. We notice that a lot of partners have at that stage now where they want to, they wanna kickstart some stuff. They wanna launch some programs. They wanna launch a sales program around WhatsApp. They wanna launch a campaign. They want to do internal education. I. Show globally around education, around meta business messaging, and this is all around how do they get from zero to one. And so that was around adoption or expansion where partners have finished that learn phase and they’ve decided they’ve onboarded and they’ve internally prioritized business messaging. Sort of the tier one things of the, what they wanna do. And so in here is a lot of sales materials, marketing materials, program materials to help them to get from zero to one and launching stuff. And so we do things like sales toolkits. We do things like partner ready campaigns, which are campaigns that marketing teams within our partners can give to their. Campaign team and you’ve got landing page designs. You’ve got social media kits, we provide Figma files, co-branded assets, everything that you need. Basically 80% of the stuff that you need to launch a marketing campaign or a sales campaign. And then lastly, we’ve got Grow. Grow is made up of a series of programs that have fairly high investment but are built purely to 10 XROI or ROI. And this is where we partner. We wanna make the programs available. All of our partners, but there’s pretty strict qualification, uh, or eligibility criteria to be part of one of these programs. But essentially these are programs where a partner’s already pretty successful. They know how to sell business mission. They know how to pick the concept and the product they’ve got runs on the board. They’ve got considerable pipeline or revenue already, and they’re looking at options for meta to help them grow this to 10 x, 50 x to a hundred x what they’re already doing. And so that’s grow. That’s when you’ve already mastered. The learn. You know all about the product, the platforms, the programs available to you. You’ve already started driving product adoption or portfolio adoption using our tools, and now you’ve got that. You’ve got a good run rate, but you’re wondering. How you can actually really blow this up. So that’s, that’s our growth phase. And we’ve probably got about 15 to 20% of our partners, I would say, are in there. I would say the lion’s share 50, 60%, 50% probably in that middle bucket. And we’ve got another maybe 15% right now in Learn. But as we expand our partner ecosystem and we open up our ecosystem to different types of partners. Marketplace partners, commerce partners, agencies, et cetera. We will see them starting at learn. We’ll see a lot more people or that waiting shift a little bit more to learn. And then over the course of six months to a year, we’ll see them starting through that process. SS: I love that framework because it really helps kind of guide them through their evolution and their journey with meta. So that’s amazing. And you know, on a similar note, you actually spoke at Highspot user conference last year and you had shared that relevance and timeliness are key to driving adoption with channel sales teams. How do you ensure these elements are really embedded into all of your programs? JS: It’s a hard one. Um, relevance for me focuses on, it’s a three-legged stool. Relevance is all about making sure that the CONT is, I would say firstly it’s format and it’s probably a little bit reversed from how. The majority. Think about it. I think about format, because again, knowing our partners, and this comes with knowing the partners, there are a hundred things that a partner could be doing in any given day. If they’ve decided in half an hour to focus on something related to partner enablement, what I look after and they open up a document and it’s not in the format that they need. So they’re expecting a one pager because I’ve called something intro to x. They’re expecting a one pager, but it’s an 80 page SOP that’s in Microsoft Word that, that they’ve gotta open up on their mobile device and look through it. They’re gonna close that window and they’re not gonna spend the time necessarily finding the thing that they want. They’re gonna shift their mind into focusing on something completely different. So format for me in terms of relevance is key. Making sure that when we launch something, it is in the format that it needs to be in. We have a really strong understanding about the length, the detail within that document. We have a really strong understanding in the time of the day and the mental mode that a part of the audience is gonna be. When they open up this document, are they looking for something really quick that they can share with something? Are they gonna be expecting something really detailed, which they can absorb and then distill for other teams? Are they gonna be looking for something on the go, on the way to a client meeting? And so format number one is, is big for me. And relevance the other legs, uh, of that stool would be. I would say I would include timeliness within that. It’s making sure that we are producing things within the right timeframe requirements of that audience. And so what I mean by that is often what you’ll see with teams is they launch things in phases. You’ll wanna enable a partner on a new product, and you’ll have this phased out over a 12 month period. Quite often that’s done based on the requirements of the internal team and not what the partner’s requirements actually are, and so you’ll almost enable them 20% to do what you want them to do because you’ve got other things coming in phase two, phase three, what we like to do is we like to build our phase one. We used to also launch in phases. We build our phase one point of view. But then we share that with the partners and say, hey, is this the MVP that you need? Like we think it’s these four materials. Do you actually need something else? And they’ll give us feedback. We do this formally, but we also do this informally through like our WhatsApp groups, as I mentioned before. And they’ll come back and say, hey, that ROI calculator that you’re building for phase three, we’d love that in phase one, which we’ve got some pipeline right now that we can accelerate to closure if we were have to show them a stronger ROI through some sort of tool. And what you’re building is perfect for us and so we will recalibrate internally to try and build an asset that’s in phase two, phase three into phase one. Or they’ll say, hey, we don’t actually need this narrative right now. We’ve built this PowerPoint deck already. We’ve got what we need. You can push that out for some other partners that may not be at the stage right now. So again, like having a good understanding of the partner, but also just sharing with the partner, having partners at the core of what you’re actually building in your development cycle is part important and part of and timeliness. And lastly, would be how you launch. So we talk about relevance in terms of making sure got the right format of the materials, the right details within each of the specific assets. We talk about timeliness. I’d say lastly, it’s how you actually launch something. We’ve had to get pretty creative about how we launch certain programs and just projects and and campaigns internally. The main reason being, as I mentioned before, partnered with a hundred things that they could be doing, and so you have to ask yourself, how do you cut through the noise? With those 101 things that partners have to think about every given day, and it could be soft launching, it could be launching with a smaller group of partners, building a case study around partner success, and then using that to launch to the other 80% of partners. But thinking a little bit more creatively around how you launch something so they can build internally. And understanding about how this particular thing is important to me right now is relevant to me right now. Versus the other a hundred things that got going on. SS: I love that approach and clearly it must be working because you guys have recently increased the number of partner organizations that are engaging with Highspot by 21%. I’d love for you to walk us through that journey. What strategies played AQ role in driving these results? JS: Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s kind of, we mentioned before around a format, format launch and, and timeliness. When I joined the team in this specific role, having worked with partners before in various roles and be being a partner to a lot of organizations previously as well, I understood the importance of a content management system. You know, we have typically you have partner managers that. Manage your top under know 10, 15, 20% of partners, but then you’ve got this medium tail and this long tail that you need to activate and you do that through documentation. We had a pretty good Highspot experience previously, but again, there was, there was little organization done around it. And so the first thing I kind of did was, you know, take off my, my partner marketing hat and put my partner hat on access Highspot and go. Let me do the top five to 10 things that a partner would need to do, and I had that list after chatting with the partners in my first 60, 90 days, and I noticed that almost every single one of the top 10 things that a partner needs to do was a real struggle in Highspot and not because of the tool, but because of how we had structured our Highspot experience. It wasn’t aligned to how partners want to actually use it. And so we focused in 2023. In the early part of 24, we predominantly focused on three things. We focused on content, making sure we did a pretty comprehensive content audit. I think we had about something like six and a half thousand different assets on Highspot, and so we did a complete content audit. We removed the stuff that we didn’t need that needed to be archived. That was just, I think it was, was three groups. It was remove, archive, update and keep. Something like that. A key thing for me on the next phase was on the user, the more of a visual experience. Ours was good. It was a little bit more out of the box and I feel we working with some of our internal brand teams, we could prove that to be a little bit more similar to some of the other partner experiences that our partners have. On some of the other portals that we have, just a partner portal, a partner center, our partner hub. And so we work to bring in some of those brand elements from Meta and WhatsApp and our different platforms into Highspot. We’re able to do that with one of our partners. And then the last thing we did was test, though we updated our content. I’m a big stickler for content naming and having a really strong naming taxonomy and nomenclature around how you name your content. And if you ask my team or the team that we work with, I’m always pushing the team. If there’s something, if there’s an asset that’s, that I feel is not named correctly, people aren’t gonna click on that. So what’s the point of even building that asset if it’s not named correctly? People need to be really understand what they’re getting themselves into when they click on an asset. And so we did our content audit. We update a lot of our content. We renamed almost every single asset once we had archived. A lot of the assets rebuilt the design of our complete Highspot experience. We had different groupings, different categories, and then again, we had partnered as part of this journey. So we tested this with partners and we said, hey, if we had this, what do you think? A lot of these were just workshops with partners moving certain things around saying, hey, if we put this here, does that work? We put this here, does that work? And then we launched, we soft launched, I think to about 20% of our partners, we saw some good results and then we, we had launched for everyone else. I mean, we saw an initial spike straight away when we launched because we’ve completely redesigned high spot and it’s great experience and you’re gonna get a lot of people organically come in and say, hey, I wonder what this is about. So we saw a spike in the first two weeks, but after that, that’s when we started. We saw the drop after the spike, and then we saw the gradual. And importantly for us, we wanted partners that don’t visit us at all to start visiting our Highspot experience. We wanted more people within our partners visiting Highspot as well. And so eventually over the six months, we started seeing like a really steady, nice, gradual ramp up. And then some of our other metrics, the time spent on HighSpot, the number of things that they’re downloading, number of things that they’re opening, so views, a lot of these started improving. The challenge now is that now we’re getting really strong adoption on Highspot. We’re starting to see teams wanting to upload more and more content on it because we’re starting to see the value of a lot of the foundational work that we’ve done. And so whilst we don’t, obviously we don’t gate content, but we do wanna make sure that everything that’s uploaded. Is super intentional and is aligned with the risk of enablement program that we have. So it’s a good problem to have. SS: Absolutely. That is a great problem to have. And so, aside from some traffic, and you did talk about a couple other key metrics, but I’d love to understand, how do you think about the metrics that you need in order to continue to measure and optimize your channel enablement strategy. JS: If you’re kind of first principles that, and think about why do we have Highspot experience in the first place to enable our partner ecosystem. We have a partner ecosystem within business messaging which is evolving and growing. We’re expanding to, if you say we have about 12 different types of partners in their ecosystem, we’ve got really strong activation with. Probably a quarter of them. And we’re now focusing on evolving our partner ecosystem into the rest. And so our partner marketing goals are always aligned to our partner ecosystem goals and our channel goals in general. And then with end partner marketing, our enablement goals are aligned with what our channel strategy is. And so right now what we’re focusing on is ensuring that as we expand our private ecosystem to new and different type of partners. When they’re ready for enablement, we start taking them into that learn phase of the learner grow model. That experience is really positive for them, and it’s almost a page turner type experience where they’re really excited to move into the next phase, or really excited to be shown a different asset or for another asset to be uploaded and email to them and say, hey, you think you’re really like this? And so really key for me is ensuring that whatever, whatever I’m doing, whatever my team’s doing, is aligned completely to a partner ecosystem strategy. SS: I love that. And do you have some wins that you might be able to share? What are some of the initial business results that you’ve seen on Highspot specifically? JS: Look, I don’t have the numbers off the top of my head, but there were two things that we wanted to do. We wanted more partners, more net new partners on it, so partners that spend zero time on it and we can see from our dashboards that we build, I wanted to see more partners on it. ’cause that for me was, and they’ve been enabled on a Highspot before. They’ve got access, they’ve got a license, they know how to use it. They’re just not using it. And so for me, that was a real win to start seeing Partner X that hasn’t visited Highspot in three months to start seeing them, oh, hey, we’ve got one person from Partner X now in Highspot last month, and now I’ve got two people. The average time they spend on the platform was 60 seconds. Now it’s three minutes. Now it’s six minutes. But that was a great personal win for me because that’s almost, for me, that was proving them wrong. Initially, they had probably visited it and not enjoyed the experience, and in their mind it was something that I didn’t really need. And so for me to be able to turn that around with that team and rebuild the experience of them to say, oh, it’s actually pretty good now, that was a really great win for me because that’s turning a detractor into an advocate, which is just, just a, a great personal goal to have. And the second thing is starting to see people, I suppose we’re seeing people spend more time on it. We’ve got a hypothesis around why they spend more time on it is because we’ve got less content on there. Now, I don’t know exactly how many assets, but it’s not, it’s not close to 6,000 anymore, but there’s less assets on there. So the discoverability is far better. They can find the assets that they want. When they go into the search field and they search for something, they don’t come up with 40 different assets. It’s 12, which is manageable. And so they’re spending more time within those assets. So now we see new partners using it and existing partners using it more and better. The two things that we focus on, we’re seeing those move up into the right, which is great. We wanna start looking into different sorts of measures of success. This year we are looking into, you know, again, as I mentioned with the part ecosystem, how do we launch to a new partner type? Which is new, and so we haven’t done that yet. On Highspot, we had a bunch of partners already enabled on business messaging through a different portal. Then when we adopted Highspot, we moved them to there. But we’re gonna start looking at things like sharing. We’ve recently started using digital sales rooms, which is something that we didn’t do last year, and we’re testing about five to six different things with digital sales rooms. That’s a really powerful feature. We haven’t figured out exactly where, where the superpower is for us to use digital sales rooms. But once our pilots are finished, we’ll probably have a hypothesis there. But yeah, I think the metric for us this year is we know our partner numbers are gonna still go up and into the right. It’s gonna slow down a little bit our growth, but we know we’re in the right direction. So our other measure for success is how do we deepen our partner’s experience with Highspot? We know we’ve only scratched the surface of what Highspot can do for us. So we’re looking into what are the other things that we need to do, and also importantly, how do we connect the Highspot experience with some of our other tools that we have, and starting to integrate it more into the partner experience that we have versus a standalone CMS, which a little bit it is of now, but I know that’s something we’re working on with your team. SS: I love that. Jason, last question for you, and I don’t think we could. Get away from talking about AI these days. It’s everywhere. And at the conference you were at last fall, I know you were excited about some of the AI innovation that we, we showcased there, but I’d love to hear from you, how are you starting to envision AI playing a role in further enhancing your channel partner enablement strategy moving forward? JS: I mean, the buzzword of the year, right? It’s a little bit hard right now. We’ve just finished our foundational rebuild of Highspot, and we’re at a really comfortable stage with what we’ve delivered to our partners and the operations around it, including, you know, governance. Measurement content, strategy, et cetera, like when a really good spot there. I think there are some operating models around AI that make sense for our partners to want to lean in towards. When you talk about enablement, which we’re at different stages of exploring, I think the most powerful one would be how do we get the right content? It comes down to timeliness and relevance as we spoken at the start. How do we get the right content to the right partner at the right time? And so that’s more generative content enablement, if you will. And that’s tough because you need, you need sort of metadata to support that. But I think if you were to ask our partners what’s the main thing that they would want from AI and channel enablement or partner enablement, it would be, hey, be really useful instead of me looking for the, the asset for you to actually know that I need this asset right now or group of assets. I think that would be the main thing that they would want. And I get it. So we’ll get to that stage at some point. But right now we’re, we’re definitely focused on maintaining our strong grassroots and foundations right now, and then looking at more sort of piecemeal. Additions to that. So things like digital sales rooms, things like making it easier for them to be able to share content with their end clients on the go, which is one of the ask that they’ve sent from us. And so those are the few things that we’re focused on this year. SS: I love it. Jason, thank you again so much for joining our podcast today. I truly appreciate you sharing your insights and experience. JS: Of course. It’s been great. Thanks a lot, Shawnna. SS: To our audience, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.

