Semua Kabar

Speculation has been rife over a potential listing by the company, which was spun off from Ant Group last year as part of a restructuring

Speculation has been rife over a potential listing by Ant International, which is registered in Singapore. In the report, the company emphasised its “new corporate identity”, describing its mission as “to make it easy to do business anywhere, bringing small and beautiful changes to the world”.

Ant Group is an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.

How Hangzhou’s ‘Six Little Dragons’ built a new Chinese tech hub

Annual study by major recruitment agency Randstad surveyed more than 170,000 people globally, including 2,599 in Hong Kong

The primary motivation for Hongkongers who have quit their jobs or are considering resigning is the desire to improve their work-life balance, a recent survey has found, with the proportion rising 5.9 percentage points year on year.

The annual study, commissioned by major recruitment agency Randstad, surveyed more than 170,000 people globally, including 2,599 in Hong Kong, through online interviews.

Among the Hong Kong respondents, 40 per cent were millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, and 20 per cent belonged to Generation Z, born after 1997.

According to the results, 38.3 per cent of residents said that “improving work-life balance” had been one of the motivations for quitting their jobs, up from 32.4 per cent last year.

Other top reasons cited included “pay does not meet rising cost of living”, which was picked by 27.3 per cent of respondents, while 25.2 per cent linked their departure to receiving “an offer I could not refuse”.

Benjamin Elms, managing director at Randstad Hong Kong, said the definition of work-life balance had evolved significantly over the past couple of years.

“What began as a desire to work from home has quickly expanded to include autonomy in managing priorities, having reasonable workloads, clear direction from leadership and good relationships with managers and colleagues,” Elms said.

Pair found guilty of agreeing to arrange boat to Macau for Alex Kwong after socialite’s murder in 2023

Kowloon City Court on Monday found that Lam Shun, 44, and Irene Pun Hau-yin, 31, had entered into an agreement to arrange a boat to Macau for a person named “Alex” to evade criminal sanctions, even though there was insufficient evidence to show they knew the suspect was Choi’s former partner, Alex Kwong Kong-chi.

“This court finds it difficult to imagine why a person who has not committed an offence and is not wanted by police would have to leave Hong Kong for Macau urgently at all costs,” Magistrate Philip Chan Chee-fai said.

Kwong, 30, was wanted by police on suspicion of murder after Choi’s dismembered remains were discovered in a Tai Po village house on February 24, 2023. She was 28.

Lam and Pun, who said she was unemployed, were accused of planning the illegal boat journey under the guise of holding a junk party at sea after learning that an individual named “Alex” was urgently seeking to leave Hong Kong without being intercepted by the authorities.

The court heard the pair had discussed over the phone with a Macau resident identified as “Ivy”, who was not charged in the case, about a boat rental request she had made on behalf of her “friend” Alex.

Five new markets record year-on-year growth of 21 per cent on average in May

Hong Kong welcomed over 4 million visitors in May, a 20 per cent year-on-year increase, with an industry leader urging authorities to relax entry rules for Vietnamese and Indian tourists to attract more people from new markets.

More than 3.1 million of last month’s visitors were from mainland China, a 19 per cent rise from last year, according to provisional figures released by the Tourism Board on Monday.

The number of non-mainland tourists also increased by 24 per cent from May last year to 955,345. Of these, 56.2 per cent were short-haul visitors.

Five new markets – Gulf Cooperation Council countries, India, Vietnam, Russia and the Netherlands – averaged 21 per cent year-on-year growth, to 74,746 arrivals, in May.

The board said that last month’s increase was due to the Labour Day “golden week” holiday, which ran from May 1 to 5 on the mainland, alongside a range of citywide activities including large-scale concerts, meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibition events.

More than 20 million visitors arrived in Hong Kong between January and May, a 12 per cent year-on-year increase.

Delhi-bound plane returns safely to Hong Kong after pilot suspects technical issue less than 30 minutes into flight

Hong Kong aviation authorities have told Air India to submit a report after one of its Boeing 787-8 Dreamliners departing the city on Monday had to return when the pilot suspected a technical issue less than half an hour into the flight.

The Airport Authority said that passenger flight AI315 bound for New Delhi turned back to Hong Kong and requested a “local standby” at around 1pm, before landing safely at about 1.15pm.

The standby term refers to a situation where an aircraft approaching an airport is known or suspected to have developed a defect, but the issue does not pose a significant difficulty in making a safe landing.

Air India said the pilot suspected there was a technical issue and decided to take safety precautions and return to Hong Kong. “The flight landed safely at Hong Kong and is undergoing checks as a matter of abundant precaution,” a spokeswoman said.

The airline has recently been embroiled in one of the world’s worst aviation disasters in decades. An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed minutes after taking off from the western Indian city of Ahmedabad last Thursday, killing more than 200 people.

The Civil Aviation Department (CAD) said it arranged for Monday’s flight to land at Hong Kong International Airport after receiving a request to return due to a “technical reason” at 12.38pm.

Tengku Muhammad Taufik urges region to diversify and scale up its energy portfolio, as oil prices surge amid geopolitical turmoil

War between Israel and Iran is adding to a “polycrisis” of threats to global energy security, the chief of Malaysian oil major Petronas has warned, as tariffs and geopolitical turmoil drive up prices.

