Welcome to the Singapore category of this blog. So first up a disclosure, back when I worked in Hong Kong, I did some work for the Singapore government ‘home team’. The work was done for their Central Narcotics Bureau and the Singapore Prison Service. Beyond friends that live there, I have no connections commercial or otherwise with Singapore now.
I have had the opportunity visit the city state and really loved it. Is it better to Hong Kong, politics non withstanding I don’t think a true comparison works that way. It has a more Germanic character than Hong Kong, but both are very similar in terms of the people and the built environment.
This is where I share anything that relates to Singaporean business issues, the Singaporean people or culture. Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Singapore Air launched a new ad campaign. And that I thought was particularly interesting or noteworthy, that might appear in branding as well as Singapore la.
So far, I haven’t had too much Singaporean related content here at the moment. That’s just the way things work out sometimes.
I am fascinated by the way Singapore has been deftly playing China to increase its stature as the place to do business. I am only interested in local politics when it intersects with business. An example of this would be legal issues affecting the media sector for instance.
If there are Singaporean related subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.
When you think about electric cars you usually think of Tesla. But the reality is that electric cars have been about for almost 200 years. I was reminded of Bob Cringely’s analogy about technology success being about ‘surfing waves‘. The first electric car turned up sometimes in the 1830s. By the beginning of the 20th century there was 30,000 electric cars. But petrol engined cars were cheaper to make and quicker to refill than charging electric cars.
That didn’t stop Irish inventors converting a Volvo 66 saloon to run as an electric car, 23 years before Tesla even existed.
Abducted Canadian billionaire Xiao Jianhua faces trial in Shanghai court | Financial Times – the question not being asked is how many Chinese government officials will the legal action ensnare? They’ve sat on him for five years as they unwound the Tomorrow Group and are only now prosecuting him in the run up to the 20th National Party Congress in November. It is at this event that Xi Jingping is likely to become president for life. The reality is that Mr Xiao’s goose was cooked as soon as he was snatched from the Four Seasons. This trial could affect demand for high-end Hong Kong property adversely
I had heard a variant on the ‘Soviet steel’ story that was responsible for Italian cars being rust buckets when I was growing up. The version I heard was that high proportions of recycled scrap from rusted war wreckage and dismantled ships had been put in Italian steel to make it cheaper. (It was easy to believe this version. Libya had a strong historic connection to Italy and prior to oil being discovered Libya’s top export was scrap metal from abandoned military equipment of the second world war’s North African campaign.) Secondly, Russian cars that made it to the west were unreliable and suffered from rust, which supported beliefs about Soviet steel. The reality would have been that the quality related issues in Alfa Romeo’s factories likely would also occur with unmotivated Soviet workers during the economic stagnation from the late 1960s onwards.
Soviet goods had a rough and ready feel to them, it would be reasonable to assume that Soviet steel wasn’t great. The alternative explanation in this video seems to be reasonable. This viewpoint has changed in the belief of engineers like my Dad that Chinese steel of a particular grade has a quality discount like the Soviet steel of old.
Klarna valuation crashes to $6.5bn from $46bn | Financial Times – unsurprising when I see reports that about 30% of buy now, pay later loans will be struggling to pay them back. It reminds me of storecard debt during the 1991 recession. I was working during college holidays for MBNA a few years later and people were using the balance transfer function to get £20,000 to £30,000 of store card debt on to a card to play off at a lower interest rate. MBNA was then securitising their debt via bonds. There’s probably people who bought a suit at Burtons in the late 1980s that only cleared that debt by the time the millennium came around
People are leaving Hong Kong and here’s where they’re going – “Everyone’s going to Singapore,” said Pei, especially those working in finance, law and recruitment, she said. Kay Kutt, CEO of the Hong-Kong based relocation company Silk Relo, agreed, saying people are attracted to the ease of business, family friendliness, tax incentives and open borders of Singapore. In its 40-year existence, the past three years have been the busiest years on record for Silk Relo’s sister moving company, Asian Tigers, she said. “We cannot keep up with the capacity,” she said. “We don’t have enough people to serve what’s going on in the marketplace.” Families are transferring to Singapore, she said, but small- and medium-sized businesses are also on the move. Whereas one company executive might have left in the past, now “they’re all going,” she said. Small companies are “taking the entire team and putting them into Singapore.” Large companies are also relocating to Singapore, said Cynthia Ang, an executive director at the recruitment firm Kerry Consulting. She cited L’Oreal, Moet Hennessy and VF Corporation — the latter which owns brands such as Timberland and North Face — as examples, while noting there are more who haven’t made their decisions public yet. – the volume going to Singapore is immense based on the amount of people that I am seeing coming to the UK
Hong Kong resistance will live on – SupChina – a few things here. I thought the parallels between Tibet’s annexation by China and Hong Kong was interesting. I don’t think that resistance will continue on. For the majority of people, its just easier to leave. People are going to Thailand, the UK, Australia, Canada and Singapore. They are connected through family networks to the world.
