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The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is set to encourage more mainland banks to set up regional headquarters in the city, while the local bourse operator plans to enhance the listing regime, as the government aims to fortify Hong Kong’s position as an international financial centre, according to Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu.In his latest policy address on Wednesday, Lee said authorities would introduce more tax incentives to strengthen the family office and wealth management sectors, alongside measures to support gold and yuan trading in the city.Lee said banks establishing regional headquarters in Hong Kong could leverage their presence in…

Alibaba Group Holding has jumped into the burgeoning robotaxi market – which is a promising and profitable area for artificial intelligence applications – by investing in Hello, a ride-hailing business backed by its fintech affiliate Ant Group.Hello said on Wednesday that it had received “a strategic investment” from Alibaba to cooperate in areas such as algorithm platforms and smart driving large language models with the goal of achieving “commercialisation” and “scaled operations” of robotaxi fleets. Hello did not disclose the amount of the investment. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.The investment comes as Chinese and US tech giants are…

Gold prices fell in the European market on Wednesday for the first time in four days, retreating from their all-time highs, pressured by profit-taking activity and a rebound in the U.S. dollar against a basket of major currencies.   The Federal Reserve will conclude later today its sixth policy meeting of 2025 to discuss appropriate monetary policy for the world’s largest economy, with expectations pointing to a 25-basis-point interest rate cut.   Price Overview   • Gold prices today: gold declined by 0.75% to (3,662.69$), from an opening level of (3,690.06$), after recording an intraday high of (3,695.40$).   •…

The youngest son of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has filed criminal charges against four cabinet secretaries and several senior officials, accusing them of “kidnapping” his father and spiriting him to The Hague to face crimes against humanity charges before the International Criminal Court.But legal scholars and political insiders contend the case is a thinly veiled attempt by the Duterte camp to derail the appointment of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla as the country’s next ombudsman – a position with the power to decide the fate of corruption complaints against Duterte’s daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio.Sebastian Duterte, the acting mayor…

Chinese companies will increasingly shift towards offshore yuan bonds and away from US dollar bonds for their offshore financing, according to panellists at S&P Global Ratings’ China Credit Spotlight forum on Wednesday.Over the next five years, Chinese companies will issue more offshore bonds to fund their expansion overseas, but “it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the US dollar space, it can well be in the [offshore yuan] space,” said Hua Cheng, senior vice-president and director of Asia credit research at AllianceBernstein, at the event in Hong Kong.US dollar interest rates have remained high in the past few years, making…

Chinese companies will increasingly shift towards offshore yuan bonds and away from US dollar bonds for their offshore financing, according to panellists at S&P Global Ratings’ China Credit Spotlight forum on Wednesday.Over the next five years, Chinese companies will issue more offshore bonds to fund their expansion overseas, but “it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the US dollar space, it can well be in the [offshore yuan] space,” said Hua Cheng, senior vice-president and director of Asia credit research at AllianceBernstein, at the event in Hong Kong.US dollar interest rates have remained high in the past few years, making…

Launched by TikTok and Douyin owner ByteDance in August 2023, Doubao has recorded consistent growth so far this year, with a 6.6 per cent increase in the number of users from July, according to data compiled by market research firm QuestMobile.By contrast, second-ranked DeepSeek’s chatbot saw a further decline in user numbers last month, down 4 per cent from July to 143 million MAUs.According to QuestMobile data, almost 40 per cent of users who left DeepSeek’s chatbot in May switched to Doubao.Beijing-based ByteDance has been “very serious” about improving Doubao’s features, according to Li Bangzhu, founder of AI product popularity…

Hunter-gatherers across southern China and Southeast Asia were preserving human remains thousands of years earlier than better-known examples of mummification from ancient Egypt, according to an international team of archaeologists.In a study published on Monday by the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said that large-scale mummification of human remains was practised in the region as early as 12,000 years ago.An investigation of 54 pre-Neolithic burials from 11 archaeological sites across Southeast Asia confirmed that many of the bodies had been smoke-dried over a prolonged period, mostly in tightly bound, crouched postures, the study said.The…

Malaysian police have arrested three men on suspicion of poaching a critically endangered Malayan tiger, after the animal’s carcass was discovered inside the boot of a car in the southern state of Johor.The grisly discovery was made during a joint operation by the Bukit Aman Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) and the Johor Department of Wildlife and National Parks on Tuesday morning in Felda Tenggaroh, Mersing.In a statement on social media, the FRU said its intelligence unit had inspected a Perodua Alza multipurpose vehicle and uncovered the carcass of a Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni), believed to have been hunted illegally.…

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union laid out Wednesday its toughest plan yet to pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza as Palestinians fled en masse from Israeli tanks, drones and troops pushing deeper into the coastal enclave ravaged by 23 months of war.Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, urged the 27 member nations to increase tariffs on some Israeli goods and impose sanctions on 10 Hamas leaders, Israeli settlers, and two members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet: National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.“We are proposing this measures not to punish Israel or…