Global oil prices have surged since Friday when Israel launched strikes inside Iran, which retaliated with missiles and drones and has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz – through which a fifth of the world’s oil supply flows.

Malaysian state oil company Petronas has already reacted to the global economic gloom, slashing a tenth of its almost 50,000 workforce, saying the company will not exist in 10 years otherwise.

Speaking at a Kuala Lumpur conference on Monday, Petronas Group CEO Tengku Muhammad Taufik noted that the global oil price had seen the largest price surge since 2022 in anticipation of a supply shock from the Israel-Iran war.

“These seismic shifts of global conflicts, technological revelations and climate change [are] what Petronas has described as polycrisis,” Taufik said, adding that this was exacerbated by the projected population of the Asia-Pacific region that would rise to 5.2 billion in 2050.

The region must diversify and scale up its energy portfolio, he said, stressing that energy was no longer the exclusive domain of oil and gas firms.

Thai company, incorporated in Singapore, clears major regulatory hurdle with publication of its Post Hearing Information Pack

On Sunday, the Thai drink maker cleared a major regulatory hurdle with the publication of its Post Hearing Information Pack by the Hong Kong stock exchange.

IFBH had planned to list in Singapore, where it is incorporated, but withdrew its IPO plans in July 2024, citing a desire to “focus its resources on the [Hong Kong] stock exchange” and take advantage of the city’s strong investment connectivity with mainland China.

One key link is the Stock Connect programme, a conduit through which international investors can access China’s onshore stock market, while their counterparts on the mainland trade Hong Kong-listed equities. Hong Kong’s stock market was also much larger, with a market capitalisation of US$6.33 trillion as of June 15, compared with Singapore at US$483 billion, according to Bloomberg’s data.

“We aim to solidify our market penetration and presence in China, while extending our reach into Australia, the Americas and Southeast Asia,” IFBH said.

Last year, the company commanded a 34 per cent share of the coconut-water market in mainland China as well as a 60 per cent share in Hong Kong.

While each Asian economy has its nuances, recent South Korean trends offer prime insight for understanding the wider regional market

Investors in South Korea’s stock market have been encouraged by Lee’s pledge to implement governance reforms. The election outcome triggered the sharpest rally in stocks in more than four years as traders ramped up bets on a reduction of the “Korea discount”, whereby the Kospi trades at much lower valuations than other major equity markets.

In South Korea’s housing market, policymakers face a tricky balancing act. On June 12, Bank of Korea (BOK) governor Rhee Chang-yong summed up the current dilemma confronting many Asian governments and central banks – stimulating growth without causing property markets to overheat and adding to affordability pressures – when he said it was necessary to “break away from the past practice of tolerating excessive investment in real estate”.

Unfortunately, it looks like the damage may already have been done. South Korea’s flat prices – one of the parts of Asia’s real estate market most prone to speculative bubbles – have risen at an annualised rate of 7 per cent since March while household lending in May increased at the fastest monthly pace since September 2024.

In a report on June 12, Nomura said looser financial conditions – the BOK has cut interest rates by one percentage point since October – were fuelling “the housing market rally and driving up household debt”. Perhaps one reason Seoul home values are accelerating again, despite the imposition of restrictions in March requiring buyers to gain approval for property purchases in wealthy districts, is Lee’s intention to address affordability concerns by boosting supply rather than curbing demand.

South Korea’s ‘jeonse’ real estate scams a housing nightmare for young tenants

Two PLA Navy aircraft carriers are pushing past the limits set by the US and its allies since the Cold War in the Pacific Ocean

The strategy was proposed in 1951 by the then US secretary of state John Foster Dulles, as a way of using American-aligned island bases to contain the communist Soviet Union and China in the Western Pacific.

Taiwan – famously described in 1950 by General Douglas MacArthur as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” – was pivotal to the concept. While the strategy became less prominent after the Cold War, it re-emerged strongly post-1991 as a way to counter a rising Beijing.

The first island chain runs along East Asia’s coastline, from the Kuril Islands through Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines down to Borneo. This marks the Chinese mainland’s near seas from the wider Pacific.

The second island chain is further east and includes the major US base at Guam. It extends through the Marianas to Palau and New Guinea.

Last year, police received 2,776 host club-related complaints, with many involving women being forced into sex work to cover unpaid bills

The revision to the Entertainment Business Law, which comes into effect on June 28, applies to both host and hostess clubs. However, it appears to target host clubs specifically, after recent reports of female customers being pressured into prostitution or acting in adult videos to repay their debt from overspending at these clubs.

Last year, police received 2,776 host club-related complaints nationwide, with many involving women being forced into sex work to cover unpaid bills, The Japan Times newspaper reported.

Under the new rules, hosts cannot emotionally manipulate customers into spending – a common tactic – by using lines like “if you don’t order, you won’t be able to see me” or “I’ll get demoted if I don’t increase my sales, so buy that bottle of champagne”, according to media website SoraNews24.

It will also be illegal for clubs to falsely advertise – by luring customers with cheap drinks only to charge exorbitant fees – or bill for unordered food and drinks.

A local public safety commission will instruct any club found violating these rules to stop and, if it fails to do so, it may lose its business license, according to Kyodo news agency.