menu_open Columnists
Lionel Lim

Lionel Lim

CoinDesk

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Asia shrugs off Trump’s new tariff threat, as governments hope they can get a deal before August 1

On Monday, Trump’s White House unveiled flat 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea, two of the U.S’s trading partners.

latest 9

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Del Monte Foods’ bankruptcy rebounds on its Singapore-listed parent company

Philippines-based Del Monte Pacific, No. 142 on the Southeast Asia 500, bought Del Monte Foods in 2014.

04.07.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Trump touts a Vietnam trade deal victory—but details on transshipment and import pledges remain unclear

Trump said the U.S. will impose a 20% tariff on Vietnamese exports to the U.S. Goods transshipped through Vietnam will get 40%. 

03.07.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Thailand and Cambodia’s border spat pulls in energy giant PTT

Phnom Penh halted fuel imports from Thailand on Monday, with former leader Hun Sen claiming a trading halt would hurt PTT more than Cambodia.

24.06.2025 30

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Financial services are pushing up the revenues of the Southeast Asia 500’s most prominent tech startups

Sea, Grab, and GoTo climbed the rankings of the Southeast Asia 500, in part thanks to their fast-growing fintech businesses.

22.06.2025 4

Fortune

Lionel Lim

99 Speed Mart’s Southeast Asia 500 debut is the latest milestone for the company and its founder, a childhood polio survivor

99 Speed Mart's founder, Lee Thiam Wah, contracted polio at a young age. He’s been wheelchair-bound for much of his life.

21.06.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Resurgent air travel and a strategic acquisition helped SATS climb over 100 places in the Southeast Asia 500

Singapore-based SATS, which provides a range of aviation-related services, tripled its revenue following its acquisition of Worldwide Flight Services...

20.06.2025 7

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Nvidia and the AI boom helps Malaysia’s Nationgate debut on the Southeast Asia 500 with a 720% revenue surge

Nationgate generated $1.6 billion in revenue last year, high enough to place it at No. 243 on the Southeast Asia 500.

19.06.2025 5

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Agrifood giant Wilmar hands over almost two-thirds of its annual profit to Indonesia as ‘security deposit’ for palm oil corruption case

Shares in Wilmar, one of a handful of Southeast Asian firms to make the Global 500, dropped 3% on the news.

18.06.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

The smallest country on the Southeast Asia 500 generated the most revenue 

Total revenue from Singapore-based companies reached $637 billion, or about the third of the list's total revenue.

18.06.2025 8

Fortune

Lionel Lim

GoTo, Indonesia’s onetime tech darling, banks on fintech to give its superapp a second life

GoTo's recent actions, such as announcing its fintech results ahead of on-demand services, show its priorities are changing.

17.06.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Trump’s ‘done’ deal with China just brings tariffs back to Liberation Day levels

The U.S.-China trade war appears to be on pause—again.

12.06.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

China can shrug off U.S. tech controls, thanks to open-source design and chip packaging techniques, says Huawei’s founder

Nevertheless, Ren Zhengfei cautioned that Huawei still isn’t quite as successful as the U.S.’s fears make it seem.

10.06.2025 4

Fortune

Lionel Lim

L’Oreal sees Middle East and Southeast Asia as next growth engines as China slows: ‘Eventually demographics have to win’

Sales in SAPMENA, a region coined by L'Oreal that covers South Asia Pacific, Middle East, and North Africa, is the beauty brand's fastest growing...

07.06.2025 6

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s new president, calls ‘rising protectionism’ a ‘threat to our very survival’

Lee took office just hours before U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium were due to take effect, with the 50% levy hitting crucial South Korean exports.

04.06.2025 30

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun predicts his company’s expensive EV bet could soon start making money

Lei’s optimism contrasts with renewed worries that China’s EV sector is about to sink into another price war.

04.06.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Trump isn’t Beijing’s only trade headache, as the EU targets Chinese medical devices

Chinese companies are now blocked from bidding for public procurement tenders for medical devices for contracts valued over $5.7 million.

