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India Needs to Sustain Reforms to Stem Economic Slowdown
October 8, 2020 – Faced with an unprecedented downturn, India needs to continue with critical reforms to reverse the sudden and steep impacts of COVID-19 on its economy, says the World Bank in its twice-a-year-regional update.
Released today, the latest South Asia Economic Focus forecasts a sharper than expected economic slump across the region, with regional growth expected to contract by 7.7 percent in 2020, after topping 6 percent annually in the past five years. India's economy, the region’s largest, is expected to contract by 9.6 percent in the fiscal year that started in March 2020. India’s growth is projected to rebound to 5.4 percent in FY22, mostly reflecting base effects, assuming COVID-related restrictions are completely lifted by 2022. Weak activity, domestically and abroad, is also likely to depress both Indian imports and exports.
view the World Bank South Asia Economic Focus
Vanguard faces roboadviser competition from Chinese partner
October 8, 2020--Chinese financial technology giant Ant Group plans to upgrade its fund portfolio services provision in a move that could bring it into direct competition with Bang Ni Tou, its roboadviser platform that it launched as joint venture with Vanguard.
Ant currently offers 13 fund portfolio services operated by 10 different Chinese fund houses, including six Sino-foreign joint ventures, that range from very conservative to riskier strategies, information from Alipay shows.
However, Huang Hao, president of digital finance business group at Ant, has said that China's largest online wealth platform aims to supply more asset managers with proprietary artificial intelligence to allow them to offer discretionary roboadvisory services.
South Asia: Worst Economic Plunge, Informal Workers Hit Hardest
October 8, 2020--South Asia is set to plunge into its worst-ever recession as the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on the region's economies linger on, taking a disproportionate toll on informal workers and pushing millions of South Asians into extreme poverty, says the World Bank in its twice-a-year-regional update.
Released today, the latest South Asia Economic Focus Beaten or Broken? forecasts a sharper than expected economic slump across the region, with regional growth expected to contract by 7.7 percent in 2020, after topping 6 percent annually in the past five years. India’s economy, the region's largest, is expected to contract by 9.6 percent in the fiscal year that started in March 2020. Regional growth is projected to rebound to 4.5 percent in 2021.
Factoring in population growth, however, income-per-capita in the region will remain 6 percent below 2019 estimates, indicating that the expected rebound will not offset the lasting economic damage caused by the pandemic.
view the World Bank South Asia Economic Focus Beaten or Broken?
ETFs struggle to gain traction in Malaysia
October 6, 2020--A lack of distributors willing to market and promote exchange traded funds, as well as a belief that ETFs deliver lower returns, are holding back the growth of the industry in Malaysia, experts say.
The first ETF in Malaysia was launched in 2005 and 19 ETFs are now listed on the Malaysian stock exchange. Their combined assets amounted to just $551.16m as of end-August, accounting for less than 1 per cent of the total of $71.62bn held in domestic mutual funds, according to data from Morningstar.
Tokyo Stock Exchange suspends day's trade after worst-ever system glitch
October 1, 2020--The Tokyo Stock Exchange suspended share trading for the full day on Thursday as a glitch in its electronic trading system caused the worst outage ever suffered by the world’s third-largest stock market.
The shutdown frustrated investors looking to buy back shares after the first U.S. presidential debate, and could tarnish the exchange's credibility just as new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga makes digitalisation a top priority and Tokyo looks to replace Hong Kong as Asia's financial hub.
Yuan set for best quarter since 2008 global financial crisis
September 30, 2020-- The yuan inched up against the dollar on Wednesday, underpinned by upbeat manufacturing data, with the Chinese unit on course for its best quarter since the global financial crisis in 2008.
China's factory activity extended solid growth in September, according to both official and private surveys, as the nation's crucial exports engine revved up on improving overseas demand and also underlined a steady economic recovery from the coronavirus shock.
East Asia and Pacific: Pandemic "Triple Shock" Hitting Economies Across Region
September 28, 2020--While economic activity is reviving in some countries, long-term threats to growth and poverty reduction remain
COVID-19 has delivered a triple shock to the developing East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region: the pandemic itself, the economic impact of containment measures, and reverberations from the global recession brought on by the crisis.
Swift action will be needed to ensure that the pandemic does not hamper growth and increase poverty for years to come, according to From Containment to Recovery, the World Bank's October 2020 Economic Update for East Asia and the Pacific.
Questions raised over Asian ETFs in unyielding market
September 27, 2020--Despite the industry's popularity in the west, financial hubs in Hong Kong, Singapore and Seoul fail to be won over
Bond exchange traded funds (ETFs) are known for their aggressive expansion.
Offering lower fees and better trading than traditional counterparts, bond ETFs-which passively follow indices of bonds and trade on exchanges-are quick to outperform and steal market share from traditional bond funds.
In the US, Europe and Australia, bond ETFs have expanded, making deep incursions into traditional bond fund territory. But Asian financial centres such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Seoul have resisted the ETF industry's advance.
China gets nod to join FTSE Russell's trillion-dollar WGBI club
September 24, 2020--FTSE Russell will add Chinese government bonds (CGBs) to its flagship World Government Bond Index (WGBI), the index provider said on Thursday, paving the way for billions of dollars of inflows into the world's second-largest economy.
The CGBs will be included in the index from October 2021, pending an affirmation on March 2021. The addition will be phased into the index over a period of 12 months.
BMO to follow Vanguard and exit Hong Kong's ETF market
September 23, 2020--Canada's BMO Global Asset Management plans to exit from Hong Kong's exchange traded fund market, and to offload its seven locally listed ETFs on to China Asset Management (Hong Kong), two people with knowledge of the matter have confirmed to Ignites Asia.
BMO has struggled to raise substantial assets in any of its ETF strategies, amassing just HK$2.86bn ($369.4m) across its seven ETFs.
Its largest Hong Kong-listed ETF, the BMO Asia USD Investment Grade Bond ETF, had assets of HK$1.7bn as of September 15, while its smallest, the BMO MSCI Asia Pacific Real Estate ETF, had just HK$8.4m.
