TikTok is undertaking a rapid expansion of its U.S. office footprint as it toughens its return to office mandate on workers.

The Chinese-owned social media giant is shopping for what could be more than 600K SF in San Jose, Seattle and Nashville, rapidly expanding an office footprint that now encompasses space in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin.

TikTok is using a customized app to monitor its tougher return-to-office policy, which requires its U.S. workforce of 7,000 to be in the physical office at least three days a week, with an unspecified number of workers required to come in five days a week.

The app, which TikTok calls My RTO, tracks badge swipes to determine if employees are fulfilling the RTO mandate.

TikTok is in talks to occupy 100K SF of the newly built 16-story Moore Building on Music Row in Nashville. Los Angeles-based TikTok has been leasing three floors encompassing about 50K SF at One Nashville, anchoring a WeWork space, according to a report in CoStar.

TikTok parent ByteDance is negotiating a sublease agreement that will expand its footprint at the former Roku complex in San Jose from 660K SF to more than 1M SF, the report said.

ByteDance currently subleases two buildings on Coleman Avenue that Roku decided to vacate in its Coleman Highline portfolio last year. Roku is still seeking a tenant for two other buildings at the Coleman complex.

TikTok also is finalizing plans to double its space at the Lincoln Square North Tower in Bellevue, WA, where it currently leases about 132K SF, taking space that was offloaded by Microsoft last year. TikTok occupies 100K SF in the Key Center, about a block away from the Lincoln Square tower, the report said.

TikTok won’t have any trouble locating available tech space in West Coast locations as many opportunities exist in space listed for sublease by tech companies that have been downsizing their footprints.

Analysts are predicting that TikTok’s U.S. revenue will increase by more than 25% in 2024 to $11B, an amount equal to 3.5% of the total digital ad spend in the country.

Source: Globest

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The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said it will maintain the prevailing rate of appreciation of its exchange rate-based policy band known as the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate, or S$NEER.

The width and the level at which the band is centred did not change.

“Barring any further global shocks, the Singapore economy is expected to strengthen in 2024, with growth becoming more broad-based. MAS core inflation is likely to remain elevated in the earlier part of the year, but should decline gradually and step down by Q4, before falling further next year,” MAS said in a statement.

Maybank economist Chua Hak Bin said the central bank is maintaining the current tightening bias as both core and headline inflation gauges are above 3% and historical comfort zones.

Core inflation in December was 3.3% year-on-year, slowing from its peak of 5.5% early last year.

MAS said core inflation is projected to ease to an average of 2.5–3.5% for 2024 after rising in the current quarter because of a 1 percentage point sales tax hike from January that MAS said will have a “transitory impact”.

Gross domestic product (GDP) was up 2.8% on a yearly basis in the fourth quarter of last year, according to advance estimates published by the trade ministry in early January.

GDP for the full year of 2023 was 1.2%, and the trade ministry projects GDP to grow by 1-3% in 2024.

“Prospects for the Singapore economy should continue to improve in 2024,” said the MAS, although both upside and downside risks to the inflation outlook remain.

OCBC economist Selena Ling said that suggests the MAS is on an extended policy pause for now.

“April monetary policy is likely another hold and the earliest window for an easing could only come later in the year when core inflation eases more convincingly,” she said.

The MAS policy decision on Monday was the first under its new review schedule, in which the central bank will make policy announcements every quarter instead of semi-annually.

The central bank left monetary policy unchanged in April and October last year, reflecting growth concerns, having tightened policy at five consecutive reviews prior to that.

As a heavily trade-reliant economy, Singapore uses a unique method of managing monetary policy, tweaking the exchange rate of its dollar against a basket of currencies instead of domestic interest rates like most other countries.

Source: Reuters

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Varga emphasized that fiscal expenditures will be restrained until the inflation rate returns to a “more moderate range.” While there is a consensus that this year’s inflation rate will be significantly lower than last year, he hailed the achievement of reducing inflation from 25.7 percent in January to 5.5 percent in December. He anticipates an even better figure for January of the current year, with monetary policy playing a pivotal role in this success.

The highest annual rate was recorded in Czechia.

