In the statement released yesterday, the embassy said that while the process to depart the EU would be carried out by the new government, the UK’s place in the world remains the same: the UK would continue to be a member of the G20, a G7 nation, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a member of NATO. The UK would continue to be a top 10 world economy, outward-orientated, innovative and committed to a rules-based international system, it said.

“Most importantly, we will continue to be a close friend to Burma as it strengthens democracy, civilian government and an open economy. We are one of its greatest development partners, and our businesses and institutions are building significant ties. Burma continues to hold a special place in the hearts of British people.”

Affinion Group, a global loyalty and consumer solutions provider, said its domestic contact center and shared services hub, which had about 200 workers, had started operations in April.

“Our global management team has worked for different business process outsourcing companies with operations in the Philippines and they love the experience,” Nono Felipe, Affinion’s country manager, said in a statement.

“They like the specific skill set of Filipinos in relation to the contact center and shared services industry. It’s also because of lower operating cost,” he added.

Affinion Group’s services include loyalty programmes that help reward, motivate and retain consumers. It also has engagement programmes to help consumers save money, bundle valuable discounts, protection and other benefits. Likewise, it has insurance programmes to protect against accident, injury, illness and death.

Affinion has about 3,700 workers globally across 20 countries. Its customer base exceeds more than 250 million people.

In a statement posted on its website, the company said it would focus on building new partnerships and expanding its core business in 2016.

Sophallet said Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Laos PDR counterpart Thongloun Sisoulith made the agreement on Monday morning during talks held at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh. This is the Lao PM’s first visit Cambodia after being elected premier.

The discussion, however, did not specify the location of the border gate. On the other hand, they are also set to open consulate offices in their respective countries soon.

Sophallet said both leaders expressed optimism that the new border gate and the consulate offices will boost trade ties.

Laos is expected to open its consulate in Stung Treng in northeast Cambodia on June 30, while Cambodia will launch its consulate in Champasak province, southwestern Laos, on July 1.

At present, there are nine Cambodian firms that invested about US$80 million in Laos.

Last year, bilateral trade between the two countries reached $20 million, while Cambodia attracted an estimated 460,000 visitors from Laos.

“Based on patterns we’ve seen in other countries, there is a good amount of room for growth,” said PwC senior executive director Scott Constance.

Online shopping in Malaysia is poised for significant growth, given its rising popularity and relatively new adoption rate among local customers.

According to PwC’s “Total Retail Survey 2016” report, higher proportions of Thai and Singaporean consumers are new to online buying than the global average.

“More than 80 per cent of China respondents have been buying online for more than three years,” it said.

The report, which surveyed 500 consumers per country, revealed that about half of Malaysian respondents buy online at least monthly and only 7 per cent have never shopped online.

Southeast Asian shoppers lead the world in mobile and social adoption.

Nearly three-quarters of Malaysian respondents use social media to access promotional offerings while shopping.

Consumers in Southeast Asia demonstrate a strong desire to use social media in forming associations with their preferred brands.

Although a sizeable percentage of consumers in Southeast Asia report buying on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, it was still smaller than the global figure.

About 60 per cent of global consumers reported buying online monthly or more frequently.

Singapore matches this proportion, followed closely by Thailand at 58 per cent and Malaysia at 48 per cent.

Southeast Asian consumers are among the world’s fastest and strongest adopters of mobile and social media usage in support of their online and in-store purchasing activities.

“Whatever the mobile or social media purchase usage, whether it is using a mobile phone to check product reviews or prices, or accessing coupons, or making purchases outright, it’s likely that consumers in Southeast Asia are doing it more frequently than just about anyone else in the world.

Two-thirds of consumers surveyed in Malaysia and Singapore, and nearly three-quarters in Thailand, report using their phones directly to make purchases.

Rates of mobile phone purchasing usage in all three Southeast Asian countries surveyed exceed the global average of 54 per cent.

