Stocks decline on Wall Street’s tech sell-off

By Darwin G. Amojelar and Jenniffer B. Austria

THE Philippine Stock Exchange index lost 20.24 points to close at 6,502.85 on Tuesday as the market succumbed to profit-taking.

The broader all-shares index also fell 6.65 points to settle at 3,463.81 on a value turnover of P4.15 billion.

Decliners edged out advancers, 84 to 82, with 55 issues unchanged.

Regina Capital Development Corp. head of sales Luis Limlingan said the Wall Street’s tech sell-off dragged investors sentiments.

Financial markets will be closed Wednesday in observance of Eid’l Adha

China to achieve 5% growth target in 2023—Premier

TIANJIN—China is on course to achieve its five percent target for economic growth in 2023 set by Beijing earlier this year, premier Li Qiang said Tuesday.

“For the whole year, we are expected to achieve the target of about five percent economic growth set at the beginning of this year,” Li said as he opened a meeting of global political and business leaders in northern China.

“Recently, some international organizations and institutions have also raised their forecasts for China’s economic growth this year, showing their confidence in China’s development prospects,” Li added at the World Economic Forum.

China is grappling with a slowing post-Covid recovery, with a number of lacklustre indicators in recent weeks signaling the rebound is running out of steam.

Beijing’s central bank last week cut two key interest rates in a bid to counter the slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.

Reports this month have suggested Beijing is lining up a tranche of measures targeting multiple areas of the economy, particularly the real estate sector, which makes up a huge portion of gross domestic product.

Beijing set an economic growth target of “around five percent” in March, one of its lowest in decades as it emerged from strict zero-Covid rules that hammered business activity.

Premier Li at the time admitted the target would be “no easy task.” AFP

Japan to restore Korea in trade white list by July

TOKYO—Japan will restore South Korea to a list of trusted trade partners in July, the government said Tuesday, reversing its 2019 removal during a dispute over historical forced labor.

The move, which reciprocates Seoul’s reinstatement of Japan to its own trade “white list” earlier this year, marks the latest step in efforts by the neighbour to thaw ties.

Trade with South Korea will again enjoy a fast-track approval process from July 21, Tokyo’s trade ministry said.

Relations between the two US allies have long been testy due to bitter memories of Japan’s brutal occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

South Korea’s Supreme Court in 2018 ordered Japanese firms to compensate the wartime victims of forced labour, triggering an escalating series of tit-for-tat economic measures.

However, since South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol came to power last year, he has worked to quickly strengthen ties with Japan in the face of North Korean threats.

In March, Yoon unveiled a plan to compensate victims without direct involvement from Tokyo, in a move that was unpopular domestically but helped improve ties with Japan.

Since then, Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have resumed regular high level talks, with Yoon in Tokyo in April and Kishida travelling to Seoul last month.

Japan also this year ended export controls on materials for semiconductors destined for South Korea, while Seoul dropped a WTO complaint against Japan and has moved to normalize a military intelligence-sharing pact. AFP

(Feast of Sacrifice).

Meanwhile, Asian markets mostly rose Tuesday after more than a week of losses but traders remained anxious about central banks’ plans to continue hiking interest rates to fight stubborn inflation.

The more positive environment came as concerns over Russia subsided following an aborted uprising, though developments in the nuclear-armed country are being closely followed as President Vladimir Putin faces the biggest test of his rule. With the events in eastern Europe a little less worrying for now, focus has returned to the battle against surging inflation, which has dogged global markets this year.

Last week’s warning from US Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell that rates would likely need to go higher dealt a blow to hopes that officials were at the end of close to completing their tightening cycle. While the Fed stood pat this month, his comments came as central banks elsewhere continued to push borrowing costs higher and indicated more were in the pipeline. The Fed said the decision at the next policy meeting at the end of July will be determined by incoming data, putting the focus on upcoming releases, including Friday’s personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index—the central bank’s preferred measure of inflation.

But analysts warned that investors face more pain this year, while there is a growing concern that the tightening could tip economies into recession, as has happened in the eurozone.

“I’m not sure we have felt the full efect of the whole inflation cycle,” Nancy Daoud, at Ameriprise Financial Services, told Bloomberg Television.

Hong Kong high-rise to become ‘village

HONG KONG—With its white marble foyer and lavish chandeliers, the 12-storey tower could be mistaken for one of Hong Kong’s newest hotels, but it offers a longer stay: a final resting place for thousands in one of the world’s most crowded cities.

Hong Kong’s 7.3 million residents share some of the most densely populated neighborhoods on earth, and in the past, mourning families had to wait years to secure a spot for their loved ones’ ashes.

The Shan Sum columbarium opened last month with plans to eventually offer 23,000 niches for funeral urns, part of the government’s decade-long efort to bring in private companies to ease pressure on the deathcare sector.

That policy is now paying of afer the city’s ageing population pushed death rates above government urn space capacity in the mid-2010s, creating a dire shortage.

The sleek, modern building is the work of German architect Ulrich Kirchhof, 52, who told AFP he tried to blend elements of nature into a high-density space to create a “neighbourhood village feel”.

“It’s an apartment building for the dead ... It feels more like a close-knit neighbourhood,” he said.

Kirchhof said his design was inspired by traditional Chinese graveyards, which are ofen perched on mountainsides. His columbarium carried over those undulating lines, greenery and textures of hewn rock.

Ashes are stored in ornate compartments, some as small as 26 by 34 centimetres (10 by 13 inches), that line the walls of air-conditioned chambers.

Kirchhof said he designed rooms on each floor to provide intimacy, in contrast to the cramped confines of public columbariums, which he said feel like being in a “warehouse”.

“How do we maintain quality of life