Bloomberg Markets: Asia 05/07/2024

It is almost 11 a.m.in Singapore, in Shanghai. Welcome to Bloomberg Markets Asia.I'm Haslinda Amin. Here are the top stories.Asian stocks Paring gains as traders weigh whether fed rate cuts this yearare still on the cards. Australia's Reserve Bank looking set fora hawkish hold when it makes its policy call next door.Also ahead, President Xi Jinping meets Emmanuel Macron in Paris is calling onhis French counterpart to help fend off a new Cold War.Plus, we speak with Global Hospitality group minor about their growth ambitionswith a focus on India.

CEO Raj Acharya joining us exclusivelylater this hour. Now, let's get you to Marcus Abraham.On top of all the action in Israel equities, well, we thought it wasroaring ahead. Taking a backseat right now.Yeah, a bit of that optimism fading as the session progresses.It started the buoyant thanks to the performance of the S&P 500 on its bestthree day advance since November, moving past its 50 day moving average.And of course, this is fueled by Fed optimism.We also got a bit of that tailwind for sentiment thanks to the Shenzhen homebuying restriction curbs being really.

Relaxed a little bit.But we've seen in the session how the Chinese stocks have been swingingbetween gains and losses, although Japanese stocks have returned from thatlong weekend. And that optimism and state of playseems to still be boosting these stocks in the country.Now, we've been keeping a close watch on dollar yen.Let's dig a bit further into then flip the board, because we're seeing itmoving back to levels that we last saw on Thursday.Of course, we've been working off the assumption that there were two rounds ofintervention last week.

And we also have that level comingthrough roughly at 154 despite that verbal intervention coming through fromthe currency chief. We've been focusing as well on theAussie as we'll hear from the RBA in the next hour.Let's flip the board and take a look at how traders have been bracing for ahawkish central bank board. We didn't get retail sales numbers thatfell more than expected today and that Aussie consolidation is in play here.We also have our M Live colleagues pointing out that the risks for theAussie are for the downside. That is, if the RBA follows in thefootsteps of the Fed and signals no rate.

Hikes this year.That's right. Expect it to stand pat rates at 12 yearhighs. Apr Hong Thank you so much for that.Let's talk about the outlook for the Fed rate cards.It is a hot topic at the Milken Institute Global Conference in BeverlyHills. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin and the New YorkFed president among those weighing in. But they haven't gotten to September,they're likely to cut December again. There's there's still a question of willinflation actually decelerate enough by then?Wage growth.

Sticky cornflakes and sticky Dglobalization happening happening that takes away fromthe constant deflationary trend that has helped the pricing of goods for for,frankly, most of our adult lifetime. For me, it's really looking at thetotality of the data and not just looking at an employment report or a CPIor other piece of information. You really want to make sure we'relooking at the broad picture. We have the maximum employment and pricestability goals. So we want to, from my perspective, seeall the data and information speaks to all of that.And really, you know, as the data come.

In, hopefully we'll be moving in thedirection we want to see both on inflation and in terms of restoringbalance to the economy. And then we'll make our decisions basedon on that. Well, our next guest believes there isreason for two Fed rate cuts this year. Let's bring in you hanya victoriano,head of asia strategy at cb. We heard from williams, you hanya, thatwe have to take a look at the totality of the data.And when you take a look at that, it does seem like you can't support the twothat you're looking at. Well, in my view you still have a lot oftime before September.

So our our base case is that the Fedwould actually start cutting by September and possibly another round inDecember. But the point here is they're not alsoguiding the market to expect a hike. So they're as hawkish as that as can be.So the next question is, if they're not hawkish, who is going to be dovish?Because we're not going to be seeing any changes from the Fed, at least untilthey're ready to guide the market. So we're looking more of moves in themarket driven by other central banks like the ECB, for instance.So in that scenario, the dollar's strength would likely continue beyond Q3and possibly only see the long awaited.

Decline of the dollar by Q4.We know that the and if B revives hope of those rate cuts, but the thing is itwas only just slightly weaker. And if it's a Fed that is datadependent, it possibly needs about three months or three reports which are weakerthan anticipated. Indeed.So actually, beyond the headline of the NFP, if you take out the maincontributors of the NFP, which is basically government and education andhealth, the addition of to the A.P of the other industries are actuallydeclining, which is already telling you that there is some easing in the labormarket.

So if that just continues, even if itdoesn't fall off the cliff and we don't want that to happen, that shouldactually open the space for the Fed to cut later this year.You're talking about divergence in policy.How do you play that? You mentioned the ECB.Others in Asia might be doing the same. Well, in Asia-Pac, we are expecting thatthe RBA, as you said, will be having their meeting later this afternoon.So we're actually expecting the RBA to be a bit more hawkish and reverse whatthey had communicated in March. But as for the other central banks inthe region, I would expect that the.