Kia ora,Welcome to Wednesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.And today we lead with news the gears of the global economy are grinding disconcertingly as the unnecessary trade war is prosecuted with little strategy and no apparent viable end game.But first up today, the latest full dairy auction brought an overall rise of +1.6% in USD. However, the fall and fall of the USD has completely undermined this result, with prices in NZD falling -2.1%. In USD all categories except SMP rose, and demand was strong from "North Asia" (ie China). Milk fats were in demand, while global milk supply is waning in the major producers, underpinning the demand. Pity about the currency effect.Inflation is showing up in the retail trade in the US, with the weekly Redbook index up +6.6% from the same week a year ago. There is no way that reflects a volume riseBusiness activity continued to fall in March in the New York Fed's factory survey in the New York state. New order levels extended their decline/In Canada, their CPI inflation rate eased lower to 2.3% in March. That is after the eight-month high of 2.6% in February. The March result was tamer than expected (2.6%) and below forecasts by the central bank of 2.5%. It comes after some GST and other tax changes earlier have now been flushed through their data. The Bank of Canada next meets to review its official policy rate later today, but it will be the economic impact of their unfriendly neighbour that will dominate policy, rather than current inflation. They will likely hold off making rate changes for now, keeping the 2.75% policy rate. That is a change from the earlier expected cut.Canadian housing starts came in weak in March, down more than -11% from the same month a year ago.India CPI inflation rate fell in March to 3.3%, its lowest since 2019. Food price inflation fell to 2.7%. Both were much lower than expected and well below the central bank's policy rate mid point of 4%.Indian exports rose sharply in March from February in the normal seasonal pattern. Their imports rose even more so their trade deficit grew from the prior month, although only back to its usual level.In China, they are cancelling their orders for Boeing aircraft, a blow to the US aircraft industry.In February, EU industrial production rose, a surprise gain and the best monthly gain in two years.But that wasn't an indicator for economic sentiment. The latest ZEW survey reveals a sharp deterioration as they watched the US turn away from friend to foe, making them feel boxed in between the US and Russia. It was a shift reminiscent of the uncertainty during the pandemic.And it seems that trade talks between the US and the EU are making "litte" (ir no) progress.In Australia, the latest release of the RBA minutes was a dull affair, giving little guidance on how they are going to deal with the trade and inflation challenges. It's all 'wait-and-see' and 'respond-to-data' for them. But they do claim to be in a good position to be able to act decisively if it is needed. A cut on May 20 is still possible however.OPEC's latest monthly review lowered its demand outlook, although some observers thought the smallness of the cutback was brave in the circumstances.And we should also note that there are now three elections due soon. Canada goes to the polls on April 28. Australia votes on May 3. And now a snap election has also been called in Singapore, also for May 3. Being Singapore, that unsurprisingly leaves very little time for campaigning. All these elections will have the Trump shadow hanging over them, and it very much helps campaigning to present an anti-Trump stance. Trump has resurrected the fortunes of the centre-left candidates, enough to cancel the anti-incumbent mood.The UST 10yr yield is now at 4.33%, down another -4 bps from this time yesterday.The price of gold will start today at just on US$3229/oz, and up +US$16 from yesterday.Oil prices have firmed marginally, up +50 USc from yesterday to be now at US$61.50/bbl in the US and the international Brent price is now just over US$64.50/bbl.The Kiwi dollar is now at 59.1 USc, up +30 bps from yesterday at this time and the highest since mid-December. The fall of the USD extends. Against the Aussie we are down -10 bps at 92.9 AUc. Against the euro we up +30 bps from yesterday at just on 52.4 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today now just under 67.6 and up +30 bps from yesterday.The bitcoin price starts today at US84,616 and holding again, up a mere +0.1% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at +/- 1.2%.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston. And we will do this again tomorrow.

