Latest news with #APECSummit
Korea Herald
25-06-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
AmCham, MOFA director discuss public-private ties for APEC summit
The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea announced Wednesday that it hosted a policy gathering with Kim Ji-hee, Director-General for International Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to explore avenues for public-private cooperation ahead of the 2025 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Korea, scheduled for October. The event was part of the institution's policy talks series, aimed at providing a valuable platform for senior policymakers and industry leaders to engage in dialogue on pressing issues affecting the US-Korea economic alliance. 'The government's ongoing efforts to engage the business community are crucial,' Kim said, 'to ensure Korea's APEC agenda delivers tangible results across the region.' She emphasized Korea's commitment to inclusive public-private collaboration through APEC's unique mechanisms, such as the APEC Business Advisory Council, while detailing a range of initiatives spanning digital transformation, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, health care and SME development. US business leaders in sectors including IT, biotechnology and energy voiced strong support for Korea's APEC initiatives, particularly those focused on artificial intelligence and demographic change. While outlining the Korean government's strategic vision and key priorities for the upcoming APEC Summit, Kim also shared updates on the Third Senior Officials' Meeting and Economic Leaders' Week. AmCham Chairman and CEO James Kim remarked that the summit would allow Korea to demonstrate global leadership amid rising geopolitical tensions and rapid technological change. 'With digital innovation, supply chain resilience, and regulatory reform emerging as top priorities, this year's APEC platform presents a powerful opportunity to strengthen public-private collaboration,' he said. 'As a proud member of the APEC CEO Summit Task Force, AmCham is committed to working closely with the Korean government and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry to ensure Korea's host year delivers meaningful outcomes that advance the shared interests of both the US-Korea economic partnership and the broader Asia-Pacific region,' he added.
New Straits Times
23-06-2025
- Business
- New Straits Times
Anwar congratulates South Korea's new president, reaffirms ties
KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has congratulated South Korea's newly elected President Lee Jae Myung, expressing confidence in his leadership as the country enters a new chapter. In a Facebook post, Anwar said he spoke with Lee this morning to convey his well wishes following the Democratic Party's victory in South Korea's presidential election. "I expressed full confidence in his leadership as the country enters a new chapter," he said. Anwar said both leaders reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the Malaysia–South Korea Strategic Partnership, which was elevated during his official visit to Seoul in November last year. He said ongoing cooperation between the two countries would continue to focus on four key areas — peace and security, defence, economic ties, and people-to-people exchanges through education and tourism — alongside broader regional and global collaboration. "South Korea remains Malaysia's eighth-largest trading partner, with bilateral trade exceeding US$20 billion for three consecutive years. "I reiterated Malaysia's commitment to concluding the Malaysia–Korea Free Trade Agreement (MKFTA) within this year." Anwar also extended an invitation to Lee to attend the 47th Asean Summit and the Asean–Republic of Korea Summit, both scheduled to be held in Kuala Lumpur this October. "I will attend the APEC Summit in Gyeongju this November and look forward to welcoming him on an official visit to Malaysia ahead of the Asean meetings," he said.