Acknowledging the challenges ahead, the minister highlighted the need to reduce the public deficit from around six percent to below three percent this year. He cautioned against achieving this goal hastily, as it could result in a growth sacrifice and increased unemployment. Although there is government discussion about extending the deficit reduction timeline to two years instead of one, a final decision has not been reached.

Mr. Varga believes a deficit of 4-4.5 percent is more realistic for the current year, with market expectations aligning with this assessment.

Addressing public debt, he pointed out notable improvements since 2010. The proportion of public debt in foreign currency has decreased from 53 percent to 26 percent, the average maturity has increased to six years, and public involvement has risen significantly, with the Hungarian population now holding 21 percent of the public debt.

Despite the external pressures, the government’s primary objective for the year remains deficit reduction and lowering the public debt.Continue reading

Concerning the tax system, the minister asserted that Hungary maintains its status as the most competitive country in the region for foreign working capital investment per capita. The government aims to uphold this position while keeping the personal income tax rate in the single digits. He defended the current 15 percent rate as the third lowest tax burden in Europe, with potential reductions through family discounts.

Responding to a question, he clarified that adopting the euro is not an objective but a tool. He cited Slovakia as an example where the introduction of the euro did not necessarily lead to economic success.

The Ministry of Finance quoted Mr. Varga as announcing the arrival of HUF 520 billion (EUR 1.3B) in previously blocked EU funds in Hungary since December last year. However, he emphasized that the economy has continued to function effectively even without these funds. The budget has provided ample resources to sustain family benefits, protect public utility bills, and preserve pension values.

In 2024, the government anticipates receiving over HUF 2,500 billion (EUR 6.4B) in EU funds.

Source: Hungary Today

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Assessing tail risks to the euro area economy

In Chavleishvili, Kremer and Lund-Thomsen (2023), we develop a novel approach to gauge the potential short- to medium-term costs and benefits of alternative policy actions when monetary policy faces trade-offs between financial and macroeconomic stability. The structural quantile vector autoregressive (QVAR) model – introduced by Chavleishvili and Manganelli (2023) – provides a flexible way of estimating the dynamic interactions between our main variables of interest: real GDP growth, inflation, short-term interest rates and financial stability conditions.^[2] The “flexible” attribute refers to the fact that the estimated interactions can be weaker or stronger in the centre and in the tails of the “joint probability distributions” of the model variables. Financial stability conditions are captured by two summary indicators measuring financial imbalances and system-wide financial stress, respectively. Using quantile regression allows us to uncover non-linearities in the dynamics of the model variables like in the seminal “growth-at-risk” paper by Adrian et al. (2019), which documents a much stronger impact of financial distress on the left tail of the growth distribution. By considering the entire probability distribution of our variables of interest, we can evaluate policy options not just in terms of their most likely outcomes, but also in terms of the tail risks associated with particularly undesirable states such as systemic crises. The quantification of tail risks thus lends itself to a risk management perspective on financial stability considerations in monetary policy (see Kilian and Manganelli, 2008), a perspective that focuses on the balance of upside and downside risks to inflation and economic activity rather than on the mean forecasts of both variables.

To operationalise financial stability, our model includes two measures widely used in ECB analysis. The first one is the Systemic Risk Indicator (SRI), which measures the financial cycle and, by extension, system-wide financial imbalances (see Lang et al., 2019). The second is the Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress (CISS), which quantifies systemic stress in the financial system (see Holló et al., 2012, and Chavleishvili and Kremer, 2023). Conceptually, one may think of the former as systemic risk ex ante, i.e. the risk of a future financial crisis, and of the latter as systemic risk ex post, i.e. materialised systemic risk. A typical financial boom-bust cycle would then see an elevated level of the SRI followed by a steep rise in the CISS as the bubble bursts and the system deleverages, with the Great Financial Crisis being a prominent example. The risk of such a boom-bust pattern poses an intertemporal financial stability trade-off for monetary policy: it can try to curb the financial boom by keeping interest rates higher than they would otherwise be, at the cost of weaker economic growth over the short run and at the benefit of a financial crisis being less likely and less severe over the medium term. In this article, however, we focus on another: the intratemporal financial stability trade-off for monetary policy, in which monetary policy itself may trigger more immediate financial instability.

