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Lionel Lim

Lionel Lim

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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

A bubble tea chain and a toy doll are the latest casualties of Beijing and Hanoi’s competing claims over the South China Sea

Vietnamese flooded Chagee with negative comments after the bubble tea chain's app used a map that endorsed Beijing's expansive territorial claims.

21.03.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Singaporean taxi operator ComfortDelGro hopes robotaxis can future-proof the industry, as aging populations lead to fewer drivers

ComfortDelGro is partnering with Chinese self-driving startup Pony.ai to launch a two-year pilot program in Guangzhou, China.

18.03.2025 9

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Trump tariffs on Thailand may be unavoidable says the CEO of one of the country’s biggest conglomerates

Berli Jucker CEO Thapanee Techajareonvikul says she’s preparing for a trade war by exploring new markets and fending off new Chinese competition.

14.03.2025 30

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Intel’s incoming Malaysian-born CEO is the latest Fortune 500 semiconductor exec to hail from Asia

Lip-Bu Tan, who was born in Malaysia and went to university in Singapore, will take over as Intel's CEO on March 18. The news sent shares up over 10%.

13.03.2025 7

Fortune

Lionel Lim

TSMC’s $100 billion promise to invest in the U.S. won’t shake up the chip supply chain: ‘Most of its capacity is still in Taiwan’

In recent days, Taiwan's government and TSMC have come out to say that the chipmaker's decision was not due to Washington pressure.

13.03.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

China needs to unleash ‘$20 trillion’ in household savings to drive economic growth, says Alibaba chair Joe Tsai

Tariffs and geopolitics mean China can't count on export for growth anymore but restoring consumer confidence could allow domestic consumption to...

12.03.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Chinese advances like DeepSeek have ‘narrowed’ AI gap with U.S., says CSIS think tank: ‘Unrealistic to expect a lead of more than a year or two’

"DeepSeek’s technological innovations are real," Gregory Allen, director of CSIS’s Wadhwani AI Center, wrote on Friday.

11.03.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Toyota unveils an all-electric China SUV that’s priced to compete in the world’s most fierce car market

The bZ3X, developed by GAC Toyota, was reportedly so popular it crashed the company's servers.

07.03.2025 20

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Outgoing DBS CEO Piyush Gupta gets a 57% pay bump, reversing a massive cut in 2023

Gupta will take home $13.2 million following the bank's "stellar all-round performance as well as its improved technology resiliency”

06.03.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim

AI and logistics lift Sea Group to its second-ever annual profit—including e-commerce success in an unexpected market

The Singapore tech firm, whose businesses cover e-commerce, video games, and digital finance, reported an annual profit of $447.8 million.

06.03.2025 9

Fortune

Lionel Lim

Malaysia is buying Arm’s blueprints for $250 million to realize its ambitions to be a ‘non-aligned’ chip player

Malaysia hopes its Arm deal will help foster 10 local chip companies with annual revenue between $1.5 billion to $2 billion each. 

05.03.2025 10

Fortune

Lionel Lim