Korea Herald
09-06-2025
- Business
- Korea Herald
AmCham delegation heads to Washington for 2025 Doorknock
The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea announced Monday that it will dispatch a business delegation to Washington from June 10 to 12 for its 2025 Washington Doorknock program. The Doorknock is an annual event held in Washington that connects global companies in Korea with US officials to discuss industry issues and strengthen bilateral economic cooperation. This year's visit marks the first such trip following the inauguration of new administrations in South Korea and the United States. The delegation, comprising around 20 senior executives from major global companies including Amazon Web Services, Google, Coupang, Hyundai Motor Group and LG CNS, will engage in a series of meetings with Trump administration officials, members of Congress and leading policy think tanks. Key agenda items include strengthening cooperation in strategic industries such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence, stabilizing supply chains and improving the trade and investment landscape between the two countries. 'This year's Doorknock comes at a pivotal time for Korea-US economic cooperation,' said AmCham Chairman James Kim. 'It's a timely opportunity to directly convey the perspectives of American companies operating in South Korea.' AmCham also plans to advocate for US engagement in the upcoming APEC Summit in Korea and promote greater regulatory alignment and regional collaboration in the Asia-Pacific.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Vietnam approves $1.5 billion Trump Org development amid trade negotiations
[Source] The Vietnamese government has approved a $1.5 billion proposal by the Trump Organization and its local partner to build golf courses, hotels and real estate projects in the northern province of Hung Yen, state media reported on Friday. What they're building: The development, which will span 990 hectares (2,446 acres) in Khoai Chau district bordering the Red River, will feature four distinct areas, including a golf facility with 36-hole and 18-hole courses. It will also include eco-residential areas for a total of 5,300 residents, a commercial space for 29,700 people and a specialized green park, with 7.3 hectares (18.04 acres) allocated for social housing and 99 hectares (245 acres) for a thematic park. Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and President Donald Trump's second son, previously described Vietnam as a 'dynamic' market with 'potential in the luxury hotel and entertainment industry.' Approval: The project, approved by Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha, follows a memorandum of understanding signed between Hung Yen's provincial government and the Trump Organization last September, with real estate developer Kinhbac City announced as the Vietnamese partner the following month. Total capital is estimated at 39.8 trillion Vietnamese Dong ($1.53 billion), including 4.1 trillion Vietnamese dong ($158.2 million) allocated for compensation and resettlement. The project is set to operate for 50 years. Meanwhile: The approval comes amid trade negotiations between Vietnam and the U.S. as the Southeast Asian country seeks to avoid an import tariff of 46%. Hanoi is also under Washington's scrutiny for purportedly not doing enough to prevent the diversion of Chinese goods through its borders. Trending on NextShark: Work on the project is expected to begin this quarter and continue until 2029, with the first two of four golf courses projected to be operational by mid-2027 in time for the APEC Summit. This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter — a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Trending on NextShark: Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what we're building, consider becoming a paid member — your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. Subscribe here now! Trending on NextShark: Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today! Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
20-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Malaysian Tycoon And Son Win Multibillion Dollar Energy Contracts To Make Offshore Vessel Supplier Yinson A Global Giant
This story is part of Forbes' coverage of Malaysia's Richest 2025. See the full list here. After participating in the APEC Summit in Peru's capital city last November, Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim made a brief stopover in Rio de Janeiro, where he attended a reception hosted by Malaysian businessman Lim Han Weng and his son Lim Chern Yuan. The glad-handing event was to celebrate the opening of the new Brazilian office of Yinson Production, a unit of Lim's Bursa Malaysia-listed Yinson Holdings. Anwar waxed eloquent about the company, calling it an example of his country's 'commitment to supporting global energy needs with innovation and responsibility.' ss Over the past decade or so, Kuala Lumpur-based Yinson (market cap: $1.1 billion) has emerged as one of the world's biggest providers of what's referred to as floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels for the global oil and gas industry. These