The intratemporal financial stability trade-off in 2022

The circumstances prevailing in 2022 in the euro area and in many other places in the world, marked a stark turning point in the monetary policy stance. At the time, surging inflation called for a sharp tightening of monetary policy, even though economic growth was slowing after the post-pandemic rebound and financial stress was increasing on the back of the Russian aggression in Ukraine. In addition, the financial system at the time was vulnerable to a policy reversal because after a decade of accommodative monetary policy, the yield curve was flat and risk premia were at historically low levels, implying elevated risks to the profitability of banks and other financial intermediaries from a sharp rise in short-term interest rates.

To quantify the intratemporal financial stability trade-off in the euro area, we forecast the full distribution of our model variables over a period of four years, starting with the fourth quarter of 2022 (Q4 2022). In the baseline scenario, we fix the path of interest rates to the expected short-term market rates from the September 2022 Survey of Monetary Analysts (SMA) conducted by the ECB. In the baseline, we also require the mean forecast of real GDP growth, HICP inflation and commodity prices between Q4 2022 and Q4 2024 to reflect the ECB’s publicly available macroeconomic projections. This approach allows us to replicate the context in which policymakers were deciding on the path forward at the time while still considering macro-financial tail risks.

In addition to the baseline scenario, we also consider two alternative policy scenarios with different paths of short-term interest rates. The first one is “front-loading”, whereby policy rates are hiked more quickly. This helps prevent inflation from becoming entrenched, but it can also hurt systemically relevant banks and other financial intermediaries that have become particularly vulnerable to interest rate risk. The March 2023 banking turmoil in the United States and elsewhere provides a clear example of how monetary tightening may induce, or expose, financial fragility (see, e.g., Jiang et al., 2023, and Acharya et al., 2023). The second scenario considers a gradual monetary tightening. This may alleviate strains on financial stability, but at the cost of making high inflation more persistent, thereby creating the risk of long-term inflation expectations becoming de-anchored from the ECB’s 2% target. All three interest rate paths are illustrated in Chart 1.

Chart 1

Counterfactual paths for short-term interest rates in the euro area

Chart 2 plots the projected paths of the mean as well as the 10^th and 90^th percentiles of the forecast density of real GDP growth and the CISS using the three interest rate paths above. As previously noted, in the case of real GDP growth, the dotted line is restricted to meet the ECB’s growth projections at the time. The 10^th and the 90^th conditional percentiles represent the downside and the upside tail risks around these mean projections, respectively.^[3] Looking at the chart, we see that downside risks to real GDP growth (blue lines, left chart), as well as upside risks to systemic stress (red lines, right chart) are amplified by the interest rate front-loading in the short term compared to the baseline, and that the effects are larger compared to the respective opposite tails. Tightening monetary policy above market expectations increases the probability of realising a high level of systemic stress, in turn feeding into downside risks to growth. In contrast, a more gradual tightening has the opposite effects.

Chart 2

Forecast distributions of euro area real GDP (left) growth and the CISS (right) in the three policy scenarios

Overall, when comparing the short- to medium-term costs and benefits of the scenarios vis-à-vis the baseline forecast, the results generally do not support a more aggressive tightening path than what was expected by market participants in the autumn of 2022. The elevated downside risks to growth may outweigh the only modest gains in lower predicted inflation. That said, a policymaker who is particularly concerned about inflation expectations becoming de-anchored from target inflation may still be inclined to favour tighter policy. On the other hand, if policymakers were more concerned about the risk of causing severe financial distress by front-loading policy, the scenario could be modified to resemble, for example, the so-called “taper tantrum”, an episode of severe financial stress that occurred in 2013 when the Federal Reserve hinted at tapering its bond-buying programme.

Another consideration is that we have modelled monetary policy rather simplistically, with short-term rates being the only instrument. Today, monetary policymakers have several tools available, some of which can be used to separately target price and financial stability concerns, potentially mitigating the intratemporal financial stability trade-off. Still, a policymaker may prefer to avoid sparking financial stress to begin with, even if it can be contained with the right combination of tools.

