SG Morning Highlights | PM Lee holds bilateral meetings with EU leaders, with focus on growing cooperation

Advancers / Decliners is 102 to 66, with 125.70 million securities worth S$134.33 million changing hands.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Thursday raised its base rate charged through the overnight discount window by 50 basis points to 4.75 per cent, hours after the US Federal Reserve delivered a rate hike of the same margin.

Hong Kong's monetary policy moves in lock-step with the United States' as the city's currency is pegged to the greenback in a tight range of 7.75-7.85 per dollar.

Ties between Singapore and the European Union will expand into the digital realm under a new pact which will see the two sides working together on issues such as making safe data exchange possible and using digital solutions to make supply chains more resilient.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, announcing the EU-Singapore Digital Partnership on Wednesday, said the upcoming pact has transformative potential for the future of both economies.

It also builds on longstanding cooperation between both sides in the areas of trade, research and technology, they added in a joint statement.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong met several European Union leaders on Wednesday (Dec 14), affirming Singapore's warm bilateral ties with their countries and a shared interest in growing cooperation.

During a meeting with Prime Minister Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic, current holder of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, the two leaders reaffirmed mutual interest to strengthen cooperation between their two countries and between the European Union and Asean, said PM Lee's press secretary Chang Li Lin.

The leaders met on the sidelines of the one-day Asean-EU Commemorative Summit held in Brussels, marking 45 years of dialogue between the two regional groupings.

The company had earlier received another payment from the arbitration proceedings of 235.2 million yuan (S$44.9 million) in November. After deducting expenses, KOP's total net proceeds from the case is 392.2 million yuan.

With the latest payment, KOPNL has fully withdrawn from the development of the ski resort, called the Wintastar Shanghai resort, into which it had invested 300 million yuan.

According to a Wednesday (Dec 14) bourse filing after trading hours, BlackRock had sold about 1.2 million Keppel shares on Dec 12 via a market transaction. The S$8.9 million in proceeds translate to an average selling price of S$7.44 per share.

Keppel shares closed at S$7.48 on Wednesday, up 0.5 per cent or S$0.04.

Losses for the quarter were more than triple the net loss of RM52.6 million in the previous quarter, and a reversal from earnings of RM185.7 million in the year-ago period.

Lim estimated that Top Glove's losses will narrow in the next three months. He added that the group should break even six months from now, but profitability would come only nine to 12 months later.

The existing lease in place expires on Jan 31, 2023, CDLHT said in a Wednesday (Dec 14) bourse filing. The rental formula and management fee terms under the new lease are the same as the existing one entered into in January 2013.

Under the agreement, the lessor will be entitled to receive rent payments equivalent to the resort's gross operating profit less management fees retained by the lessee, subject to a minimum rent. The lessee will pay a top-up amount to make up for any shortfall in rent below the minimum rent for each year.

The deal will raise Samudera's interest in LNG EW from 25 per cent to 50 per cent. The seller, Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha, will still own the remaining 50 per cent of LNG EW.

Samudera said that it wants to raise its stake in LNG EW to better realise value from the company, which is engaged in liquefied natural gas transportation. The acquisition is expected to be completed by mid-December and not seen to materially impact Samudera's earnings per share for the current financial year.

The tyre and wheel distributor's H1 revenue was 10.2 per cent higher at S$97 million with the higher sales. However, this was partly offset by a 3.6 per cent rise in total operating expenses to S$26.1 million, as a result of higher costs for staff, marketing and distribution, finance expenses and foreign exchange.