Our man in Beijing, North Asia correspondent Will Glasgow, unpacks how Chinese President Xi has mishandled the tariff war, and how it can possibly be resolved. Find out more about The Front podcast here. You can read about this story and more on The Australian's website or on The Australian’s app. This episode of The Front is presented by Claire Harvey, produced by Kristen Amiet and edited by Tiffany Dimmack. Our team includes Lia Tsamoglou, Joshua Burton, Stephanie Coombes and Jasper Leak, who also composed our music.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fintechs have pushed the industry to focus on client experiences, and our show today digs into how traditional banks can collaborate with global banks like Citi to improve experiences like cross border payments for their clients. In our conversation today, Aashish Mishra, Citi's Global Head for Banks sales and North Asia head for Financial Institutions and Fintech Sales, Treasury & Trade Solutions (TTS), dives into how the bank's 24/7 US dollar clearing business, as well as solutions like Worldlink ® Payment Services, are helping the firm's bank clients deliver modern and intuitive experiences to its customers. Aashish Mishra is part of Citi's Services' business based in Hong Kong, and he performs two roles: he's responsible for TTS sales and strategy for all FI client segments in North America, which spans banks, fintechs, insurance, asset managers, and broker dealers. And for the bank segment globally, his focus is on delivering the entire TTS solution set to his clients, including cash clearing, global payments and receivables, Banking as a Service, liquidity solutions and trade solutions. Prior to this role, he spent extensive time in Citi's Security Services business, including as the Head of Custody Product and Head of Direct Custody and Clearing business for Asia.  Aashish has extensive experience in the financial institution space, and has worked closely with senior clients, regulators, and financial market infrastructure during his career. Today, he brings that insight from multiple arms of the vast Citi footprint to the show to explore how banks can push their products further without burdening their teams with technical lift, as well as where he expects client expectations to go in the future.

This week on The Fin podcast, North Asia correspondent Jessica Sier and motoring writer Tony Davis on Tesla’s challenges, the rise of BYD and whether a five-minute battery charge could be the real game changer.This podcast is sponsored by Aussie Broadband.Further reading: BYD overtakes Tesla to secure pole position in EV raceThe Chinese electric carmaker’s latest full-year financial results reveal the extent of this power shift, with it surpassing the $US100 billion revenue mark.Tesla’s new strategy as sales fall: Openness (but don’t mention Musk)The Cybertruck is being shown off at a Sydney expo and executives are free to speak for the first time in years as Tesla takes a new tack amid falling sales.Trump tariffs deliver body blow to Japan’s auto industryAfter embracing the return of a once staunch ally, Japan’s car makers now find themselves on the front line of the trade war despite huge investments in the US.NEWSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

China has made moves to boost consumption, which could flow through to Australia though a boost to the mining sector.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of China Field Notes, Scott Kennedy speaks with Kent Kedl on his 40-year journey in China from teaching English to consulting for multinational companies. They explore the past and present challenges foreign companies face in China, including understanding its regulations and adapting business strategies to local markets, how scenario planning is critical for navigating uncertainties, discuss his experiences during the pandemic lockdown in Shanghai, and the role of humor in processing new experiences, including in China. Kent Kedl is the founder and managing partner at Blue Ocean Advisors, a risk and strategy advisory firm based in Shanghai. Kent has consulted with multinational and Asia-based corporations on a range of issues, such as geopolitical risk, M&A and organic growth strategy, crisis management and organizational development programs. He was previously the Managing Partner for Control Risks' Greater China and North Asia practice and, prior to that, was a partner with Technomic Asia, a market strategy consulting firm. Kent has worked as a journalist and is a frequent contributor to Asia-based media outlets. Kent has been working across Asia and living in China for nearly forty years.