Monetary policy from a risk manager’s perspective

In this article, we sketched a novel empirical approach to quantify the macroeconomic costs and benefits of monetary policies which take financial stability considerations explicitly into account. The approach has the distinct advantage that financial stability considerations are not introduced ad hoc or as pure “side effects” of monetary policy. In contrast, financial stability trade-offs enter the policy calculus through their direct effects on future inflation and economic activity. Our approach allows monetary policymakers to adopt a risk management perspective when confronted with elevated macroeconomic tails risks associated with certain risks to financial stability.

Source: ECB Europa

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“BUY land,” American wit Mark Twain famously quipped, “they’re not making it anymore.”

That investment advice would have proven wise in Scotland in 2020, according to a report published earlier this week.

Compiled by the Scottish Land Commission (SLC), the report found that prices for farmland in north east Scotland had risen by 58% between 2020 and 2022, 42% in the south west, and 25% in the Highlands and Islands.

Asked if investors in Scottish land could expect to continue to see such returns, SLC chief executive Hamish Trench said: “We don’t know. That’s the short answer.”

He said the skyrocketing prices were a result of “a match of very high demand and low supply”, but added that the incomplete picture we have of land transactions in Scotland makes analysing patterns very difficult.

“Getting a fuller picture of how the rural land market is working in Scotland is important, vital, to informing some of the changes in law and policy that we’re looking at in terms of land reform,” Trench said.

“What we’re trying to do here is to bring more information, a better picture, better transparency to the way the rural land market is working.”

The SLC chief said there had “long been a challenge in relation to Scotland’s land in terms of the openness and transparency of information”, raising concerns that sometimes communities were not even made aware that local land was on the market until it had already been sold.

“We know that there’s quite a number of transactions that actually have off-market, where they aren’t brought to public sale,” Trench (below) said.

“Over the last two years, we’ve started to develop new reporting approaches for the rural land market precisely because there’s been very little information giving an overview of this.

“What we see regularly, of course, are sector reports from agents operating in the market, for example, companies like Savills or Strutt & Parker.

“Inevitably, agents’ reports will focus on the parts of the market that they’re operating in. So you get different reports that focus on different sectors, for example, forestry, farmland or estates, and different sizes of transactions.

“Our report is really trying to capture all of that in a single approach that gives a better picture of what’s happening across the market.”

The SLC report published earlier in the week covered the years 2020-2022. Moving forward, the publication is set to become an annual date on the land commission’s calendar.

“We’re trying to do this work regularly, year on year, so that we can actually track a pattern of what is happening,” Trench said.

The SLC chief explained that one “significant driver” of rising prices had been an increase in demand for commercial forestry land, while one of the “newer factors” was companies looking to buy land for carbon investment and offsetting.

“This new report shows that although it may not be adding up to a large percentage of sales, it’s certainly significant,” Trench said. “Particularly in upland Scotland and in the estates market, where we’re seeing a new motivation of nature- and climate-driven acquisition.

“We’re seeing some corporate buyers, for example, wanting to buy land essentially to offset their own emissions within a business, examples like Brewdog or [investment firm] Abrdn.”

Trench said that data in SLC reporting could help inform work on “stronger regulation to manage those markets”.

The Scottish Government has previously said it will introduce a land reform bill “by the end of 2023”.

Asked in Holyrood in September about the bill’s progress, Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon said the Government was “committed to introducing a land reform bill to further improve transparency of land ownership [and] to help ensure that large-scale land holdings deliver in the public interest.”

The Scottish Government has proposed a limit of 3000 hectares, above which land sales will trigger a public interest test.

Campaigners have called this “timid” and called for a 500-hectare trigger, while the SLC and others have suggested the trigger could be linked to “whether the holding controls key local infrastructure”.

This is one of the areas where the SLC’s work could inform policy. Trench said: “What’s helpful is understanding from this report that 93% of sales are under 500 hectares, and there are relatively few sales over 3000 hectares [some 1.1%]. So it helps provide some context to think about how that kind of measure would work.”