“The Duterte administration will definitely pursue joining the AIIB, as at the forefront of the incoming administration’s socioeconomic agenda is to increase infrastructure spending in the country to 5 per cent of gross domestic product,” Dominguez, through incoming Department of Finance (DOF) spokesperson Paola Alvarez, said.

“With [heavy vehicular] traffic and the lack of basic infrastructure projects being hindrances to Philippine economic prosperity, the membership of the Philippines to the AIIB, an infrastructure-lending bank, is surely something that the people will benefit from,” Dominguez said.

“Together with India, Indonesia, Singapore, Burma [Myanmar], Mongolia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Korea, Cambodia as well as Brazil, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany and Spain already being founding members of the AIIB, the Duterte administration sees no reason why Congress would not ratify the Philippines’ membership to the AIIB,” he said. On December 31 last year – only a day before the deadline – the Philippines announced that it will become a founding member of the AIIB, which aims to finance developing countries’ infrastructure needs.

The Philippines’ membership, however, remained pending as it was impossible to secure Senate ratification in the remaining days of the 16th Congress ahead of the elections last May.

The country still has until yearend to secure Senate approval in order to become a founding member.

“Rest assured, the DOF will do its part to work closely with the bicameral committees involved in studying the benefits the Philippines will acquire by signing as a member to the AIIB,” according to Dominguez.

Over the weekend, the AIIB convened in Beijing the annual meeting of its board of directors, which last week approved their first four loans amounting to US$509 million (Bt18 billion) to finance projects in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

National Treasurer Roberto Tan was scheduled to attend the meeting, but only as an observer pending the Philippines’ membership. To become a AIIB member, the Philippines must shell out $196 million, payable in five years or $39 million per year, as indicative paid-in capital.

Members must pay the initial tranche of their contributions before this year ends.

There is only one international hospital operating in the Komodo National Park area – Siloam Hospital run by Indonesia’s Lippo Group.

Construction on the hospital began last December.

More world-class hospitals are needed, especially to provide healthcare services for foreign tourists.

“There are two main potential dangers [that could require hospital treatment].

“First, DCS [decompression sickness] that commonly occurs in diving and, second, injuries from potential Komodo dragon attacks,” Coordinating Maritime Ministry expert staff member Bambang Susanto said in Jakarta on Thursday.

DCS must be treated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy in a decompression chamber, also known as a diving chamber.

The ministry has asked Lippo Group to install a chamber at Siloam Hospital, Bambang said.

“As for anticipating Komodo dragon attacks, the hospital needs to ensure the availability of the vaccine. Currently, it is only available in Denpasar, Bali,” he said.

The government was speeding up the establishment of a special authority to handle the SEZ, aiming to see it running by the end of the year, he added.

But the government has announced that stronger enforcement of the Prime Ministerial Order No 15 must be carried out without compromise to further clamp down on illegal logging in Laos.

They also agreed to put in place stronger measures to ensure the revenue-collection target for the rest of this year is met while giving priority to paying officials’ salaries.

These were among the outcomes of a two-day meeting held between the Cabinet, Vientiane’s mayor and provincial governors which wrapped up in Vientiane on Friday.

The Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office and government spokesman, Dr Chaleun Yiapaoher, highlighted the outcomes of the Cabinet-provincial governors meeting which outlined targets to be accomplished for the rest of this year. He said the meeting agreed that all types of unfinished or unprocessed timbers were banned from export, no matter where the logs originated from and regardless if they were from tree plantations.

He said the government was aware the PM’s order was directly impacting on the business sector particularly those timber exporting companies.

However, the government called for all entrepreneurs to put the national interest above their own.

“Hopefully the business sector will show their patriotism and love for their nation by conserving the country’s forests which serve as a fundamental factor for economic development and livelihood improvement of local people,” Chaleun said.

The government spokesman said those violating the PM’s Order or Forestry Law including government officials would be penalised.

The government also called on local villagers to report any cases of illegal logging so authorities could address the issues promptly.