Kia ora,Welcome to Wednesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.And today we lead with news inflation is still not beat and the new tariff wars are messing with when that might happen.First up today, there was another dairy auction, and this one came in weaker than the derivatives markets had anticipated. Prices slipped overall by -0.6% in USD terms and by -1.5% in NZD terms. It was a much lower SMP price that was the surprise undershoot, down -2.5% from the prior event and last week's Pulse event. Cheddar cheese also took a -3.4% tumble, whereas the WMP price was only -0.2% lower than the last event, but it didn't fall as much as the derivatives market anticipated. Going the other way, there was a -2.2% rise in the butter price, taking it to almost matching its record high in June 2024. It is at its record high in NZD. Overall, of note today, "North Asia" (ie China) returned with renewed demand to be the top buyer, after largely sitting on the sidelines recently.In the US, the New York region factory survey turned from a negative to a positive expansion in February, a continuation of an improving trend that started in early 2024 but one that has been volatile.But their national survey of house builders turned more cautious in February, hurt by tariff-talk and the expected resulting inflation.In Canada they reported January CPI inflation, and that came in at 1.9% and pretty much as expected. But the "trimmed mean" core rate came in at 2.7%, the one the Bank of Canada follows, above the December level of 2.6% and well above the expected 2.5% level. This is going the wrong way for them and they may now skip the expected March rate cut.We should probably note that German business sentiment rose in February, ahead of this weekend's federal elections, on the hope that a new government won't get stuck in coalition paralysis. More broadly, EU business sentiment is rising too.The Reserve Bank of Australia cuts its policy rate by -25 bps to 4.1%, much as expected by financial markets, citing progress on getting inflation down towards its target range. It was their first cut since 2020. But it was a hawkish cut, and post-election there may not be any more until the clear inflation pressures ease, especially those expected from the looming tariff war. Despite that, financial markets are still pricing in at least two more rate cuts in 2025.The UST 10yr yield is at 4.54%, up +5 bps from yesterday at this time.The price of gold will start today at just under US$2931/oz and up +US$33 from yesterday.Oil prices are up +50 USc at just over US$71.50/bbl in the US and the international Brent price is now at US$75.50/bbl.The Kiwi dollar is now at 57 USc and down -40 bps from yesterday. Against the Aussie we are down -30 bps at 89.8 AUc. Against the euro we are down -20 bps at 54.6 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today just over 66.9, and down -30 bps from this time yesterday and has been among the largest devaluers over the past 24 hours.The bitcoin price starts today at US$94,789 and down another -0.7% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been modest at +/- 1.1%.Join us at 2pm this afternoon for full coverage of the RBNZ's Monetary Policy Statement. And before that, we will have the January REINZ results at 9am.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston. And we will do this again tomorrow.

Email comments or guest ideas (to reply, include your email address)In Episode 57, leading Asia energy economist Mike Thomas of The Lantau Group shared insights on 2024 trends and the 2025 outlook. He highlighted improved investment fundamentals, growing demand for renewables, and significant market reforms in Malaysia and the Philippines. Looking ahead, Mike expects continued renewable growth despite geopolitical uncertainties, more solar-hybrid projects, and evolving challenges in gas flexibility. Mike also thinks that while nuclear power's future remains uncertain in Southeast Asia, small modular reactors show long-term promise.REFERENCES: TLG InsightsABOUT MIKE: Mike Thomas is the Managing Director and a founding partner at The Lantau Group with over 30 years of consulting experience, focussing on the energy sector.  He advises a wide range of energy sector stakeholders on strategic, regulatory, and competition matters; sustainability; market design and development; and commercial transactions.  Prior to co-founding in 2010, he headed the Asia Pacific Energy & Environment practice of a global consulting firm.  Mike has an MPP from Harvard Kennedy School, United States and a BA in Economics from Carleton College, United States. More specifically, within the Asia Pacific region, he has led many significant engagements involving the robust application of economics and analytics to a wide variety of business, policy, and regulatory challenges affecting the electricity and gas sectors.  He works extensively with multinationals on sustainability strategies, focussing on the best options in different markets, and on the regulatory and policy changes needed to support increasing renewable energy contracting options.  He has testified or advised as an industry economic expert in commercial contract disputes before courts or arbitral panels in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia, and on disputed regulatory matters before regulatory authorities in New Zealand, Australia, and the Philippines.  His experience in commercial matters includes market forecasts and revenue simulations for numerous renewable energy and conventional energy projects and market assessments in South Asia, North Asia, ASEAN, and Australia/New Zealand.FEEDBACK: Email Host | HOST, PRODUCTION, ARTWORK: Joseph Jacobelli | MUSIC: Ep0-29 The Open Goldberg Variations, Kimiko Ishizaka Ep30-50 Orchestra Gli Armonici – Tomaso Albinoni, Op.07, Concerto 04 per archi in Sol - III. Allegro. | Ep51 – Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G, Movement I (Allegro), BWV 1049 Kevin MacLeod. Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Last night, in a shock televised announcement, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law.  It sent some South Koreans running to their homes, to be with their families. Unsure of what this move would mean. While many others fled to the National Assembly, in protest, even as police and the military surrounded the country's parliament. In a bonus episode today, North Asia correspondent Lisa Visentin, on how this bizarre situation unfolded and why such an extreme measure was deployed by the president. Audio thanks to: South Korea crisis - President lifts martial law in humiliating U-turn. BBC News. South Korea President Yoon says he will lift martial law. BBC News. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last night, in a shock televised announcement, South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law.  It sent some South Koreans running to their homes, to be with their families. Unsure of what this move would mean. While many others fled to the National Assembly, in protest, even as police and the military surrounded the country's parliament. In a bonus episode today, North Asia correspondent Lisa Visentin, on how this bizarre situation unfolded and why such an extreme measure was deployed by the president. Audio thanks to: South Korea crisis - President lifts martial law in humiliating U-turn. BBC News. South Korea President Yoon says he will lift martial law. BBC News. Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Previously Svein has been in a number of roles at Marsh McLennan: Country Corporate Officer Japan, Chief Executive Korea, Risk Management & Multinational Leader Asia, Managing Director and Country Vice Executive Japan, Senior Vice President Atlanta, Senior Vice President Brazil.  He has a B.A. from the University of San Diego and an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He attended the Canadian Academy in Kobe.