Will Southeast Asia support Russia’s war with semiconductor exports? — Radio Free Asia – Southeast Asian states, apart from Singapore, have eschewed sanctions and continue to trade with Russia. But as the war drags on, that will have consequences in terms of secondary sanctions and other penalties imposed by the west. Russian supply chains run through Southeast Asia, and the United States and other western governments are have made the targeting of Russian sanctions evasion operations a top priority. One area where Southeast Asian actors may be tempted into sanctions evasion – or where, conversely, they could help pressure Russia economically – is in the export of semiconductors. – there will be a point when they will be on the receiving end of either Chinese aggression or western sanctions. In either case, the west will just standby
Transforming logos for Pride has lost brand impact | Marketing Week – When the mass market starts arguing over who gets the specially altered distinctive asset for the month, it’s probably time to retire the whole code-playing business forever. Monkeys cannot run the zoo – especially the zoo’s Special Surprise Tricks Unit, which designs things to influence the monkeys without them knowing anything about it. Pride month clashed with the platinum jubilee. Brands got involved with the platinum jubilee celebrations as planning got under way by local councils and British embassies by mid-May. The platinum jubilee allowed brands to reach a wider swathe of consumers than would otherwise be the case and increase their relevance to consumers lives. Celebration of pride month was seen as brands ‘deprioritising’ the platinum jubilee on one side, while platinum jubilee critics were seen as been prejudiced in nature. What struck me was the quiet of the voices in the middle ground of the Pride – platinum jubilee dispute. Perhaps its better for brands to stay out?
The West’s Struggle for Mental Health – WSJ – American psychiatrists have been studying rates of functional mental illness, such as depressive disorders and schizophrenia, since the 1840s. These studies show that the ratio of those suffering from such diseases to the mentally healthy population has been consistently rising. Ten years ago, based on the annual Healthy Minds study of college students, 1 in 5 college students was dealing with mental illness. – and depression has surged 135 percent over an 18 year period. The finding are that “The more a society is dedicated to the value of equality and the more choices it offers for individual self-determination, the higher its rates of functional mental illness.”
☕️ Candy in your coffee – this seems to be an extension of the ‘sweet flavours’ available historically from the likes of Dunkin Donuts and other coffee outlets
National security law: can Hongkongers still hold June 4 commemorative events marking anniversary of Tiananmen Square crackdown? | South China Morning Post – political scholar Steve Tsang, director of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, also said the security law was intended to ensure activities that were deemed unpatriotic could not take place in Hong Kong. “It has been enforced in a way to secure an intimidation effect,” he said. “Unless someone or members of a civil society organisation are prepared to be charged and jailed … they will not hold a public event of any sort.” Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said a large vigil commemorating June 4 might be seen as an act that undermined China’s sovereignty and therefore was not worth the risk. Asked what kinds of June 4 events might be allowed in the future, the pro-Beijing scholar said: “Some implicit actions, in private, and in small groups, should be fine under the current political atmosphere.” Simon Young Ngai-man, associate dean of research at HKU’s law faculty, said the question centred on whether such acts signalled “seditious intent”, which might risk violating the Crimes Ordinance – an offence punishable by up to two years in prison for first-time offenders. “Note that intending to promote feelings of ill will and enmity between different classes of the population is also a seditious intent,” he said. “The precise meaning of ‘exciting disaffection’ is unclear. Does it cover any kind of criticism of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments?”