Source : Yahoo

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For keepsies: Making an online return? You may end up not having to return it at all. This year, 59% of retailers offer “keep it” policies for such products, up from 26% last year, according to returns services firm goTRG, Reuters reports. The firm surveyed 500 executives at 21 major retailers, among them Amazon and Walmart. As retailers adopt tech to root out excess costs, more are embracing returnless policies for certain online purchases — a trend that obviously retailers do want out there. Online grocery, in some ways, has a similar policy in place. Get the wrong item in your Instacart order? You can report it and get a credit, but in many cases you end up keeping the item anyway. Will consumers start to abuse these systems? Time will tell. —Chloe Riley 

A chicken conundrum: When it comes to rotisserie chickens, it takes a lot to keep ahead of the game. And sometimes it’s a losing battle, according to a deli worker at Costco who explained on Reddit why sometimes the warmer is empty at stores. The main reason is that Costco requires workers to determine how many chickens will be needed for a two-hour span in order to avoid dried out chicken. The employee says the formula is far from scientific, and often the demand is too heavy and the labor power is just not there. Another reason is that there is no limit to how many shoppers can purchase, which sometimes leads to chickens being stacked 40 or 50 high. (That has to be some kind of safety hazard.) Some Reddit readers could relate to the rotisserie circus. One said they “worked chickens for over four years” and it was one of the hardest jobs in the warehouse. It appears chickens are not the only things getting cooked behind that counter. —Bill Wilson

An apple a day keeps the hunger at bay: There was an apple surplus this year, attributable to a couple of different factors. Bumper crops have kept domestic supply high, and exports declined 21% over the past decade, a symptom of retaliatory tariffs from India. Weather also played a role this year, with hail leaving a significant share of apples cosmetically unsuitable for the fresh market. In West Virginia, rather than leaving the apples to rot, the USDA ended up paying for the apples produced by growers. This apple relief program purchased $10 million worth of apples from a dozen growers — which were then donated to hunger-fighting charities across the country from South Carolina and Michigan all the way out to The Navajo Nation. Talk about avoiding food waste. —CR

A killer strategy: Dave’s Killer Bread has a pretty killer story attached to it. After 15-plus years in prison, founder Dave Dahl found his true calling: to make organic, whole-grain bread. This six-minute video from HubSpot examines how Dave’s Killer Bread nailed its target market and leaned into social to tell its story. Dahl wasn’t ashamed of his criminal past, but his advisors begged him not to mention it…So he fired them and became a champion of second-chance employment.That strategy, along with a national rollout following a 2015 acquisition by Flowers Foods, would eventually lead to 50% brand growth within a purpose-driven brand identity. The morale of the story? It pays to be on purpose. —CR

Self-checkout, now even faster: Checkout scanners are far from perfect, and when you add those not trained to work the technology the whole process can become a shopping cart full of frustration. British grocer Tesco, however, is taking that approval beep out of the equation in the self-checkout area. The retailer now has scan-free kiosks at one of its stores. The tech allows the transaction to be completed without scanning a single item. According to a recent survey by retail data supplier PYMNTS, 28% of merchants, including grocers, are investing in in-app scan-and-go capabilities. Surprisingly, shoppers are not jumping in line to take advantage of the fancy gadgets. Another PYMNTS study revealed only one-in-three consumers wanted to take advantage of the store tech. If you’ve ever had to wait for a worker to come help you in self-checkout, you might just think another thought. —BW

Source : Supermarket News

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Meetings of the influential Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, collectively known as OPEC+, have been rescheduled from Nov. 25-26 to Nov. 30, sending prices down by over $3 per barrel in Thursday intraday trade.

The Ice Brent contract with January delivery was trading at $79.05 per barrel at 13:50 London time, down by $3.40 per barrel. The Nymex WTI contract with January expiry was at $74.40 per barrel, down by $3.37 per barrel.

The OPEC Secretariat, which made the announcement, did not disclose the reason for the postponement.

It was not immediately clear whether the OPEC+ group would be holding a virtual or in-person meeting on Thursday, or whether ministers would still adjourn at the OPEC secretarial headquarters in Vienna.

The new date of the OPEC+ meetings coincides with the first day of the Conference of the Parties climate summit (COP28) in Dubai and represents a key event for both the host United Arab Emirates — the third-largest OPEC producer — and for other Arab energy providers that are tackling the green transition.

Earlier in the day, Bloomberg News issued a report saying the meeting of Sunday could be delayed amid Saudi dissatisfaction over the oil production levels of some countries. A senior OPEC+ delegate, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussion, agreed with the premise, with reference to the compliance levels of some alliance member countries with their respective output pledges.