Analysts say decisive policy stance bodes well for investment inflow分析人士称，果断的政策立场是投资流入的好兆头The renminbi rallied to its strongest level in more than a year and Chinese equities continued their rebound on Wednesday, after a potent policy package lifted investors' confidence in the Chinese economy, which is expected to sail through headwinds.25日，人民币汇率升至一年多来的最高水平，中国股市继续反弹。此前，强有力的一揽子政策提振了投资者对中国经济的信心，预计中国经济将逆风前行。Economists, investment banks and asset managers said that policymakers' more decisive stance to shore up the economy, a global interest rate cut cycle, and low asset valuations have combined to make it a potentially good time to invest in Chinese financial assets, which are expected to attract more foreign inflow in the months ahead.经济学者、投资银行和资产管理公司表示，决策者在支撑经济方面采取的更为果断的立场、全球降息周期以及低资产估值等因素结合在一起，使得现在可能成为投资中国金融资产的好时机，预计未来几个月中国金融资产将吸引更多外资流入。However, they cautioned that the forecast may be contingent upon the implementation of further policy support to address economic challenges, with the most urgent priorities being additional fiscal spending to bolster domestic demand and direct funding to alleviate property sector woes.然而，他们提醒，这一预测可能取决于为应对经济挑战而实施的进一步政策支持，目前最紧迫的是增加财政支出以促进国内需求，并提供直接资金以缓解房地产行业的困境。On Wednesday, the renminbi, or Chinese yuan, rose to 6.9951 against the US dollar in the offshore market, up 158 basis points from the previous close and past the 7-per-dollar milestone for the first time in 16 months.25日，离岸人民币对美元汇率升至 6.9951，较前一交易日收盘价涨158个基点，16 个月来首次升破7.0元关口。Guan Tao, global chief economist at BOCI China, said that the renminbi's rally is attributable to both Tuesday's policy release, which strengthened investors' confidence in China's economy, and the US Federal Reserve's interest rate cut last week, which narrowed the yield spreads between US and Chinese bonds.中银证券全球首席经济学家管涛表示，人民币汇率上涨的原因在于24日发布的政策提振了投资者对中国经济的信心，以及美联储上周降息缩小了中美两国国债收益率利差。Looking ahead, Guan said the renminbi is likely to register two-way fluctuations against the dollar, with limited possibility of one-sided, drastic appreciation because uncertainties remain surrounding the Fed's pace of rate cuts, including that the Fed might even reconsider rate hikes if the US economy turns out to be overheated.展望未来，管涛认为，人民币对美元汇率可能会出现双向波动，单边大幅升值的可能性有限，因为美联储的降息步伐仍存在不确定性，如果美国经济过热，美联储甚至可能重新考虑加息。Moreover, the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, is expected to take measures to prevent any renminbi exchange rate overshooting if needed, and has accumulated rich experience in this regard, said Guan, who had served as head of the Balance of Payments Department at the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.此外，曾任国家外汇管理局国际收支司司长的管涛表示，中国人民银行作为中国的中央银行，在这方面积累了丰富的经验，预计会在必要时采取措施防止人民币汇率超调。Guan added that in the base case scenario, in which the United States achieves a soft landing while the Fed continues rate cuts, foreign institutions may continue to boost holdings in renminbi-denominated bonds, especially treasury bonds.管涛补充，在美国实现软着陆而美联储继续降息的基本情况下，境外机构可能会继续增持人民币债券，尤其是国债。As of August, overseas institutions' holdings in China's interbank bond market had risen for 12 consecutive months, an increase in foreign holdings of as much as 1.34 trillion yuan ($190.7 billion), according to the PBOC's Shanghai head office.中国人民银行上海总部的数据显示，截至8月份，境外机构已连续12个月增持境内银行间市场债券，累计增持规模高达1.34万亿元人民币（1907亿美元）。Upbeat sentiment乐观的情绪The upbeat sentiment was seen in the A-share market as well. The Shanghai Composite Index went up 1.16 percent to Wednesday's close of 2,896.31 points, extending a jump of 4.15 percent on Tuesday, the biggest rise in about four years.A股市场也出现乐观情绪。上证综指25日收盘涨1.16%，报2896.31点，延续了24日4.15%的涨幅，创下约四年来的最大涨幅。"I believe that this may be a good time to revisit Chinese stocks," said David Chao, global market strategist for the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) at Invesco, a global investment management company.景顺亚太区（日本除外）全球市场策略师赵耀庭表示：“我认为现在可能是重新审视中国股票的好时机。”Chao said China has fired off a meaningful monetary stimulus salvo, which may potentially usher trillions of renminbi in liquidity if fully implemented, sending a strong signal that the government is responding to economic headwinds.赵耀庭认为，中国已经打响了有意义的货币刺激战，如果政策全面实施，可能会释放万亿元流动性，表明政府正在应对经济逆风的强烈信号。Major package一揽子政策On Tuesday, China's top financial regulators unveiled a set of measures that some analysts said might be the country's biggest monetary stimulus package following the pandemic.24日，中国最高金融监管机构公布了一系列措施，一些分析人士认为，这可能是疫情之后中国最大的货币刺激计划。This includes a 20 basis point reduction in the seven-day reverse repo rate, a key policy benchmark of interest rates, as well as a 50 basis point cut to rates on existing mortgages and another 50 basis point cut to the reserve requirement ratio, apart from other steps supportive of the property and stock markets.除了其他支持房地产和股票市场的措施外，该计划还包括将作为主要政策利率的7天期逆回购操作利率下调20个基点，将存量房贷利率下调50个基点，将存款准备金率再下调50个基点。The PBOC started to put the package into action by lowering the one-year medium-term lending facility rate, a policy rate, by 30 basis points to 2 percent on Wednesday.25日，中国人民银行将中期借贷便利利率下调30个基点至2%，开始推动一揽子政策落地实施。A Goldman Sachs report said on Wednesday that the latest stimulus package would be strong enough to catalyze a policy-induced rally in shares listed in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland, though it would be unlikely to "turn things around fundamentally".高盛25日的一份报告表示，最新的经济刺激计划足以催化中国香港和中国大陆上市股票的政策性反弹，但不太可能“从根本上扭转局面”。The report said a relending program unveiled on Tuesday will allow listed companies to borrow inexpensive money to shore up stock prices and boost investor sentiment, while the stock stabilization fund that is under policy study, if launched, might help fend off systemic risks in the stock market, as indicated by experiences in other markets.报告称，24日公布的再贷款政策将允许上市公司借入低成本资金，以支撑股价和提振投资者情绪，而正在进行政策研究的股票平准基金如果启动，将有助于抵御股市的系统性风险，其他市场的经验也表明了这一点。While the PBOC introduced two new policy tools aimed at boosting stock market liquidity, the China Securities Regulatory Commission released a guideline on Tuesday to encourage mergers and acquisitions and a draft rule to strengthen listed companies' market capitalization management.在央行推出两项旨在提高股市流动性的新政策工具的同时，中国证监会24日发布了鼓励并购的指导意见和加强上市公司市值管理的规定草案。Yet more could be done, with Goldman Sachs saying that "we would turn more aggressive on A shares when signs of property market stabilization emerge or policy momentum further strengthens".然而，还有更多事情可以做，高盛表示：“当房地产市场出现稳定迹象或政策势头进一步加强时，我们将对A股采取更积极的态度。”Ding Shuang, chief economist for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Bank, underlined the importance of beefing up fiscal support, as "monetary easing would be less effective without proactive fiscal policy".渣打银行大中华及北亚区首席经济师丁爽强调了加强财政支持的重要性，因为“如果没有积极的财政政策，宽松货币政策的效果将大打折扣”。It is likely that the government will increase bond issuance to accelerate government spending, Ding said, adding that investor sentiment could improve if policymakers decide to broaden the use of bond proceeds, especially to reduce home inventory.丁爽认为，政府很可能会增加债券发行以加速政府支出。如果决策者决定扩大债券收益的用途，特别是用于房地产去库存，那么投资者的情绪将会有所改善。Ding said that Standard Chartered Bank analysts retain the base case forecast that the renminbi will stay within the range of between 7 and 7.1 against the dollar by the end of the year.丁爽表示，渣打银行分析师维持基本预测，即人民币对美元汇率到今年年底将保持在7至7.1的区间内。bodev．预示；预言rallyv. 反弹，振作；重整；团结fluctuationn. 波动，涨落soft landing软着陆fiscal policy财政政策

Rami Shabaneh, Senior Fellow, King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) joins host Richard Wilson and The 966 for Episode #135. Rami is a senior fellow with KAPSARC's Oil and Gas program, with a focus on global gas and hydrogen markets. He has nearly 15 years of research and industry experience analyzing energy markets and energy policy.Rami also co-edited the recently published, Clean Hydrogen Economy in Saudi Arabia, Domestic Developments and International Opportunitiesavailable for purchase on Amazon or Routledge as well as Taylor & Francis. Spanning 28 chapters the book is a first-of-its-kind analysis of the emerging global hydrogen economy from the vantage point of one of the world's biggest energy providers: Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom is optimally situated geographically between the major demand markets in Europe and North Asia, from where it can leverage clean hydrogen exports as a potential tool to become a player of strategic importance and successfully diversify its economy under its Vision 2030 program.In his discussion with Richard and The 966 Rami Shabaneh provides informed analysis of the "who," "what," "where," and "why" related to clean hydrogen development within and beyond Saudi Arabia.Coincidentally, this past week NEOM Green Hydrogen Company (NGHC) initiated a major recruitment campaign for its world-leading green hydrogen plant as the project moves closer to its operational phase.The $8.4 billion facility, set to be the world's largest green hydrogen production plant, is targeting full operations by the end of 2026 and aims to produce up to 600 tonnes of carbon-free hydrogen daily, potentially eliminating five million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.Rami Shabaneh is the second KAPSARC expert to join The 966. In January 2022, for Episode #22, Adam Sieminski, who had just finished serving as President of KAPSARC talked renewable energy and the Circular Carbon Economy. Another terrific conversation you can listen to here.https://share.transistor.fm/s/44662395    

Michelle speaks to Raymond on how to navigate through potential market volatilities in September, which tends to be a seasonally weaker month for equities historically.For insights from our latest Weekly Market View report, visit the link here. Speakers:Raymond Cheng, Chief Investment Officer, North Asia, Standard Chartered BankMichelle Kam, Investment Strategist, Standard Chartered BankFor more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go or subscribe to Standard Chartered Wealth Insights on YouTube.

Manpreet speaks to Raymond about what drove the recent volatility across financial markets and where we now see the opportunities after the shakeout.To view our latest Weekly Market View, please click here.Speaker:Manpreet Gill, CIO of Africa, Middle East & Europe (AME/E) and Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Strategy, Standard Chartered BankRaymond Cheng, Chief Investment Officer, North Asia, Standard Chartered BankFor more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go or subscribe to Standard Chartered Wealth Insights on YouTube.

