Latest news with #AshleyTang
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Malaysia's Petronas to cut 10% of workforce, not exiting Canada, CEO says
By Ashley Tang KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -Malaysian state energy firm Petroliam Nasional, or Petronas, will retrench about 10% of its workforce in a restructuring exercise, its chief executive said on Thursday. Tengku Muhammad Taufik also denied at a media briefing that the state firm was exiting its business in Canada. Local media has previously reported Petronas as saying it needed to "rightsize" its workforce to ensure the company's survival in the coming decades. Petronas has nearly 50,000 employees, according to its website. Bloomberg had reported earlier on Tuesday that Petronas is considering a sale of its Canadian company, formerly known as Progress Energy Resources Corp. "Canada is crucial to our ambitions to preserve our position in the liquefied natural gas space," Tengku Taufik said.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ASEAN unveils strategic plan to integrate its economies
By Danial Azhar, Ashley Tang KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -The Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN on Tuesday announced an ambitious strategic plan that includes harmonising trade standards and greater financial integration in an effort to collectively become the world's fourth-largest economy. The five-year, 41-page plan for the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, released during a leaders' summit in Malaysia, calls for increased regional trade, freer movement of businesses and people, enhanced transparency and regulatory practices and sustainable mining, industry and farming policies to attract foreign investment. The plan said ASEAN countries - Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Brunei - must deepen their economic integration, pursue energy security, boost transport connectivity and strengthen supply chains. "Carrying on with business as usual will not suffice for this highly dynamic economic region," the plan said. "For ASEAN to become the fourth-largest global economy by 2045, countries in the region will need to deepen their economic integration and enhance their agility to address multifaceted challenges." The document identified several challenges for ASEAN's economic integration ranging from geopolitical tensions, shifting trade flows and technological transformation to climate change impacts and demographic shifts. Formed in 1967 initially as five members, ASEAN established an economic community in 2015 with the aim of integrating its economies and boosting the region's global standing. But despite rapid growth of its members economies in recent years and a collective GDP of $3.8 trillion, integration has been slow, with huge differences in its members' economies, political systems, population sizes and development levels, and no central authority to ensure compliance with ASEAN agreements and initiatives. The strategic plan said ASEAN's Economic Community Council would be be responsible for implementing the strategies while the ASEAN secretariat would monitor implementation. The ongoing tariff war between the United States and China and steep U.S. tariffs on Southeast Asian countries has created urgency for ASEAN to move towards regional integration faster, said Tricia Yeoh, Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. Yeoh said ASEAN countries must recognise the greater collective value of unified negotiations rather than pursuing bilateral agreements on their own. 'ASEAN needs to demonstrate efficacy in order for it to remain relevant. If they can't even achieve negotiating over Myanmar or the code of conduct with China on the maritime issue, people will question ASEAN's purpose,' she said, referring to two thorny political issues within the bloc.
New Straits Times
13-05-2025
- Business
- New Straits Times
Malaysia puts anti-dumping duties on some flat-rolled iron, non-alloy steel products
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's Trade Ministry on Tuesday said it had imposed definitive anti-dumping duties on imports from China, India, Japan, and South Korea of flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel that are clad, plated or coated with tin. Anti-dumping duties of 27.88 per cent will be imposed on imports from India, while Chinese shipments will face rates ranging from 4.48 per cent to 20.42 per cent, the Investment, Trade and Industry Ministry said in a statement. Japanese shipments will be subject to rates ranging from 15.74 per cent to 36.8 per cent, while products sourced from South Korea will face duties ranging from 21.6 per cent to 35.43 per cent. The ministry said the government decided on the rates after an investigation. It said the anti-dumping duties took effect on May 11, and will last for five years. (Reporting by Ashley Tang; Editing by John Mair)
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Equinix Malaysia unit eyes alternative energy options amid expected electricity tariff hike
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -The Malaysian unit of data centre firm Equinix said on Wednesday it is looking at various providers of alternative energy as it expects an impending increase in domestic electricity tariffs to raise its costs. Malaysia's government has previously announced that it will increase electricity tariffs by 14.2% in July. Various renewable energy service providers were being looked into, Equinix Malaysia managing director Cheam Tat Inn told reporters during a walkabout at the completion of the second phase of its data center in Cyberjaya. Cheam did not specify which renewable sources or a timeline. Equinix Malaysia has two data centres, Cyberjaya and Johor, with capacity of 4.8 megawatts and 2.4MW, respectively. Malaysia has recently experienced a boom in data centers with projections of a quadrupling of its facilities in the next decade from the current 18. Those presently have a significant electrical demand of at least 800MW. Technology giants including Microsoft, Nvidia Alphabet's Google, China's ByteDance and Oracle have announced billions of dollars worth of digital investments into Malaysia since last year, mostly in cloud services and data centres, powering an infrastructure boom driven by growing demand for artificial intelligence. Cheam said the Equinix Johor data centre was fully subscribed after launching in May last year. 'For our Cyberjaya data centre, it is already filling up, our customers are already moving in,' he said. Equinix has been expanding its presence elsewhere in Southeast Asia to tap the region's growth potential, acquiring three data centres in the Philippines last year, on top of operations in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. (Reporting by Ashley Tang; Editing by Martin Petty)
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Global rubber shortfall looms in 2025 on stagnant output, association says
By Ashley Tang and Rajendra Jadhav KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Global natural rubber production is expected to fall short of consumption for the fifth consecutive year in 2025, as higher prices fail to encourage tapping in major producing countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam, a senior industry official said. "Demand has been consistently growing in countries such as China, India and Thailand, but production is lagging because of lower prices, which rose only last year," Lekshmi Nair, senior economist of the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC) told Reuters on Wednesday. This production shortfall is likely to sustain firm global prices, which reached a 13-year high in late 2024, and consequently increase production costs for tyre companies. According to ANRPC, global production is expected to rise by 0.3% to 14.9 million metric tons in 2025, while demand is projected to grow at a much faster rate by 1.8% to 15.6 million tons. After lagging behind other plantation crops like oil palm, coffee, and cocoa for more than a decade, rubber prices surged in the last quarter of 2024 due to erratic weather that curtailed production in Asian countries. The current rubber shortage is due to tepid prices over the last seven to eight years, which resulted in lower replanting, significant slowdown in new planting, and incentivised rubber farmers to switch to more profitable crops, Nair said. Indonesia, the world's leading palm oil producer and second-largest rubber producer, is experiencing a decline in rubber production, largely as a result of farmers converting to the more profitable oil palm cultivation, she said. Indonesia's production in 2025 is expected to decrease by 9.8% from the previous year, totalling 2.04 million tons, while Vietnam, the third-largest producer, may see a 1.3% decline to 1.28 million tons, according to ANRPC estimates. In contrast, Thailand, the world's largest producer, is forecast to experience a 1.2% increase in production in 2025, following a 0.4% decline in 2024. Rubber production has recently been rising only in West African countries such as Ivory Coast, but that growth is insufficient to fulfil rising global demand and offset output losses in Southeast Asia, she said. Demand from China and India, the world's largest consumers of natural rubber, is expected this year to rise 2.5% and 3.4%, respectively, according to ANRPC estimates.