Saudi Arabia is itself enforcing a 1 million barrel-per-day voluntary production decline until the end of this year, alongside contributing to a separate spate of voluntary output cuts from several OPEC+ members that totals 1.66 million barrels per day and will stretch until the end of next year.

The upcoming meeting faced a challenging market environment, defined by depressed oil prices, a slower-than-expected Chinese demand recovery and petropolitics amid conflict in the Middle East.

High interest rates and banking turmoil largely slumped oil prices in the first half of the year, before a sharp boost from several voluntary supply declines announced independently of OPEC+ strategy. Several OPEC+ members pledged to reduce output by a total of 1.66 million barrels per day until the end of 2024, with Saudi Arabia and Russia topping that with additional respective supply drops of 1 million barrels per day and 300,000 barrels per day until the end of this year.

Prices briefly surpassed $90 per barrel, but have since withdrawn amid a fainter-than-expected recovery in China — the world’s largest crude importer — and resurging tensions in the Middle East.

Prior to the meeting postponement, two OPEC+ delegates, who could only speak under condition of anonymity, faulted the recent price pressures on liquidations in the future markets amid geopolitical risks, with a third attributing market concerns less to supply-demand fundamentals than to global politics, including developments in Israel.

The OPEC+ alliance, including chairman and Saudi energy minister Abdulaziz bin Salman, have been previously frustrated by a perceived disconnect between supply-demand and prices. Famously, the Saudi prince has been at war with market speculators, warning they would “ouch” and should “watch out” in May.

One of the three delegate sources said that the OPEC+ group would have to make an announcement to “support the market” at its upcoming meeting, with a fourth delegate also suggesting cuts could be discussed. The alliance will also discuss baselines —  the level from which quotas are determined and a frequent subject of contention — for certain countries, the last source said.

A fifth delegate meanwhile assessed it is unlikely that the coalition will change its production policy, given uncertainty in the outlook for flows from Iran and Venezuela, where the U.S. has signaled tightening and easing its oil sanctions, respectively.

Source : CNBC

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AFTER years of political turmoil that saw rapid turnover at the prime minister’s office, Anwar Ibrahim’s first 12 months as Malaysia’s leader might feel like a success in itself.

Except a stalled reform agenda has meant the 76-year-old has been unable to boost the nation’s revenues and pare debt, as the rising cost of living hits the pockets of ordinary Malaysians.

The lack of promised reforms — undoing hefty subsidies and broadening the government’s revenue base — is weighing on Malaysian assets, adding to the pressure from a surge in US interest rates and sputtering growth in China, the nation’s biggest trading partner. 

The ringgit has lost almost 6 per cent against the dollar this year, making it the worst performer in emerging Asia. Kuala Lumpur’s benchmark stock index has been one of the biggest losers worldwide.

The political shocks that ushered in four administrations since 2018 have unnerved investors, as have the lack of of promised reforms, which have proved tricky to execute given the country’s fractious political environment. 

“Headlines on the Malaysian political situation don’t boost investor sentiment,” said Jian Shi Cortesi, a Zurich-based fund manager at GAM Investment Management, whose Asia equity strategy has no exposure to the country. “Malaysia doesn’t look particularly attractive.”

Here’s how Anwar’s government has fared and the potential pitfalls it faces:

Political stability

It’s been a striking comeback for Anwar, whose career has included a stint as deputy prime minister and two jail terms that he said were politically motivated.

His promise for reforms had fueled hopes that he would be able to repair Malaysia’s international standing, following the 1MDB investment-fund scandal that led to the jailing of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Still, political stability hasn’t been a given for Anwar.

A member of his ruling alliance pulled out in September to protest a decision to drop corruption charges against Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi — Anwar’s key ally. The premier has since managed to attract four opposition lawmakers to back him, giving him the support of 151 out of 222 members of parliament.

Voters though are getting impatient with the government’s handling of the economy. The premier’s approval rating dropped to 50 per cent from 68 per cent in December, according to a poll by Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research conducted last month. 

Anwar doesn’t know how to solve the nation’s problems, including a weakening ringgit and the rising cost of living, according to Mahathir Mohammad, a two-time former prime minister.