The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) wrapped up on 18 July in Beijing. It comes at a critical juncture for an economy beset by profound challenges. Angela Mancini, Partner, has a discussion with Andrew Gilholm, our Principal and Director of analysis for Greater China and North Asia, on the key takeaways from the Third Plenum, the future direction of China's economy, and the country's reactions to the recent geopolitical developments globally. If you are looking for more analysis across the Asia-Pacific region, please subscribe to our  Asia In Focus podcast.    

"My name is Julian Paul Assange." These were the first words spoken by the Wikileaks founder and high-profile long-time former prisoner as he finally faced court to answer charges this week. Assange accepted a deal to plead guilty of violating US espionage law and appeared on Wednesday in a court in the obscure US Pacific island territory of Saipan.  He was sentenced to time already served and boarded a flight home to Canberra, Australia. He arrived home on Wednesday evening to a cold Canberra evening, a triumphant fist raised.  So how big a political coup is Assange's release? Who has been working on it and for how long? Why has Albanese made it a project of his government?  And, the temporary defection of Labor Senator Fatima Payman to the Greens. Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss is chief political correspondent David Crowe, national security correspondent Matthew Knott, and live from Saipan, North Asia correspondent Lisa Visentin. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"My name is Julian Paul Assange." These were the first words spoken by the Wikileaks founder and high-profile long-time former prisoner as he finally faced court to answer charges this week. Assange accepted a deal to plead guilty of violating US espionage law and appeared on Wednesday in a court in the obscure US Pacific island territory of Saipan.  He was sentenced to time already served and boarded a flight home to Canberra, Australia. He arrived home on Wednesday evening to a cold Canberra evening, a triumphant fist raised.  So how big a political coup is Assange's release? Who has been working on it and for how long? Why has Albanese made it a project of his government?  And, the temporary defection of Labor Senator Fatima Payman to the Greens. Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss is chief political correspondent David Crowe, national security correspondent Matthew Knott, and live from Saipan, North Asia correspondent Lisa Visentin. Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Manpreet speaks with Raymond about what the Fed meeting means for US equities, what the BoJ meeting means for the JPY and where gold prices could find support.To view our latest Weekly Market View, please click here, or visit our Market views on-the-go page.Speakers:Manpreet Gill, Chief Investment Officer, Africa, Middle East & Europe (AME/E) and Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Strategy, Standard Chartered BankRaymond Cheng, Chief Investment Officer, North Asia, Standard Chartered Bank

Three devastating crashes over an eight-year span, 1994 to 2002, with a combined 685 fatalities; a record that could easily bankrupt an airline. However, China Airlines (Taiwan's flag carrier) not only survived these horrific events but changed and flourished. They improved pilot training and communication, and built a more robust safety culture, and in 2023, China Airlines won Global Traveler magazine's “Best Airline in North Asia” award.  Go to FORMOSAFILES.com for pictures, links, extras, and more. Song played at the end is an edited version of "Beautiful Island" by Kristin Lekven Hafell.

Manpreet speaks with Raymond about the implications of the recent set of US economic and inflation data, what to make of the Q1 earnings season and whether we expect the Chinese equity market rally to continue.To view our latest Weekly Market View, please click here, or visit our Market views on-the-go page.Speakers:Manpreet Gill, CIO of Africa, Middle East & Europe (AME/E) and Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Strategy, Standard Chartered BankRaymond Cheng, Chief Investment Officer, North Asia, Standard Chartered BankFor more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go or subscribe to Standard Chartered Wealth Insights on YouTube.

This April has seen a surge in bilateral contacts between the US and China, from the Xi-Biden phone call to Janet Yellen and Antony Blinken's visits to Beijing. Relations between the two countries seem to be entering a holding pattern, as we mentioned in the RiskMap 2024 Top Risks. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are competing to raise the stakes against the world's second largest economy as the election approaches. Are we seeing the advent of a durable stabilisation in bilateral relations for the rest of the year, or just a lull before the storm? Meanwhile, China is stepping up its diplomatic reach with other countries. How will China's growing role and influence on the international stage contribute to reshaping the world order? Angela Mancini, Partner, talks with Andrew Gilholm, our Principal and Director of analysis for Greater China and North Asia, about the prospects of US-China relations during this election year, how the two candidates differ in their approach to policy around China, the key triggers for escalation to watch, and how companies should prepare for the changing global landscape. Listen to our recent episode, US election 2024: the possible outcomes and global implications, to hear more of our insights on the US election. If you are looking for more analysis across the Asia-Pacific region, please subscribe to our Asia In Focus podcast.

Manpreet speaks with Raymond about the outlook for oil and gold after strong gains recently, and how they impact the Fed rate outlook and, in turn, the outlook for US equities.To view our latest Weekly Market View, please click here, or visit our Market views on-the-go page.Speakers:Manpreet Gill, Chief Investment Officer, Africa, Middle East & Europe (AME/E) and Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Strategy, Standard Chartered BankRaymond Cheng, Chief Investment Officer, North Asia, Standard Chartered BankFor more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go or subscribe to Standard Chartered Wealth Insights on YouTube.

Manpreet speaks with Raymond about what the slew of central bank meetings means for markets and where we see tactical opportunities within Chinese equities.To view our latest Weekly Market View, please click here, or visit our Market views on-the-go page.Speakers:Manpreet Gill, CIO of Africa, Middle East & Europe (AME/E) and Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Strategy, Standard Chartered BankRaymond Cheng, Chief Investment Officer, North Asia, Standard Chartered BankFor more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go or subscribe to Standard Chartered Wealth Insights on YouTube.