FPSO vessels, costing upward of $1 billion apiece, are used to extract hydrocarbons from deep-sea wells, clean out impurities, store the crude oil and eventually transfer the black gold to tankers for transport to refineries. Yinson has nine of these heavyweight vessels in its fleet, deployed on long-term contracts, ranging from 15 to 25 years, in countries as far-flung as Angola, Ghana, Nigeria and Vietnam, in addition to Brazil. The company has gained traction in the Latin American country, the world's biggest FPSO market, since entering there in 2018. With two vessels on contract with state-run oil firm Petrobras and one with privately held energy firm Enauta, Brazil now accounts for the biggest chunk—about 40%—of its annual revenue of 7.6 billion ringgit ($1.7 billion) in the fiscal year ended January 2025. 'We have to be global,' says Lim, Yinson's group executive chairman. 'We cannot just depend on Malaysia.' Yinson's ranking in the global FPSO industry is linked to the size of its order book; it has $21 billion worth of leasing contracts extending until 2048. That makes the company the world's second-largest, behind Dutch company SBM Offshore with $35 billion. Yinson took delivery of Agogo FPSO, its largest vessel, in February. In February, the father and son were in Shanghai to attend the naming and sailing ceremony of their biggest vessel yet: the $2 billion Agogo FPSO, so named after the offshore oilfield in Angola, where it's now on its way to be deployed. Built by a Chinese shipyard, the Agogo is on a 15-year charter to Angola's Azule Energy, a joint venture between BP and Italy's Eni. With the capacity to process 120,000 barrels of oil per day, it's expected to generate revenue of $5.3 billion for Yinson over the leasing period. The company claims that this is the first such vessel in its fleet to use green technologies that could reduce carbon emissions by 27% over the contract period, as compared with older vessels. 'The energy transition is going to happen. So we're playing both sides of the equation.' The Lims have built Yinson into a well-oiled money machine. With its FPSO contracts, under which operations continue whatever the price of oil, Yinson Holdings remained profitable even when Covid-19 battered the world. Chern Yuan, the company's 40-year-old group CEO, is undaunted by rising macroeconomic headwinds brought on by President Donald Trump's tariff war. 'We will continue to bid for projects,' he says, adding that a long-term view is embedded in their business model. 'The average lifecycle of our contracts outlasts the terms of most heads of states,' he notes. Source: Yinson Holdings Marquee international investors have bought into the Yinson story. In January, Yinson Production raised $1 billion from the sale of redeemable convertible preferred shares and warrants to a consortium that included Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, British Columbia Investment Management and Singapore-based private equity firm RRJ Capital. The funds will be used to bankroll the expansion of the flagship FPSO business as well as a growing green energy portfolio under Yinson Renewables, a subsidiary that has solar and wind power projects in multiple countries. The FPSO Atlanta is one of three vessels deployed in Brazil, Yinson's biggest market. 'Renewables are already the fastest growing part of the global energy mix and the energy transition is going to happen,' says the younger Lim. 'So we're playing both sides of the equation.' With the proliferation of electric vehicles and data centers, global demand for electricity is expected to rise 17% to 35,000 terawatt hours by 2027, from 30,000 in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency in a February report. Renewables will account for 35% of the energy mix by 2027, while coal, gas and oil will account for the rest, it said. Yinson got into renewables in 2020 and has built up a portfolio of over 550 megawatts with projects across Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America. While renewables accounted for just 2% of revenue in 2024 and the business is still loss-making, Chern Yuan is confident that it will deliver 'exponential growth' by 2030, when he's targeting Yinson to become carbon neutral. The older Lim, who features at No. 41 among Malaysia's 50 richest with a fortune of $480 million, is a self-made tycoon, who got his start as a car salesman after high school in Penang. In 1984, he set up a small transport and logistics company in Johor Bahru with his wife, Bah Lim Kian, who continues to be actively involved as an executive director in charge of group strategy. He named it Yinson after his mother Yin, which translates to 'cloud rising' in Chinese to denote his ambitions for his venture. The Lims pose with a scale model of Agogo FPSO. Adecade later, he got into marine logistics supplying offshore support vessels to the oil and gas industry, starting with Africa, and listed Yinson in 1996. Once Chern Yuan came on board in 2005, after studying accountancy and finance at the University of Melbourne, the company moved up the value chain. In 2011, Yinson joined a consortium led by Petrovietnam, which was awarded a contract for a floating, storage, offloading (FSO) vessel. The next logical step was to expand into providing clients the more complex services of FPSO vessels. 