“A popular person is not necessarily a capable person,” Anwar’s 98-year-old arch rival said. “He does not know how to handle the government.”

Economic direction

Anwar’s administration has spent the year outlining the country’s ambitions, including plans to scale up the nation’s renewable energy mix, while looking at ways to export renewal energy. It wants to mine rare earth minerals and raise wages.

Malaysia still relies heavily on revenue from fossil fuels, with national oil company Petronas paying RM40 billion (S$354 million) in dividends to the government this year.

“The strategy is clear,” said Munirah Khairuddin, the chief executive officer of Principal Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. “We are waiting to see how that translates into the real economy, the stock market.” 

Anwar has revealed that Malaysia’s debt and liabilities stood at RM1.5 trillion, or 82 per cent of gross domestic product. His administration has also acknowledged the need to find new sources of revenue, though it has resisted introducing a goods and services tax, opting instead to marginally increase service taxes and introduce taxes on luxury goods and capital gains. 

A hefty subsidy bill

A key component of Malaysia’s fiscal position is the hefty subsidy bill it foots every year.

All Malaysians enjoy subsidies on petrol, diesel, cooking oil and locally produced rice. Electricity is also subsidised with lower tariffs for most domestic users. The government’s subsidy bill, which has been growing due to rising global commodity prices since last year, will exceed RM81 billion this year.

“No country can survive” such a hefty subsidy bill, Anwar has said while hoping to shift to a system that targets lower-income groups.

However, a clear plan on how the subsidies will be reallocated has not been presented to the public, and anticipation of possible cuts are raising inflation risks in the country.

“The challenging domestic political landscape constrains the prospects for material revenue reform, subsidy rationalizstion and, ultimately the reversal of the deterioration in its fiscal metrics over the past few years,” said Moody’s Investors Service senior vice-president Christian de Guzman.

The reformist

Anwar has spent decades as the figurehead of the reform movement in Malaysia. His government, however, is still working on several promised pieces of legislation with wide political and social implications. 

A bill to introduce a two-term limit to the office of prime minister and policies to provide equal funding for opposition lawmakers — both of which his coalition advocated — have yet to materialise. Nor has a promise to separate the powers of the attorney general and chief public prosecutor.

A pledge to prohibit smoking appears to be on the back burner, while an attempt to rationalise citizenship laws, especially those concerning children born overseas, has proved to be controversial.

“Despite his clear majority in parliament, the administration does not have the political will to push for much-needed institutional and fiscal reforms,” said Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani, a former deputy managing director for Bower Group Asia, who is now an independent analyst.

The outlook

Anwar’s ability to execute his economic and fiscal plans within the next two years will key. A series of state elections starting in 2025 will heighten political considerations before federal polls in 2027. 

If Anwar manages the short-term pain of reforming the local economy, Malaysia is poised to benefit from supply-chain realignments and increasingly positive relations with its more developed neighbour, Singapore, said Mark Mobius, the veteran emerging-markets investor, who is considering buying Malaysian stocks.

Concerns about “what reforms are possible” are partly why Malaysia’s ringgit is one of the cheapest among developing currencies that make up MSCI Inc.’s widely followed indexes, said Charlie Robertson, the London-based head of macro strategy at FIM Partners UK.

“Anwar is a smart individual who might be taken as a positive by markets,” Robertson said. “Not a negative.” BLOOMBERG

Source : Business Times

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Mothers who took parental leave part-time or for shorter periods were more likely to engage in income-generating activities or pursue education. A new study uncovers surprising patterns in parental leave usage among newly arrived migrant women in Sweden, specifically focusing on their integration into the labor market.

The findings, published in the Journal of European Social Policy, provide new insights into how parental leave is used and how it affects labor market participation among newly arrived mothers who arrived in Sweden with young children.

The analysis reveals a polarization in the use of parental leave, with a significant number of mothers refraining from it while some took quite long leaves. Surprisingly, native-born mothers who returned with their children born abroad showed high usage of parental leave together with some groups of mothers with origin in Syria, Somalia and Thailand.

However, the authors were surprised that parental leave usage plays a limited role in future labor-market activity of newly arrived mothers.

Our study challenges the traditional view of parental leave among immigrant mothers. We found that part-time parental leave, contrary to what one might expect, actually fosters better integration into the labor market and educational pursuits, rather than hindering it.”