Has North Korea declared war on South Korea? This is the question many have been left wondering, ever since North Korea's  leader, Kim Jong Un declared last month that South Korea is its “principal enemy”.Kim may be an erratic and paranoid leader, who has pushed much of his country to starvation with his isolationist policies.But this change was historic, marking the abandonment of a policy, held for more than 50 years, that the countries were aiming for peaceful reunification.Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw and explainer reporter Jackson Graham on what has prompted this stark change of events. And whether a Donald Trump presidency could prompt Kim to escalate things even further.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Has North Korea declared war on South Korea? This is the question many have been left wondering, ever since North Korea's  leader, Kim Jong Un declared last month that South Korea is its “principal enemy”.Kim may be an erratic and paranoid leader, who has pushed much of his country to starvation with his isolationist policies.But this change was historic, marking the abandonment of a policy, held for more than 50 years, that the countries were aiming for peaceful reunification.Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw and explainer reporter Jackson Graham on what has prompted this stark change of events. And whether a Donald Trump presidency could prompt Kim to escalate things even further.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Australian citizen Yang Hengjun was given a suspended death sentence, last week, by a Beijing court, the Australian government recoiled, as though slapped. The details of the espionage that Yang has been accused of committing remain secret. But the ripple effect that this harrowing conviction is having on the relationship between Australia and China, is beginning to emerge. Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw on the tightrope that the Albanese government now has to walk, in order to fight China's efforts at coercion, while struggling to free one of its own citizens.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Australian citizen Yang Hengjun was given a suspended death sentence, last week, by a Beijing court, the Australian government recoiled, as though slapped. The details of the espionage that Yang has been accused of committing remain secret. But the ripple effect that this harrowing conviction is having on the relationship between Australia and China, is beginning to emerge. Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw on the tightrope that the Albanese government now has to walk, in order to fight China's efforts at coercion, while struggling to free one of its own citizens.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's digital age, technology plays a crucial role in our lives, and it has become an integral part of our daily routines. However, the benefits and opportunities offered by technology should not be limited to adults only. Children, too, deserve access to real tech that empowers them to explore, learn, and create. myFirst has embraced this reality and developed tech products that are fully functional but designed for kids.The birth of myFirstmyFirst is a company dedicated to creating a kids' tech ecosystem. The inspiration behind this venture was the realization that there was a gap in the market for real technology designed specifically for children. The founders, who were tech-savvy individuals themselves, embarked on a mission to empower kids by providing them with devices, apps, and a social platform that mirrors what adults can do with technology.Kid-friendly camera with social sharingOne of the innovative products offered by myFirst is a kid-friendly camera with social sharing capabilities. This camera is designed specifically for children, with a focus on simplicity, durability, and safety. The company understands that children have unique needs and considerations when it comes to technology, and they have created a camera that addresses these needs effectively.The camera is lightweight and easy to use, with simple buttons and a user-friendly interface. This ensures that children can operate the camera without confusion or frustration. Additionally, the camera is built to withstand the rough handling that is often associated with children. It is robustly built and durable, making it suitable for active kids who may drop or throw it unintentionally.One of the standout features of this camera is its social sharing capabilities. Children can choose which photos they want to share on social media platforms, giving them control over their digital presence. The camera automatically syncs photos to both the SD card and the cloud, allowing for easy access and sharing. This feature encourages children to engage responsibly with social media and teaches them the importance of privacy and consent.In terms of pricing, the camera is reasonably priced at around $100 US. This makes it accessible to a wide range of families and ensures that quality technology is not limited to adults. myFirst understands the importance of affordability when it comes to empowering children with tech devices, and they have made it a priority to offer their products at a reasonable price point.The camera is designed to be cloud-based, meaning that it relies on Wi-Fi connectivity for storage and access. While the camera itself may have limited storage capacity, the cloud-based system allows for easy uploading and access to photos. This ensures that children can capture and store as many memories as they want without worrying about running out of space.A Smartphone with smart limitationsmyFirst also offers a wearable smartphone for kids, which is 4G driven and allows for even more connectivity and functionality. The smartphone is designed to be durable and waterproof, making it suitable for active kids who may engage in water-related activities. The smartphone operates on an eSIM, eliminating the need for an open hole and ensuring that it is water-resistant.In terms of connectivity and plans, myFirst has partnered with AT&T to offer a $12 per month plan that includes unlimited data and calls. This allows parents to have peace of mind knowing that their child's connectivity needs are taken care of without any additional costs or limitations.Empowering features and parental controlmyFirst's devices are accompanied by a social platform that allows children to connect with their peers and share their creations. However, the company recognizes the importance of parental intervention and provides robust parental control features. Parents have control over who can contact their child and can moderate the content their child sees. This ensures a safe and secure online environment for children while still allowing them the freedom to explore and connect with others within predetermined circles of trust.The social media platform associated with the camera and smartphone can be accessed through the smartwatch or downloaded as an app on Apple or Android devices. This allows children to engage with the platform using devices they may already have, such as smartphones or tablets. Parents have control over their child's account and can determine how much information is shared, ensuring privacy and safety.The importance of empowering children through real technologyThe concept of "real tech for kids' empowerment" holds significant importance in today's society. Empowering children with age-appropriate technology not only enhances their digital literacy but also fosters creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. By providing children with real tech devices, they can actively participate in the digital world, learn about technology's potential, and develop the necessary skills to thrive in the future.The response to myFirst's products has been positive, with a strong presence in North Asia and a growing interest in the US market. The company's commitment to quality, durability, and affordability has resonated with parents and children alike, making them a trusted brand in the industry.Conclusion: A safe, fun, appropriate approach to tech for kidsmyFirst's commitment to providing real tech for kids' empowerment is a commendable initiative in the tech industry. By bridging the gap between adult-oriented technology and children's needs, the company enables children to explore their potential, express their creativity, and engage responsibly with technology.Empowering children with real tech devices and a safe social platform not only prepares them for the digital future but also allows them to make meaningful contributions to the ever-evolving world of technology. By providing a safe and user-friendly platform for children to engage with technology and social media, myFirst is empowering the next generation to become responsible digital citizens. Their commitment to quality and affordability ensures that children from all backgrounds can benefit from their innovative products.To learn more about myFirst or to purchase one of their products, head to their website or check out their Amazon store.Interview by Christopher Jordan of The Talking Sound.Sponsored by: Get $5 to protect your credit card information online with Privacy. Amazon Prime gives you more than just free shipping. Get free music, TV shows, movies, videogames and more. The most flexible tools for podcasting. Get a 30 day free trial of storage and statistics.

Over the weekend, Taiwan elected a new president. This was a race that was watched incredibly closely by leaders in Washington and Canberra, for the ripple effect that it will have on so much of the world. Because the president-elect, Lai Ching-te, is precisely the person China didn't want to win. His campaign was centered on attacks against Beijing, and its plans to unify with the island.  So, will Taiwan's new president bring his nation closer to “war and decline”, as China has claimed?  Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw, on why what happens on a small island half the size of Scotland has the power to affect not only the global economy, but the safety of millions.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the weekend, Taiwan elected a new president. This was a race that was watched incredibly closely by leaders in Washington and Canberra, for the ripple effect that it will have on so much of the world. Because the president-elect, Lai Ching-te, is precisely the person China didn't want to win. His campaign was centered on attacks against Beijing, and its plans to unify with the island.  So, will Taiwan's new president bring his nation closer to “war and decline”, as China has claimed?  Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw, on why what happens on a small island half the size of Scotland has the power to affect not only the global economy, but the safety of millions.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Manpreet speaks to Raymond about what to make of recent macro data, why the Japanese equities rally likely has legs and what to watch for in Asia in the coming week.To view our latest Weekly Market View, please click here, or visit our Market views on-the-go page.Speakers:Manpreet Gill, CIO of Africa, Middle East & Europe (AME/E) and Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Strategy, Standard Chartered BankRaymond Cheng, Chief Investment Officer, North Asia, Standard Chartered BankFor more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go or subscribe to Standard Chartered Wealth Insights on YouTube.

Honiara is a small city just three hours by plane from Australia, where many of the locals struggle on a daily basis. They grapple with poverty, crime, and unemployment. Some health care centres in town are breaking down; others are running out of paracetamol. This, even though Chinese state-backed companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the Solomon Islands. As one landowner said of Chinese investors who are failing to fulfil their promises to the locals: “They are treating us like animals.”  Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw on how the locals are suffering, now that China has become the new power player in the Pacific. And what threat this could pose to Australia.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Honiara is a small city just three hours by plane from Australia, where many of the locals struggle on a daily basis. They grapple with poverty, crime, and unemployment. Some health care centres in town are breaking down; others are running out of paracetamol. This, even though Chinese state-backed companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the Solomon Islands. As one landowner said of Chinese investors who are failing to fulfil their promises to the locals: “They are treating us like animals.”  Today, North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw on how the locals are suffering, now that China has become the new power player in the Pacific. And what threat this could pose to Australia.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Manpreet speaks to Raymond about the prospects of a year-end US equities rally, whether this could extend to Chinese equities as well and the prospects of a further fall in bond yields.Speakers:Manpreet Gill, CIO of Africa, Middle East & Europe (AME/E) and Head of Fixed Income, Currency and Commodities (FICC) Strategy, Standard Chartered BankRaymond Cheng, Chief Investment Officer, North Asia , Standard Chartered BankFor more of our latest market insights, visit Market views on-the-go or subscribe to Standard Chartered Wealth Insights on YouTube.

Abaxx Chief Commercial Officer Joe Raia joins NGI's Senior LNG Editor Jamison Cocklin to discuss Abaxx's ongoing efforts to launch a new commodity exchange that will list LNG, nickel and carbon futures initially.   Abaxx's new regulated futures clearinghouse will be the first launched in over a decade. Its plans to list physically settled contracts for the three major LNG markets in Northwest Europe, North Asia and the Gulf Coast comes as the global gas market is searching for a better benchmark to manage increasing risk and volatility. Those contracts are coming closer to being a reality after the company completed its latest round of financing to secure nearly $20 million.

