Airbus A380 Flights to Melbourne to be rolled out by Singapore Airlines
The 29th September of 2009 will mark the launch of direct Airbus A380 flights between Singapore and Melbourne, Australia, by Singapore Airlines.
The A380 flights will make Melbourne the second city in Australia and sixth city in the airline's network to receive its services. The first city to receive the superjumbo was Sydney, when Singapore Airlines commenced operating the A380 in October 2007. Following this, the airline added London, Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong to its list of A380 destinations.
Fall in Singapore retail sales by 10pct in May
The month of May saw Singapore retail sales falling 10% since the shoppers, who were affected by the recession, stayed away from big-ticket items such as cars and jewelry.
On Wednesday, the statistics department declared that a fall by 10.3% has been noticed in retail sales, from a year earlier - with sales dropping 11.7 percent in April and
7.3 percent in March.
Via a statement, the department said: "Sales of motor vehicles fell 24 percent, jewelry and watches dropped 17 percent, and apparel and footwear slid 6.8 percent."
Increase in popularity of Mobile Mapping Services
Going by the projections coming forth from Gartner Inc., this year will see the number of subscribers using location-based services (LBS) globally increasing twofold, even when there has been a decrease in the sale of mobile devices.
The end of this year will see the number of LBS subscribers reaching 95.7 million, up from 41 million in 2008, forecasts the analyst group. Furthermore, the year will also witness revenues associated with LBS increasing more than double - reaching $2.2 billion, up from $998 million last year.
More routes to Singapore network to be added by AirAsia
Early September will see the commencement of two new AirAsia flights from Miri and Tawau to Singapore, the announcement of which was made by the airline today.
According to the carrier, the basic aim of the airline's entry in these two new routes was to deal with increasing traffic between the two countries, apart from enhancing tourism and trade, specifically in East Malaysia.
All-in-fares are being offered online by the low cost carrier at www. airasia. com from today until 19 July 2009, for travel from 9 September 2009 to 30 April 2010.
Economic crisis in Singapore to be discussed by APEC trade ministers
A meeting in Singapore next week would see the participation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's (APEC) 21 member economies - including Thailand - which will mainly concentrate on the ongoing economic crisis and preparations for economic recovery, as well as multilateral trading system supports in regard to particular trade hurdles.
Singapore economy climbs 20% during Q2
For the first time in a year, Singapore's economy grew, hiking 20% in the Q2, with the city-state coming out from its worst-ever recession.
According to Mr David Carbon, head of economic and currency research at DBS Group Holdings Ltd in Singapore, Asia is jumping back to recovery in a V-shaped fashion. He added that while exports have recovered about one-third of their lost territory, industrial production is 65 percent back to pre-crisis levels.
Singapore becomes top ASEAN investor in India
A recent study, conducted by industry body FICCI, has suggested that in the year 2008, the biggest investor among the 10-nation ASEAN bloc in India, was Singapore.
In 2005, investment from the island city state was Rs 1,416.90 crore.
The second biggest investor was Malaysia, with an investment of Rs 453.80 crore last year, which is a big jump from its Rs 21.30 crore in 2005.
Approval for Plan to Invest in Nippon Oil Refinery received by PetroChina
Recently, government approval to invest in Nippon Oil Corp.'s Osaka refinery was obtained by the state-owned PetroChina Co., thus marking the nearing of another overseas refinery stake acquisition.
On Friday, it was revealed by the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planner, that it had passed the approval; however, it gave no further details.
Whopping $500 mln 10-yr bond sold by Singapore ST Engg
A whopping $500 million 10-year bond has been sold by Singapore Technologies Engineering on Thursday, at 150 basis points over the U. S. Treasuries, tighter than initial price guidance.
The agreement is an unusual AAA-rated corporate offshore bond out of non-Japan Asia. As per the Thomson Reuters' figures, in the year 2006, the previous agreement with a top rating was from Singapore's PSA Corp, which was rated Aaa by Moody's Investors Service.
Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley managed the bond.
Tan Chong's $40m auto hub
A sum of $40 million has been invested by listed motor group Tan Chong International in a high-tech car storage and delivery centre.
The four-level facility, with about 400,000 sq ft of space, which opened on Monday, is RIFD-enabled. It comes as the maiden auto hub with Radio Frequency Identification capability in Singapore.
Microsoft loses patent suit; faces $200 million penalty
Software giant Microsoft, which recently lost a patent suit, is now facing a $200 million penalty.
A verdict has been passed by a US district court, which says that the company violated software patents held by Canadian software firm i4i. The case concentrated on patents for dealing with XML code in Microsoft Word.
Emails by Microsoft were presented as evidence by i4i, which according to plaintiffs not only present infringement on the patents, but knowledge by Microsoft of the infringement.
Google finally comes out with Chrome 2
Following eight months of the official launch of Chrome browser, Google has finally launched final code for the second version of its Chrome browser.
The company claims that Chrome 2 would be available with 30% speed increase for browsing, the credit of which goes to the revised V8 JavaScript engine that processes downloads from multiple pages but allocates resources to most used items.
Fall by 7.3% seen in Singapore retail sales during March
In the midst of a deep recession as shoppers limited their spending, a fall was but to worsen in Singapore retail sales during the month of March.
On Friday statistics department informed that a fall by 7.3% was seen in retail sales from a year earlier after a 5.5 percent fall in February.
Via a statement, the department specified that a fall by 23% was seen in sales of furniture and household equipment, while apparel and footwear plunged 15 percent and watches and jewelry dropped 26 percent.
Bank of America Stake sold by Temasek
It has been announced by Temasek, the Singapore state investor, that in the first three months of this year for a large loss, the investment company sold its stake in Bank of America.
Prior to the credit crunch, an investment was made by the group in Merrill Lynch before Bank of America took it over last year.
As of now, the state-owned investor is now concentrating on investments in Latin America and Asia specifically.
DBS exits HDFC Bank
In an open market transaction, Singapore-based DBS Bank today offloaded its entire 2.7% stake in HDFC Bank for Rs 1,291.12 crore, pulling down share prices of the country's second largest private lender over 2 % on the BSE.
A DBS Bank spokesperson said, "DBS has offloaded its entire stake in HDFC Bank as it is an opportune time for divestment. This was a portfolio investment which we had made few years back. We remain committed to India as a focus of our growth plans."
DBS witnesses net profit drop of 28% during the first quarter
Singapore's DBS Group Holdings announced Friday that since the bank made bigger allowances for bad debt, its net profit in the first quarter fell 28 per cent from the previous year.
DBS confirmed via a statement that in the three months to March, the net profit was 433 million Singapore dollars (295 million US), down from 603 million dollars in the same period last year.
The income of net interest during the first quarter was 1.08 billion dollars, up two per cent from 1.06 billion.