Diabetes drug leads to notable weight loss in people with obesity – study | The Guardian – interesting article that touches on multiple aspects of obesity as a chronic condition. The biggest issue is that government’s aren’t looking to treat it as the chronic condition related to an an endocrine system imbalance that it is. I worked on a rival drug to the one mentioned, which is being promoted in the US and other countries at the moment
An Oxford case study explains why SpaceX is more efficient than NASA — Space Business — Quartz – Planners behind projects that attempt to achieve a massive gain in a single leap, they posit, enmesh themselves in psychological patterns that lead to failure. They delude themselves in thinking the actual costs of the project will be much less than expected, because if the real costs were known, the projects would never be attempted. Platforms, on the other hand, grow incrementally. These aren’t just digital constructions but real world activities that share several characteristics: Repeatability, extendability, the ability to absorb new knowledge and adapt to new situations.
Microsoft Azure cross-tenant cloud security flaws concerning – Protocol – “It’s concerning. And it is a pattern,” said Rich Mogull, CEO at independent security research firm Securosis and a longtime security industry analyst. “And so the question is: Do we believe that that’s because they’re under greater scrutiny? Or is it that they have more problems? It might be a little bit of both.” At cloud security firm Orca Security, whose researchers have found two of the cross-tenant vulnerabilities in Azure services, the issues strongly suggest that Azure is not withstanding the pressure applied by researchers to the same degree as AWS and Google Cloud, according to Orca CTO Yoav Alon. – the more things change, the more they stay the same
Deadly secret: Electronic warfare shapes Russia-Ukraine war | AP News – Russian jamming of GPS receivers on drones that Ukraine uses to locate the enemy and direct artillery fire is particularly intense “on the line of contact,” he said. Ukraine has scored some successes in countering Russia’s electronic warfare efforts. It has captured important pieces of hardware — a significant intelligence coup — and destroyed at least two multi-vehicle mobile electronic warfare units.
A primary metaverse leader is leaving Microsoft at the wrong time — Quartz – Kipman’s exit came as a surprise to some AR industry insiders. Kipman has been the leading evangelist for Microsoft’s immersive computing efforts since the launch of the HoloLens AR headset in 2015, which he helped develop. In addition to the HoloLens, Microsoft offers its bleeding-edge Azure Kinect spatial computing depth camera, which captures and tracks 3D objects. The company has also developed Microsoft Mesh for shared AR interactions, supports a wide array of VR headsets via its Windows Mixed Reality platform, and boasts one of the most popular VR communities in AltspaceVR. Quietly, Microsoft has become the biggest name in the metaverse next to Meta, largely due to its focus on business enterprise users. But now that Microsoft is losing its immersive computing champion, where does the company’s metaverse path lead? And why is Kipman leaving at such a crucial moment?
What’s next for Glossier as founder Emily Weiss steps down after eight years | Vogue Business – Glossier is famous for popularising millennial pink in its stores, its zip-lock bubble pouch and for pioneering everyday beauty in an industry obsessed with perfection. However, signs of internal shifts began earlier this year when the beauty brand laid off nearly one-third of its staff, according to an internal email obtained by Modern Retail. It also enlisted the singer and Gen Z favourite Olivia Rodrigo to promote the brand in April, after years of relying on its own community. There have been other bumps in the road. Two years ago the sub-brand Glossier Play closed, and the brand was also called out by former store employees who made allegations about racist behaviour and a toxic work culture. Glossier publicly apologised. – for many marketers in the beauty and personal care space Glossier was the poster child of a ‘new way’ of brand building. It looks as if it wasn’t the new way at all and its had to pivot to more conventional means.
Glossier is moving from scrappy start-up to a mainstream beauty brand. Will Weiss stepping back mean that Glossier will be up for sale?