03.06.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Indonesia’s Indosat and Goto unveil a new ‘sovereign AI’ that can chat in the country’s most-used languages

The two firms' new 70 billion parameter LLM can operate in Bahasa Indonesia, as well as Javanese, Balinese and Bataknese.

03.06.2025 4

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Saudi Arabia looks to take partnership with China and Southeast Asia beyond AI: ‘There’s so many untapped areas’

The country's Deputy Minister for International Relations at the Ministry of Investments sees collaboration in agriculture and food security too.

28.05.2025 5

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Malaysia looks to help standardize the halal economy as Southeast Asia and the Middle East build new ‘smart partnerships’

Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said ASEAN has agreed in-principle to have a common halal logo across the region.

28.05.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Southeast Asia and Gulf leaders meet with China as governments look to coordinate in the face of Trump tariffs

The GCC’s pivot to the East is a “pragmatic move," says Joanne Lin, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.

27.05.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Singapore’s ComfortDelGro will bid for Melbourne’s rail line as it takes its public transport model global

“Ten to 14 years ago we were not even in the position to bid for this contract,” ComforDelGro CEO Cheng Siak Kian said in an interview with Fortune.

26.05.2025 4

Fortune

Lionel Lim

The U.S. is targeting Huawei’s AI chips, and China says that could undermine an uneasy truce in the trade war

Washington warned that using Huawei's chips could violate export controls. Beijing thinks that undermines "consensus" from the Geneva trade talks.

21.05.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Sea shares hit highest point in three years after it records $410.8 million in quarterly profit

Sea's three businesses, e-commerce, digital financial services, and gaming all saw double digit percentage growth for the first three months of the...

13.05.2025 9

Fortune

Lionel Lim

‘Size does not matter’: Bhutan’s tiny sovereign wealth fund banks on green energy and Bitcoin

Bhutan wants to be known for more than just spiritual tourism and Himalayan mountains.

12.05.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Scion of hospitality conglomerate Genting Group sees potential in wellness-based co-living spaces

Lim Keong Wee hails from the Genting Group family, Malaysia's biggest casino operator. Yet he's trying to carve a different path in the hospitality...

11.05.2025 3

Fortune

Lionel Lim

U.S. dollar’s slide is the ‘bane’ of Asia’s central bankers

Taiwan recently intervened to curb “excessive” inflows after the New Taiwan Dollar jumped 9% against the U.S. dollar in just two trading days.

09.05.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Sea rebrands its fintech arm to Monee, a ‘cute’ name for an increasingly important business

The rebranded division will oversee Sea's two digital banks along with its payments and lending services.

08.05.2025 30

Fortune

Lionel Lim

U.S. and Chinese officials are finally set to meet for trade talks, a month after Trump hiked tariffs to a sky-high 145%

The scheduled meeting in Switzerland would be the first time U.S. and Chinese trade officials meet since Trump imposed tariffs on China in February.

07.05.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Southeast Asia searches for a U.S. trade deal, but the damage from Trump’s tariffs is already done 

On Monday, Malaysia became the latest country in the trade-reliant region to warn that growth may be slower this year.

06.05.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

A failed takeover bid by Global 500 insurer Allianz is now a political hot potato in Singapore’s election

Allianz tried to buy local insurer Income Insurance for $1.7 billion last year, only for Singapore to eventually block the deal after public outcry.

30.04.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

China’s Huawei encroaches further on Nvidia’s turf and is reportedly set to test a new AI chip aimed at the H100

The chip, dubbed Ascend 910D, will be Huawei's most powerful AI processor to date according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

28.04.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Boeing will find it ‘relatively easy’ to find customers for China’s rejected planes, says jet leasing CEO

Boeing planned to complete 50 orders for Chinese customers this year but is now assessing options as China refuses Boeing plane deliveries due to the...

25.04.2025 9

Fortune

Lionel Lim

South Korea’s ‘shocking’ fall in marriages is a dating app opportunity, says Match Group’s Asia CEO

"Korea has an acute challenge” when it comes to long-term relationships, notes Malgosia Green, Asia CEO for Match. 

