Asia

China’s September exports fell 10% to $184.5 billion from a year earlier, far worse than expected, the steepest annual decline since January, after a reasonable performance in August. In local currency terms, exports were down 5.6% while imports were up 2.2%.
Exports fell across all markets, with an 8.1% decline in exports to the US, while exports to Europe dropped by almost 10%. Imports fell 1.9% to $142.5 billion, also down from a 1.5% rise in August; economists expected imports to rise 1%.

Two former senior private bankers at BSI Singapore were charged in connection with Singapore’s 1MDB probe, on Monday.

Yak Yew Chee, 57, who was a senior vice president at BSI Singapore and Yvonne Seah Yew Foong, 45, a former director at the bank, were among six flagged by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to the Public Prosecutor regarding "serious misconduct" and whether they had committed criminal offences.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on the country’s parliament to ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, signed in February, before other states. And Abe stressed the Parliament should approve the TPP treaty before the current session ends on Nov. 30.

"We could provide an impetus for the entry of this agreement into force by approving it in parliament faster than other countries," Abe said. He added Japan will help provide momentum to the TPP and help make it a reality by approving it in the Diet (Japanese parliament) ahead of other countries, according to the Kyodo news agency.

Overall consumer prices in Japan were down 0.5 percent on year in August, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Friday.
In a report, Statistics Bureau said that Japan’s National Core CPI remained unchanged at a seasonally adjusted -0.5%, from -0.5% in the preceding month.

That matched expectations following the 0.4 percent decline in July. It currently sits at the equal lowest level seen since March 2013.

Goldman Sachs will cut about 30% of the jobs in Asia. The US bank would be to announce the cutting of about 30% of its workforce in Asia, excluding Japan. Goldman, whose investment banking revenue fell 11 per cent to US$1.79 billion in the second quarter, is reducing the number of bankers working on mergers and acquisitions, and equity and debt capital market deals, Reuters said, citing unnamed sources.

The Bank of Japan has delivered its verdict, which guarantees the expansive approach of monetary policy, however, changing its center of gravity. Market participants have yet to digest the meaning of the statement from the Bank of Japan through the words that Governor Haruhiko Kuroda pronounced during press conference.

The biggest change announced by Japan’s central bank regards strategy: now, the Bank of Japan will introduce QE with "yeld curve control". The BoJ will no longer check the monetary base, but rates, both short and long-term, buying long-term government bond in order to ensure that the ten-year yields continue to hover around zero, then at current levels.

Postal Savings Bank of China closed its placement on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong raising $ 7.4 billion and recording the largest world’s largest IPO this year and the biggest since listing in New York of the online commerce giant Alibaba in 2014, 25 billion dollars. The evaluation by $ 7.4 billion of PSBC is still lower than expected by the same company that aimed to collect more than $ 8 billion.

China is creating the second largest steel group in the world.
According to Chinese media, it could be announced in the week the takeover by Baosteel Group, government-company, China’s second giant of the sector, which would incorporate Wuhan Iron and Steel Group. The two companies are currently in fourth and eleventh place in the world ranking of steel producers and, according to figures by the World Steel Association, combined annual capacity of the two companies in 2015 was around to 60.7 million tons, behind only to Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal.