Singapore to support global commodity derivatives market, says MAS's Kola Luu
"Singapore is currently one of the key trade financing centres in Asia," said Kola Luu, executive director of the financial markets strategy department at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, in a speech last week. "In Singapore, there is a good community of key trade financing and credit insurance players to support the growing intra-Asian trade and the increasing linkages with Latin America."
Speaking at the Commodity Trade and Finance World Asia 2010 conference in Singapore, Luu announced that the Singaporean government is looking into various models and evaluating how best to realise the development of a market-based institution to support the growth of cross-border financing for companies based in Singapore. He said that significant developments are taking place in the global commodity derivatives markets and that the Monetary Authority of Singapore will continue to support the development of professional training courses and investor education programmes, with the International Enterprise Singapore, to deepen the expertise in the sector.
JBIC inks two trade deals
The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) signed two financing agreements last week. The organisation co-financed a $57 million loan to the Korea Development Bank with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation for the purchase of two Korean bulk carriers built in Japan. A second loan agreement was signed on March 24 with India's ICICI Bank valued at up to $100 million to support India in its trade finance developments through Asia.
Equinix partners with Shanghai Data Solution
A global provider of data centre services Equinix announced a partnership with Shanghai Data Solution (SDS), a leading systems integrator for network and communication services on March 23. The alliance allows Equinix to extend its operations into China by co-locating services in SDS's data centre, an arrangement similar to what it has done in the past with International Business Exchange in other locations around the world.
"A large percentage of the SDS existing customer base consists of foreign telecom operators, financial institutions and multinational corporations," said Samuel Lee, president of Equinix in Asia-Pacific, in a statement. "SDS's proven track record in supporting foreign customers and bilingual capabilities in both sales and operations functions make the company a natural choice as our data centre partner in Shanghai."
Equinix will provide operations support to the SDS team and has plans to open a co-ordination and support function office in Shanghai by the end of the second quarter.
