Asian equities were up on Monday after a rally on Wall Street last week, but analysts say fears of a recession due to surging inflation and COVID-driven supply chain woes still have investors worried.World markets have been volatile for much of 2022, fuelled by uncertainty over supply chain snarls due to China's lockdowns, inflation pressures and European anxiety over the Ukraine war.Wall Street stocks closed Friday with a robust rally on tech-rich Nasdaq after a tumultuous week that saw

Indonesia’s ban on palm oil exports is sending soaring cooking oil prices even higher worldwide, exacerbating global food security fears amid adverse weather and the war in Ukraine.The export ban, announced by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo last Friday, comes as global food supplies come under strain due to disappointing harvests in some countries, export disruptions due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and labour shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prices of palm oil on Mo

Vietnam's economy expanded more than five percent in the first three months of the year, the government said Tuesday thanks to a pick-up in exports as the country emerges from the worst of the global pandemic, though officials warned of headwinds.The ASEAN member state has long been a success story among Asian economies, posting growth of seven percent in 2019.But growth came in at just 2.9 percent in 2020 as the pandemic shut most of the world down, while last year saw just 2.6 percent

A strong response to the coronavirus pandemic, surging exports and healthy public spending have helped Vietnam buck a global recession in 2020 and fast-track its recovery, with analysts predicting it will likely enjoy one of the highest growth rates in the world.But the pain is not over for some sectors with containment measures and border disruptions hammering the country's tourism industry, and leaving the once-booming aviation sector limping.While many countries have suffered from hig

COVID-19 hit the Chinese economy hard in the first quarter of 2020, causing real gross domestic product (GDP) to contract by 6.8 percent year on year. But since the city of Wuhan emerged from lockdown in early April, the economy has gradually returned to normal, and grew by 3.2 percent in the second quarter. According to the consensus view, China’s current potential GDP growth rate is six percent.

To date, ASEAN has over 200,000 coronavirus infections across all 10 member states, with more than 6,000 fatalities as a result of the deadly disease.

The manager of a sausage factory near Moscow, Arslan Gizatullin says his halal business has been feeling the pinch – not so much from Russia's sluggish economy but competitors vying for a piece of a growing Islamic market.Ever more producers are catering for the domestic Muslim community, which accounts for around 15 percent of Russia's population and is set to expand, and in some cases are also setting their sights on export. "In the last few years in general, halal&#

A plunge in exports and the worst growth rates for a decade have fuelled concerns about the outlook for Singapore's economy, with analysts saying the figures offer a warning that Asia is heading for a slowdown as China-United States (US) tensions bite.While it may be one of the smallest countries in the world, the export hub is highly sensitive to external shocks and has long been viewed as a barometer of the global demand for goods and services.The affluent city-state is highly dependen