Consumer behaviour
How Labour lost the Indian vote in the local elections – New Statesman – new Indian immigrants have more in common with Rishi Sunak than with the 1970s East Africans. Born to a wealthy, upper-caste Hindu family, this immigrant is likely to have attended one of India’s most prestigious private schools, aspiring to attend an Ivy League university. They were raised by domestic help who cooked and cleaned for them. Sunak embodies the Indian upper middle class. He understands the new wealthy India. Hell, he’s a card-carrying member of the new wealthy India: the Stanford educated son-in-law of one of the biggest Indian tech families, born to middle-class Indian doctors. This means that when Labour draws attention to Sunak’s elitist background, it makes him more appealing to both Indian demographics. He achieved the social mobility the 20th-century immigrants hoped for for their children, and he is a member of the family that encapsulates the new elite India
Economics
All the reasons why so many near-retirees are going back to work — Quartz – the pandemic may have been an even bigger setback to this age group than the current data suggests. There may be many older workers who want to return to work right now and are facing well-established obstacles, such as age discrimination, that make it much harder for an older employee to be rehired after leaving or losing a job, Davis suggests. Going back to work after retirement? It’s complicated. The data also don’t indicate how many of the people who went back to work would have preferred to retire, but couldn’t—a sign that the system could be failing them
Is British science aiding and abetting the Chinese human organ trade? – Last month, for example, a government bill was passed banning British citizens from travelling overseas to purchase an organ. Accompanying this awareness is a growing unease in western academia. Eminent medics are starting to look back uncomfortably on decades of “constructive engagement” with the Chinese medical establishment – those all-expenses-paid trips to lecture budding surgeons, and the profitable arrangements to train batches of them in the west. Meanwhile editors of academic journals are scouring their back issues for too-good-to-be-true studies on organ transplants, that may have arisen from experimentation on human guinea pigs in places such as Xinjiang. In October last year a world-renowned Australian transplant doctor, Professor Russell Strong, called on all Chinese surgeons to be banned from western hospitals to prevent them using the skills they pick up there in the organ harvesting market. Now, a leading human rights body has warned medical equipment manufacturers – among others – that they might be prosecuted if their kit is found to be used in the illegal Chinese trade. – this is going to expand areas of decoupling
Unilever’s Samir Singh: Sustainability shouldn’t burden consumers with guilt or expense | Campaign Asia – existential threats to the personal care business wouldn’t just come from being innovation laggards, but could also come from feisty D2C brands or strong local rivals eating into market share. Here, Singh is more concerned about one over the other. “Despite the noise, D2C brands have made no impact on market share charts in the personal care business,” he contends. “You will hear a lot about them for the first six months to a year, (then) they will peak and then in two or three years, they tend to disappear.” Instead, it is strong homegrown local brands that worry Singh more. He points out that across categories ranging from deodorants to skin care and across markets ranging from India to Indonesia, Unilever has felt local threats to its storied global brands. These brands have been able to compete on price, innovation, distribution and brand recall. “While we have been winning with our global names, these local brands have taken market share from us previously,” he admits. – this looks like headstone for the DTC CPG boom, other comments about sustainability are interesting as well
Chanel profits skyrocket 171% on price hikes, Americas gains | Vogue Business – Chanel famously increased the prices of its iconic handbags last year (the small Classic Flap bag rose by an average 21 per cent in 2020 and a further 30 per cent in 2021, according to Jefferies analyst Flavio Cereda) and said a twice-year price adjustment is the norm for the brand. Price increases “depend on product categories and countries because it depends if the currency in one country has moved in a direction. There is not a single pricing decision which has been made in January. Usually, we revise, we adjust prices when we have to, twice a year.”