On Saturday afternoon, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will touch down in Beijing for an official visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It's the first time in six years that an Australian leader has travelled to China, and an important symbolic step in the defrosting of China-Australia relations, after they entered a deep freeze, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, chief political correspondent David Crowe and North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw, on what this means for relations between the two countries.Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On Saturday afternoon, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will touch down in Beijing for an official visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It's the first time in six years that an Australian leader has travelled to China, and an important symbolic step in the defrosting of China-Australia relations, after they entered a deep freeze, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, chief political correspondent David Crowe and North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw, on what this means for relations between the two countries.Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Fin podcast, political editor Phillip Coorey and North Asia correspondent Michael Smith on why Albanese's China trip is so important, the challenges facing Xi Jinping at home and how China's slowing economy is changing the game.This podcast is sponsored by SAP.Further reading: Taiwan warns Albanese - don't be blindsided by China  Taiwan's Foreign Minister has warned Anthony Albanese ahead of his visit to Beijing that China may take advantage of warmer ties with Western democracies to try to isolate Taipei and bring it under Communist rule. China sacks defence minister who disappeared two months ago China has sacked its Defence Minister, General Li Shangfu, who disappeared from public view two months ago in what experts believe is part of a purge of Xi Jinping's top ranks. China denies Cheng was a political hostage Foreign Minister Penny Wong says Cheng Lei's release was the result of the Albanese government's “persistent” advocacy with the China, which allowed the former television anchor to return to Australia this week after three years in prison. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the last couple of weeks, the relationship between India and Canada has been crumbling, with each government lobbing extraordinary accusations against the other. They claim acts of espionage and terrorism. The match that lit the powder keg of tensions was a murder of a Sikh separatist in Canada. It's thrown a spotlight on a relatively obscure protest movement, which aims to create a new homeland for Sikhs. And has now stretched beyond the borders of India. Today, we speak with North Asia correspondent Eryk Bagshaw, on the impact that this global feud will have on Australia, and the separatists who live here.Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Photo:  1903 Japan Bus No known restrictions on publication. #PRC Japan: #ROK: Present Biden Administration uccess in North Asia. Josh Rogin https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/22/biden-south-korea-japan-summit-china/

Photo:  1920 Imperial Hotel Tokyo No known restrictions on publication. @Batchelorshow #ROK: #Japan. Unexpected and unprecedented alliance in North Asia. David Maxwell, FDD. @GordonGChang, Gatestone, Newsweek, The Hill. David Maxwell, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation,  https://www.reuters.com/world/us-south-korea-japan-agree-crisis-consultations-camp-david-summit-2023-08-18/

Rendering Unconscious episode 249. This episode is special in honor of Juneteenth. It's a recording of an event held June 19, 2022, as part of the Psychoanalysis, Art & the Occult series at Morbid Anatomy Museum, online. http://psychartcult.org https://www.morbidanatomy.org/events Animism for Apocalypse by Langston Kahn and Spirit Voices: The Mysteries and Magic of North Asian Shamanic Traditions by David Shi Langston Kahn is a Black, Queer, New York City based shamanic practitioner specializing in emotional healing and radical transformation. He stands firmly at the crossroads, his practice informed by Inner Relationship Focusing, initiations into traditions of the African Diaspora, the contemporary shamanic tradition of The Last Mask Community and the guidance of his helping spirits and ancestors weaving it all together. His new book is Deep Liberation: Shamanic Tools for Reclaiming Wholeness in a Culture of Trauma. Follow him at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/langstonkahn/ David Shi talks about his new book Spirit Voices: The Mysteries and Magic of North Asian Shamanic Traditions, exploring the history and practice of shamanism. What is it? Where is it from? What do shamans actually do? He guides the audience through unfamiliar territory—the landscape of North Asia – and through what are largely hidden and unfamiliar traditions. This area, ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean, is a vast region often described as the “Cradle of Shamanism” and where the word “Shaman” originates from. His book features history, first-hand experiential reports, mythology, and folklore to explore the spirits, spirituality, and practices of true shamanism. In addition to history and analysis of North Asian shamanism, Shi also provides practical information for those seeking to implement practices that are appropriate to non-initiates and outsiders to the culture. Follow him at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidjshi311/ This episode also available to view at Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/722101145 You can support the podcast at our Patreon, where we post exclusive content every week: https://www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl Your support is greatly appreciated! Rendering Unconscious Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vanessa Sinclair, a psychoanalyst based in Sweden, who works with people internationally: www.drvanessasinclair.net Follow Dr. Vanessa Sinclair on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/rawsin_ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rawsin_/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drvanessasinclair23 Visit the main website for more information and links to everything: www.renderingunconscious.org The song at the end of the episode is “Ancestors of both blood and adoption” from the album "Kaleidoscope of the 23rd Mind" by Vanessa Sinclair and Pete Murphy. Available at Bandcamp. https://petemurphy.bandcamp.com All music at Swedish independent record label Highbrow Lowlife Bandcamp page is name your price. Enjoy! https://highbrowlowlife.bandcamp.com Music also available to stream via Spotify & other streaming platforms. Many thanks to Carl Abrahamsson, who created the intro and outro music for Rendering Unconscious podcast. https://www.carlabrahamsson.com Image of Langston Kahn and David Shi

Emerging markets are turning bullish and China's reopening leaves room for an increase in consumption. What sectors and industries might benefit from this upturn?----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jonathan Garner, Chief Asia and emerging market equity strategist at Morgan Stanley. Along with my colleagues, bringing you a variety of perspectives, in this episode I'll explain why the bull market in emerging market equities is still young. It's Thursday, 2nd of February at 8 a.m. in Singapore. In our view, the bull market in emerging market equities is still young. We entered a bull market, conventionally defined as up 20% from the trough, in the second week of January, having completed the bear market in mid-October. And bull markets typically last at least a year in our asset class, although the pace of recent market gains will probably slow. Unlike the U.S. market, earnings estimates revisions in Asia and emerging markets are now inflecting upwards, and that's why emerging equities are performing U.S. equities more rapidly even than in early 2009. And we think this outperformance is likely to continue a while longer. As we've entered a bull market the 52 week rolling beta, or measure of correlation of emerging markets versus U.S. equities, has undergone a regime shift falling from around 0.8 times in the third quarter last year to just 0.4 times currently. And even more striking, the beta of the Hang Seng index, at the leading edge of the current bull market in our asset class, compared to the S&P 500 has fallen close to zero. This is lower than at any point in the last 30 years of data and speaks to an environment of extreme decoupling and performance. These factors have led us to raise our growth stock exposure in recent months. Particularly in North Asia ex-Japan, so that's China, Korea and Taiwan, we expect those markets to continue to outperform, as is typical in the early phases of a bull market, whilst we expect Southeast Asian markets, ASEAN and India, which were defensive outperformers during the bear market to underperform as the bull market gets going. On the sector side, we're overweight semiconductors and technology hardware and think that the fourth quarter of 2022 was the trough for industry fundamentals, with recovery expected in the second half of this year as inventory reduces and demand recovers, particularly in China. Whilst we praised our emerging markets and China targets several times in recent months, we recently cut our Japan target for TOPIX given the headwind of yen strength. And we prefer Japan banks to the overall market as they're one of the few sectors that's positively leveraged to a stronger yen. Finally, we'd like to emphasize that China reopening is probably going to be more V-shaped than the consensus expects, with substantial excess savings in consumer pockets likely to support consumption through this year. Now, this factor is prima facie more bullish the energy sector, which we're also overweight, than the broad materials sector, which is more leveraged to property demand in China, which we think will be slower to recover. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and recommend Thoughts on the Market to a friend or colleague today.

The Seoul metropolitan area is only around 30 miles from North Korea and would be a major attack point in most any conflict scenario. This puts some 25 million people — about half of South Korea's entire population — at considerable risk. David Walsh and Andrew Gilholm have thought about risk scenarios and damage mitigation on the Korean Peninsula for decades, and they join the NK News podcast this week to discuss how to overcome complacency about large-scale threats, evacuation plans in case of a North Korean attack and how geography increases risks. David Walsh is the vice president of operations for DR&A Advisory, where he manages international security projects and threat management. He is also the former manager of security at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. Andrew Gilholm is a principal and director of the analysis practice for Greater China and North Asia at Control Risks, overseeing coverage of political, regulatory and security issues across the region. Andrew has worked in the political risk industry focusing on China and Korea for 17 years. About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot (@JaccoZed) exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.