Ride-hailing app Grab said last week that Chinese visitors can pay for taxi and private-hire car rides booked via Grab using Alipay accounts, under a partnership with the Chinese online payment provider.

At Resorts World Sentosa (RWS), Alipay payment terminals are available at more than 110 locations. More services will become progressively Alipay-enabled across the resort’s hotel, dining, retail and entertainment arms, RWS said.

It added: “With large numbers of tourists from China visiting RWS every year, it is important… to reinvent visitor experiences.”

While mobile payment has yet to catch on in Singapore, it has grown dramatically in China, where consumers use their phones to pay for anything from restaurant meals and cinema tickets to taxi fares.

Mobile payment penetration in China went from zero in 2011 to 25 per cent of the population last year, according to consultancy McKinsey & Co. An estimated US$1 trillion worth of mobile transactions were done in China last year, dominated by Internet giants Alibaba and Tencent.

Firms here are hoping to ride on the China mobile payment boom.

Four-month-old local firm SwiftPay and its parent company E-Richpay Technology International invested US$1.8 million in a payment terminal that accepts four types of platforms – WeChat Pay, Alipay and Baidu, and UnionPay cards.

SwiftPay has rented out the terminals to 22 businesses here, including tour agencies, restaurants and hotels. It charges merchants a fee of 1.88 per cent per transaction. There are no rental or set-up fees.

During payment, the terminal generates a receipt bearing a QR code. To pay via WeChat Pay, Alipay or Baidu, customers open the relevant phone app, scan the code and key in the passcode to their account – a process that takes roughly 30 seconds.

“The government has been talking about the country being an IT hub and moving into future technologies. So e-payment is something we thought we should bring into Singapore,” said SwiftPay director Ian Teo, 32, who founded the firm with his friend Edison Huang, also 32.

Jinshan Hotel in Chinatown, where 10 to 15 per cent of guests are from China, started renting the terminal a month ago. Said hotel manager Amelia Wahjoto, 32: “It’s better to offer more payment options.”

The Republic is ahead of cities such as Hong Kong, Paris, Washington and Shanghai, according to a new study by US technology giant Dell and market research firm IHS.

New York topped the ranking, followed by the Bay Area, which includes parts of San Francisco and San Jose. London was ranked third and Stockholm, fourth.

The findings were unveiled at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, which is being held over three days ending today on the Stanford University campus in California.

More than 700 entrepreneurs and 300 investors from around the world are taking part in the summit, including at least seven representatives from Singapore.

The Dell and IHS study assessed five key characteristics – capital, technology, talent, culture and markets – in 25 global cities.

Cities, instead of countries, were identified in order to show the impact of local policies and programmes as well as national laws and customs.

In addition to the overall ranking, Singapore came in third – after Stockholm and Beijing – on the technology front. The Republic also came in fifth for having a culture that is friendly towards entrepreneurship and women-owned firms.

Cities around the world still have some way to go towards addressing the obstacles faced by women entrepreneurs, said Ms Karen Quintos, senior vice-president and chief marketing officer at Dell.

For instance, access to funding is a significant challenge for many female business owners around the world, exacerbated by the fact that the venture capital industry is dominated by men.

Ms Quintos, who presented the research during the summit, noted that the highest-ranked city had a score of just 59 out of 100.

“We cannot ignore the role that biases play to varying degrees everywhere… We have to continue to collect data to truly understand the ecosystem and address the obstacles that women face,” she said.

“Innovation and job creation by women entrepreneurs is critical for a thriving global economy, yet our research shows some cities and countries are doing far more than others to encourage and support this important subset of the start-up community.”

Ms Grace Sai, chief executive and co-founder of The Hub Singapore, a community and co-working space, said female entrepreneurs tend to be under-represented in venture capital fund portfolios.

“This could reflect the very small number of female venture capitalists… The human brain carries unconscious biases and pattern recognition among VCs is commonly used in selecting founders, which makes the gender imbalance a deep, systemic issue that we all have to be aware of,” she noted.