Joint Venture Between High-Tech Rheinmetall AG and DEMALOG, Germany’s Biggest Biometrics Company – Soldier Systems Daily – The strategic objective is to integrate biometric technology, artificial intelligence software, and digitization solutions in three different areas: driver monitoring, security, and industry. For Rheinmetall, the joint venture marks an important step in the transformation to digitization technology and expanding into driver monitoring solutions. Furthermore, the new joint venture enhances the Düsseldorf-based technology group’s future-oriented diversification into biometrics applications geared to the security sector and industry. The move also adds to its existing digitization and software expertise. Importantly, the partnership reinforces Rheinmetall’s capabilities in five strategic technology clusters: automation, sensors, digitization, alternative mobility, and artificial intelligence
Virtual clubbing points to future profits from the metaverse | FT – Hybe, the agency behind K-pop band BTS, was hit by a 98 per cent plunge in sales from its core live concert business in 2020 as tours were cancelled. But total annual revenues and operating profit still rose over a third, as it was quick to offer VR concerts and content. With such digital content repurposed at a fraction of the cost of live shows, operating margins rose to nearly a fifth higher than pre-pandemic levels. CJ ENM, which started using the latest VR and augmented reality technology for its virtual concerts in 2020, has also enjoyed a boost to content sales. These have since risen steadily, more than doubling in the latest quarter, as did operating profits from its music division. For Sony, sales from its music segment rose a fifth in the year to March
Making the metaverse – Smart2.0 – its odd, or disingenuous the way Meta is outlining an open metaverse rather than a walled garden, rather like a turkey voting for Christmas
Sony and Honda reveal plans to jointly make and sell electric vehicles | TechCrunch – this might also explain why Sony’s ‘concept’ car seemed to have a lot of money put into it, to make it look like a finished product a couple of years ago. Sony and Honda’s EV venture is a lesson for corporate Japan | Financial Times – the FT makes a number of good points about the relatively junior role that Honda is taking in the endeavour and that Sony making a decision to go independent indicates that consolidation of vendors in the electrical vehicle space is far off. I expect that the Sony and Honda deal in this respect is partly the pressures driven by the amount of ‘dumb capital’ chasing electric and automotive vehicles.
Sony and Honda likely see their deal as an antidote to that pressure. There were also fair comments made about relative software expertise between Sony and Honda, however I would argue that there is still a need for stable underpinnings of the software from the likes of QNX. But in the critique of the previous motor industry partnerships isn’t fair. For instance, Yamaha has a long history of taking concepts and designs to Toyota for them to build them. The most iconic of which was the Toyota 2000GT. So in many respects Sony and Honda are working on similar heritage to others.
It is interesting that we haven’t seen a similar pairing to Sony and Honda between Samsung and Renault, given their Korean car assembly joint venture. It is also interesting that Apple has failed to secure a similar partnership to Sony and Honda in its car efforts so far.
China’s Two Traps by Keun Lee – Project Syndicate – China’s economic slowdown suggests, the next phase of its development is rife with challenges. The country risks being ensnared by two traps: the “middle-income trap” (the tendency of fast-growing developing economies to lose momentum once they reach middle-income status) and the Thucydides Trap (when tensions between an insecure incumbent hegemon and a rising power lead to conflict)
Why are Chinese students so keen on the UK? – BBC News – The initial attraction of Glasgow – as well as its solid academic reputation – to many was how the Victorian university buildings looked on the brochures, rather like Hogwarts from the Harry Potter films
How China’s Ambitious Belt and Road Plans for East Africa Came Apart – The Diplomat – Chinese actors typically approach BRI deals with two contradictory assumptions: First, the political leadership with whom they are dealing is either too weak or too venal to challenge contract terms that decidedly favor China; and, second, these same leaders will be strong enough to fend off resistance to ambitious infrastructure projects by opposition politicians and civil society groups while also mobilizing the financial resources necessary to sustain expensive, long term projects. – they expect the kind of smooth running process that they would have in China, but not surprisingly don’t get it
Chinese lenders squeeze African borrowers even harder | Financial Times – Chinese lenders are imposing even more stringent collateral requirements on low-income country borrowers than previously known as they seek to hedge risks from their extensive overseas development finance programme. Under a $200mn loan from China Eximbank for the expansion and modernisation of Entebbe airport, the Ugandan government is required to channel all revenue from the country’s only international airport into an escrow account, according to the contract obtained by AidData, a US-based research lab. The document highlights a long-running controversy over the loan to Uganda’s government, which damaged its relationship with the bank. And more here: China cobalt mine deal was ‘injustice’: my country did not get anything, ex-DRC leader says | South China Morning Post