25.04.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Las Vegas Sands slaps down worries that U.S.-China tensions could threaten its Macau casinos

“We have an incredible relationship with Beijing,” CEO Rob Goldstein said on the casino operator’s earnings call.

25.04.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

The new CEO of the Philippines’ largest telco says his Nigeria and India experience taught him to ‘never underestimate’ any market

Carl Raymond Cruz, the new CEO of Globe Telecom, also admits his "bias" for Indian companies, thanks to their "rigor" and "operational intensity."

24.04.2025 9

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Elon Musk worries Chinese companies will fill out the world’s Top 10 robot companies—but claims Tesla is, and will stay, No. 1

The Tesla CEO revealed that production of the Optimus robot has been disrupted by trade frictions.

23.04.2025 40

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Xi Jinping’s jaunt through Southeast Asia is ‘a reassurance and a warning’ to trading partners as the region is caught between the U.S. and China

On Monday, after Xi's visit, Beijing warned countries against signing trade deals with the U.S. "at the expense of China’s interest."

22.04.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

The U.S. slaps even more tariffs on Southeast Asia, as solar panels get anti-dumping duties that go as high as 3,521%

The U.S. announced tariffs on Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand on Monday, capping a yearlong trade probe initiated under the Biden...

22.04.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Southeast Asia’s Muslim market comes of age—and authenticity is in

From banking to fashion, local businesses are targeting a growing middle-class consumer base keen to buy 'halal'.

20.04.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

TSMC isn’t worried about Trump’s trade uncertainty as it reports a 60% growth in quarterly profit

The chipmaker is keeping its annual outlook for sales and said it has not seen any change in customers' behavior so far.

17.04.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Trump touts ‘big progress’ in talks with Japan, one of the first countries trying to get a tariff reprieve

Japan is a major test of whether the Trump administration can turn its "Liberation Day" shock into real trade deals.

17.04.2025 9

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Nvidia takes a $5.5 billion hit from a new Trump ban that could also hasten China’s push to make its own chips

Nvidia's shares plunged almost 7% in after-market trading, amid a broader slump in global markets as Trump's new ban intensifies a U.S.-China tech...

16.04.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Trump grumbles about China’s ‘lovely meeting’ with Vietnam, saying they’re discussing how to ‘screw the United States of America’

Vietnam is Xi Jinping's first stop on a 3-nation Southeast Asia tour, as China and the U.S. escalate their trade war.

15.04.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

The CEO of one of Thailand’s leading manufacturers says his customers are rushing to stock up during Trump’s tariff pause

Victor Cheng, CEO of Delta Electronics Thailand, affirms that it’ll be his U.S. customers, not him, that will pay Trump’s tariffs.

14.04.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Trump advisors argue steep tariffs on countries like Vietnam and Cambodia are needed to erase trade deficits and rework supply chains. The economics say that’s going to be a long shot

Despite promises made by Southeast Asia governments, consumers in the region may not be able to afford American-made products.

08.04.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

‘China plus one’ bets unravel as Southeast Asian economies get steep ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs

Companies that embraced supply-chain diversification by moving some operations to economies geographically close to China now face an array of bad...

04.04.2025 6

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Asia tries to prepare for Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ wave of new tariffs: ‘We’re working on this matter nonstop, even on weekends’

Vietnam cut import duties on Monday while other governments like Japan and Australia have tried negotiating with Washington.

02.04.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

BYD outshines Tesla on total revenue—but there’s still some way to go before it takes Tesla’s place at the top of the EV sector

The Chinese manufacturer's revenue from its autos business is still lower than Tesla's.

25.03.2025 7

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Malaysia is reportedly tracking the flow of Nvidia chips through the Southeast Asian country after pressure from Washington

The country's trade minister has reportedly formed a task force with the digital minister to tighten regulations around Malaysia's data centers.

24.03.2025 9

Fortune

Lionel Lim