Ms Sai, one of the Singapore delegates attending the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, added: “Personally, I do not feel gender- discriminated in Singapore. In fact, the gender gap is more felt in Silicon Valley than at home.

“This could be because Singapore’s start-up ecosystem is still nascent and is hence less competitive, or it could mean that a leapfrog effect has taken place – where we have learnt from the Valley’s shortcomings and are doing our best in overcoming ours on home ground.”

Cities most supportive of female entrepreneurs:

1. New York

2. Bay Area

3. London

4. Stockholm

5. Singapore

6. Toronto

7. Washington D.C.

8. Sydney

9. Paris

10. Seattle

Group chief executive Zafrul Aziz said beyond the initial five years, the bank would share the “economic upside” of the partnership besides obtaining the regular commissions generated from the joint business.

“For the first five years, the uplift (revenue) to us is RM1 billion … Sompo will manufacture and use our branches to sell exclusively,” Tengku Zafrul told StarBiz in an interview.

The revenue, which includes fees for the distribution network as well as sales, will start to be reflected in CIMB’s financial year ending Dec 31, 2017 results.

Under the 15-year profit-sharing deal sealed early this month, CIMB will sell and distribute Sompo’s non-life insurance products across the markets of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. The banking group has more than 1,000 retail branches across the region.

While Sompo has a partnership with Berjaya Group Bhd to offer general insurance in Malaysia, Tengku Zafrul said the tie-up with CIMB was at the Sompo group level.

“We are the first bank in the region to do this kind of partnership, where we try to sell non-life insurance in four countries at one go,” Tengku Zafrul said.

CIMB has started selling in Singapore already and will start in Indonesia by the end of the year. In Malaysia, it currently has an agreement with Allianz Malaysia Bhd that expires in 2017 after which CIMB will distribute Sompo products, while in Thailand the banking group will start selling Sompo in 2018,” Tengku Zafrul said.

“These (four countries) are big markets, so RM1 billion is a safe number over five years.”

According to Tengku Zafrul, the income upside from the partnership comes with no incremental capital needs or charge and is in line with CIMB’s Target 2018 or T18 strategy, where the focus is on enhancing profita billionity whilst being conscious of capital deployment.

“We have freed up some capital by doing just distribution.”

CIMB has also boosted its capital base through its recent Sun Life Financial Inc deal, whereby it has agreed to sell its 51percent stake in the Indonesian life-insurance venture for RM169mil.

Tengku Zafrul said the bank will reap some RM140 million in net proceeds from this deal alone, allowing the country’s second-largest bank by asset size to bring forward its common equity Tier-1 or CET1 capital ratio target of 11% to this year instead of 2018.

“Last year, we targeted 10% and managed to do 10.3%. In the first quarter of 2016, the ratio stood at 10.6% and next quarter will be better. This is why we have moved the 11% target to this year.

“Capital is a big issue for investors, so we thought 2018 is too long for them to wait. It is to show confidence that the bank is strong, so we brought forward the target this year.”

In the first quarter ended March 31, CIMB saw its net profit surge 40.3% to RM813.8 million against RM580.12 million in the same period last year, boosted by higher net interest income and lower loan provisions.

Its revenue growth, however, was flat at RM3.73 billion as compared with RM3.68 billion a year ago.

Sompo, which has total assets of US$89.7 billion and net written premiums of US$22.5 billion, has identified bancassurance as one of its primary sales channels in the region. It was previously reported that besides Sompo, Munich-based Allianz SE and France’s Axa SA had also made bids for the bancassurance agreement.

Tengku Zafrul said CIMB selected Sompo based on a combination of factors, including its dominant position in the Japanese non-life bancassurance market – number 1 in Japan – and its growing business in various Asean markets.

At yesterday’s close, shares of CIMB closed four sen higher to RM4.34, giving it a market capitalisation of RM37.88 billion.