Hong Kong
Chinese fitness app Keep files for Hong Kong IPO · TechNode – interesting that this is going ahead given the kind of data that Keep would have. One only needs to look at the opsec failures that Strava revealed of American forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan
The war in Ukraine is going to change geopolitics profoundly | The Economist – Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan joined in sanctions against Russia, as did Australia. The change of mood in Japan has been particularly striking. Over the past decades it has tirelessly wooed Russia, in part to counterbalance China but also in the hope of settling the problem of four northern islands seized by the Soviet Union. Abe Shinzo, the former prime minister, met Mr Putin 27 times, including a trip to an onsen bathhouse. Now, under Kishida Fumio, Japan has frozen the share of Russia’s central bank reserves held in the country and is urging fence-sitters to take a clearer stance against its former pal. The end of the cold war was never going to usher in perpetual peace. But the Ukraine crisis is giving new form to the possibilities for future conflict and ways in which it may be averted. It is raising the previously outré possibility of territory being stripped from a developed country by force. By bringing Russia and China closer together, it is putting a new burden on the system of American alliances that partially encircles them. It has started consolidating Europe’s belief in itself and its ideals, and may increase its willingness to fight for them; it may also be seeing Germany and Japan, a lifetime after their defeat in the second world war, taking on new martial roles – the military rise of Japan will be worrying for China
Ukraine conflict risks uncontrollable escalation of cyberwarfare – Nikkei Asia – When and if Russia, or some other advanced-hacking state, pulls these tricks against a better-prepared adversary, resulting in a tit-for-tat escalation that could quickly spin out of control. Given the historical weakness of digital security in much of the U.S.’s civilian infrastructure, notably the electric utilities and grid, we can imagine a situation in which Russia or China, or some other entity causes not just inconvenience but casualties, including deaths. What would the U.S. do then? If Russia took down electricity from Boston to Washington, New York to Chicago, the American people would get very, very angry. What would an American government do next? The U.S. has said, with strategic vagueness, that an attack on critical infrastructure, including digital infrastructure, could ultimately trigger a military response. Then what? In 1962, futurist Herman Kahn published “Thinking the Unthinkable,” pondering nuclear-war scenarios in ways that few of the people who had control over those civilization-killing weapons had ever considered. No one wanted to prevent nuclear war more than Kahn, in part because he understood what it would mean. We do not believe that nearly enough thinking about cyber-unthinkables is taking place today, nor the escalation scenarios that would bring them on.
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei has been helping Putin’s efforts to stabilise Russia’s internet | Daily Mail Online – Huawei, which reportedly has five research centres in Russia, is said to have ‘rushed to Russia’s aid’ to support its internet network in the face of the attacks. A report, which appeared on a Chinese news site but was later deleted, claimed that Huawei would use its research centres to train ‘50,000 technical experts in Russia’. – The Mail on Sunday is now covering the kind of stories that previously only featured on the English language pages of late lamented Apple Daily Online published out of Hong Kong.
Arm China CEO asserts semiconductor joint venture’s right to pursue an IPO independent from its SoftBank-owned British parent | South China Morning Post – “Arm has written to Chinese authorities that Arm China won’t survive without [the British firm’s] support,” Wu said. He indicated, however, that Arm China has already developed the capability to continue its operations separately from Arm in the UK. The stand taken by Wu in Arm China forms part of a larger effort by the country’s semiconductor industry to overcome US trade sanctions and build a world-class chip supply chain. The dispute with Arm has not slowed down its Chinese joint venture’s business under Wu. Last year, Arm China generated US$700 million in total revenue, including intellectual property licensing and royalty fees. Arm’s share in its China venture was about US$500 million last year, according to Wu. “Arm can’t afford to lose its share of revenue from the Chinese market,” Wu said. He indicated that the Chinese joint venture has hit all its goals – including revenue, net profit, and research and development spending – which were set five years ago. Wu said Arm China’s biggest contribution to the Chinese chip design industry was to open the company’s source codes to domestic customers, “giving them freedom to develop their chips and raise their capabilities to a global level”. He also said he was displeased by Arm’s decision in May 2019 to cease business with Huawei Technologies Co, following Washington’s decision to add the Shenzhen-based telecommunications equipment maker to the US trade blacklist. – I suspect Mr Wu is working on behalf of the Chinese government in ‘war by other means’