'We knew if we were really serious about [growing] the business, we had to acquire some good engineering skill sets,' recalls Chern Yuan. That opportunity arose in 2013 when Norway's Fred. Olsen Production was put up for sale. Yinson acquired its bigger Norwegian rival for $170 million, a price that exceeded its $120 million market cap at the time. 'We were punching above our weight,' acknowledges Chern Yuan. But the debt-funded acquisition made Yinson a full-fledged FPSO operator. The recent capital injection at Yinson Production resulted in an anomaly, valuing the unit at $3.7 billion, more than three times the market cap of its parent. The valuation gap, says Ahmad Maghfur Usman, an analyst at Japanese brokerage Nomura in Kuala Lumpur, is due to concerns over Yinson Holdings' rising debt. Since 2020, this has risen fourfold to 16 billion ringgit, increasing the company's gearing ratio to about 1.9 times. 'I'm seeing more and more opportunities… I have to work until the last day.' Chern Yuan attributes this to the four new vessels the company ordered in the past three years for more than $4 billion, which he says will generate enough cash flow to cover the debt obligations. Meanwhile, Yinson's shares have fallen 23% in the past year, partly due to the post-tariff market meltdown. Nomura's Maghfur Usman says the stock is undervalued and has a 'buy' rating on the shares, predicting an 87% upside over 12 months. The CEO says the company is looking to boost shareholder returns by increasing dividends and stepping up share buybacks as well as potentially spinning off Yinson Production and listing it outside Asia. 'Hopefully, these initiatives will help narrow the valuation gap,' he says. Yinson Holdings hit a speed bump in the year ended January with net profit slumping 22% to 752 million ringgit on a 35% decline in revenue. This was due to higher finance charges linked to increased debt and a decline in engineering revenues. 'We should be seeing better results after Agogo starts production,' says Chern Yuan. Agogo is expected to reach Angola in mid-May and start production by September. At age 73, the patriarch still has plenty on his plate. He continues to run privately held Liannex, a company he started in 1993 to haul industrial commodities such as scrap iron, bauxite, coal and nickel to customers across Southeast Asia. 'I still deal with the coal mines in Indonesia because my children don't speak the language,' he says. HI Mobility is the operator of the Causeway Link buses that ferry passengers across the Malaysia-Singapore border. Last year, Lim scaled up Liannex with the acquisition of a controlling interest in Icon Offshore, a supplier of offshore support vessels, for 173 million ringgit, and placed its marine transport operations under the renamed Lianson Fleet Group. Lim's youngest son, 38-year-old Chern Wooi, is executive chairman of the company, which manages a fleet of bulk cargo carriers, floating cranes, barges and floating hotels. Lim also has a controlling interest in HI Mobility, a bus company that operates the Causeway Link, which shuttles passengers across the causeway connecting Malaysia and Singapore, considered among the world's busiest borders with more than 300,000 passengers passing through the immigration checkpoints every day. The company, which has a fleet of 550 buses, raised 116 million ringgit from an IPO in March and plans to use the funds to expand the bus fleet. Source: Yinson Holdings With a two-decade track record, HI Mobility expects to benefit from the Johor-Singapore special economic zone being jointly developed in the southern Malaysia state. 'The overarching more business-friendly policies under the special economic zone will create new and additional travel demand,' says HI Mobility CEO Lim Chern Chuen, 44, who is Lim's eldest son. The company's revenue rose 73% to 208 million ringgit in 2024 from the previous year, with nearly half coming from Singapore. The Lims remain focused on their crown jewel, the FPSO vessel operations. As per market research consultancy Energy Maritime Associates, orders for FPSO vessels could exceed $88 billion over the next five years. Chern Yuan says that he plans to bid for three mega-FPSO projects worth at least $1.5 billion each in that period. He doesn't disclose details, but Maybank Investment Bank analyst Jeremie Yap says they are probably in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Malaysia. Yap wrote in a March research note that given its track record, 'Yinson is well positioned to win future projects and could be a preferred choice for the bids.' With his three sons well-entrenched in the family trade, the patriarch could afford to take it easy but acknowledges he's not inclined to yet. 'I'm seeing more and more opportunities,' says Lim. 'I have to work until the last day.' ____________________________________________________ Correction: April 20, 2025 An earlier version said Yinson is the third-largest in the global FPSO industry by order book size. It is the second-largest, using the latest publicly available industry data.