Eleonora Mussino, researcher at the Stockholm University Demography Unit at the Department of Sociology, and main author of the study

The finding underscores the potential of flexible parental leave policies in aiding the integration process. The authors interpret this to mean that short breaks from the labor market participation don’t necessarily hinder subsequent employment. In fact, part-time parental leave could offer immigrant mothers other ways of integration, such as through essential support and contacts, particularly if they spend this time on training or language acquisition.

“This research not only challenges existing perceptions but also opens new avenues for policy development, ensuring that Sweden’s family policies align with the diverse needs of its changing population”, says Eleonora Mussino.

The study utilized comprehensive data from Swedish population and social insurance registers and focuses on 82,800 women who immigrated to Sweden between 1995 and 2014 with at least one child under the age of 8.

Sweden, up until 2016, extended a generous parental leave offer to immigrants arriving with preschool-aged children. In 2017, age-based restrictions on parental leave for immigrant children were introduced.

“Unfortunately, our data did not capture the recent restrictions of parental leave days for foreign-born children. However, given the results in our analysis, we can expect minimal, or no, impact on labor-market integration due to this policy change”, says Eleonora Mussino.

“The insights from our research are pivotal for shaping future policies. They suggest that a generous parental leave policy does not necessarily delay labor market integration for immigrant mothers. Instead, it can provide a support system during their initial transition period in a new country”, adds Ann-Zofie Duvander, Professor of Demography at the Department of Sociology, and co-author of the study.

FACTS: How the study was done

• The study utilized comprehensive data from Swedish population and social insurance registers and focuses on 82,800 women who immigrated to Sweden between 1995 and 2014 with at least one child under the age of 8.

• The studied population includes Swedish-born woman as well migrant-born. Country of birth is categorized by the ten largest groups in the population (including native-born return immigrants), with all others aggregated in the category ‘miscellaneous’.

• The researchers followed the women for two years after their year of arrival to analyse whether their use of parental leave correlates with subsequent labor-market attachment.

• Labor-market attachment is measured based on the main economic activity (wages and entrepreneurial activities) and public transfers received in a certain year (unemployment benefit and student loan). The variable is categorized into 1) student or unemployed, 2) work with low income, 3) work with medium/high income, and 4) inactive, with no income from work or work-related benefits such as unemployment or student benefits, and women who 5) have another child, or 6) emigrate.

Source : News Medical Life Science

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A substantial 26% of cyber incidents in businesses over the last two years have been found to be the result of intentional security protocol violations by employees. This figure closely rivals the 20% attributed to external hacking attempts.

The findings come from Kaspersky’s latest study, which explained that, contrary to prevailing beliefs that human error is the primary cause of cybersecurity incidents, the reality is more nuanced. 

Seeking insights from IT security professionals in SMEs and enterprises globally, the research aimed to understand the diverse impact of various individuals on a company’s cybersecurity posture. 

It discovered that intentional policy violations by employees, spanning both IT and non-IT staff, played a significant role in cyber incidents. Notably, IT security officers, other IT professionals and non-IT colleagues were identified as sources of breaches, contributing to 13%, 12% and 4% of incidents, respectively.

Examining individual employee behavior, the study revealed that 22% of incidents resulted from the deliberate use of weak passwords or failing to change them promptly. Additionally, 18% were linked to staff visiting unsecured websites, while 25% occurred due to neglecting system software or application updates.

Unsolicited services or devices were identified as significant contributors to intentional policy violations, with 14% of companies experiencing incidents due to unauthorized systems for data sharing. Particularly concerning was the finding that 20% of malicious actions were committed by employees for personal gain, with the financial services sector notably reporting 34% of such incidents.

Highlighting the necessity of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, Alexey Vovk, who leads information security at Kaspersky, emphasized the significance of fostering a culture of cybersecurity within companies.

“As the numbers are alarming, it is necessary to create a cybersecurity culture in an organization from the get-go by developing and enforcing security policies, as well as raising cybersecurity awareness among employees,” Vovk explained. 

“Thus, the staff will approach the rules more responsibly and clearly understand the possible consequences of their violations.”

Source : Info Security

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