Other central banks would actually bedelaying their cuts because they can't afford to see their currencies decliningeven more in the face of very strong dollar.So here we're talking about Indonesia. Thailand.Exactly, Yeah. So even if the inflation picture inthese countries are already suggesting that there is room to cut, the fact, astheir currencies are saying, there is no room to cut at this point.So you're talking about an RBA that's likely to sound hawkish.What are the chances of a rate hike by the RBA given that, you know, inflationremains really sticky and employment is.

Also strong?Yes, indeed. So actually the reason why you have thestrength in the Australian economy is despite the fact that you have a veryhigh interest rates and consumer is somewhat getting hit by the highinterest rates. So the fact is business confidenceremains high and as long as your business confidence is high, then thelikelihood is that the labor market will remain tight.But in my view, where the interest rates are, it's enough to lower the inflationand we've already seen some decline in the inflation, just not as fast as theRBA would like to see.

How do you play the Aussie, bearing inmind as well that when it comes to Australia it is also contingent prettyreliant on how China's doing? Exactly.So while the policy divergence is going to be supportive of the Aussie, the factis the other drivers of the Aussie have not been.Contributing to the Aussie as much. So in fact, I would expect furtherupside to the Aussie considering how high the iron ore prices have alreadygone. The fact is, at this point the.The somewhat the reluctance of the market to buy theChina recovery story is dampening the.

Upside to the Aussie.But, you know, data is already showing that the China economy is improving.Taking out the property sector, there is an improvement in the businesssentiment, so that should be supportive of the Aussie.You just need to be very careful of the levels that you buy the Aussie.So what levels? So right now it's very, very near theyear to date high. So maybe you can see you can wait fordeclines or you just need to be patient because at 6670, it's very difficult togo long at this point, probably maybe at 65, 66, then you can continue furtherupside.

Then the policy divergence would be inyour favour. Of course, we have to talk about the yenfront and centre for trade as we know. Well, there's suspicion that there aretwo interventions recently. Your thoughts on where it is headedversus the USD? Bearing in mind of course, we've seendollar exceptionalism for a very long time.That may though taper in 2025. Indeed.So our short term fair value suggests that the yen should actually be tradingat around 153. Today.We're above 154 now that the Japanese.

Traders are back on line.And the truth is the carry trade is just too attractive.But if you look at the fundamentals, which is basically the rate differentialbetween the US and Japan, then it doesn't it doesn't support furtherupside from here. But when you're talking about tradersbeing excited, they can easily push it to 158.But at 158, the market should be very, very wary of renewed intervention.And in terms since Yen Peak, what's what's the strongest yen level do yousee out there? Well, we've seen 160 then unless theanimal suggests that they're willing to.

Intervene again, the market can push itbeyond 160. And where are we in terms of the Indianrupee because that's been well supported by the RBI.Not going anywhere. One, stability for the currency.Well, the RBI is definitely with the The RBI.The RBI. Yeah.Okay. So go ahead.Any currencies at this point? So the RBI is actually one of thecurrencies that has had very little volatility in comparison to the othercurrencies in the region.

If anything, there's no volatility.Even if you look at Indian rupee by itself, they've basically killed off thevolatility, but you see the flows, the structural flows are just too supportiveof the rupee. But if you have continued strength inthe in the in the dollar, then it's very difficult to see that the Indian rupeewould appreciate from here. But it isn't necessarily going todepreciate as well because as I said, the structural flows are just too strongwhen it comes to the Indian election. We're into the final phase and Modi isexpected to serve in that time. Will that make a difference to thestrength of the Indian rupee, given that.

Continuity in policies is expected?While continuity in policy would definitely be supportive of foreignportfolio flows as well as foreign direct investments, because that'sreally the issue here, right? Like if there are any changes, are ifthere would even be divergence in the state policy.So that would be very detrimental to foreign direct investment.So any continuity in politics would be supportive of the rupee.Your hand and thank you so much for your thoughts today.Eugenia Victorino, head of Asia Strategy at SBP.Still ahead, Global Hospitality Group.

Minor hotels betting big on India as ittargets 50 new openings in the next decade.The CEO joins us for an exclusive interview later this hour.But first, Chinese President Xi Jinping continues his European visit.We'll tell you what top the agenda during his meeting with the presidentsof France and the European Commission. That is next.Keep it here with us. This is Bloomberg. And we discussed how to make moreprogress on Marketaxess. I remain confident that more progresscan be achieved.

At the same time, we stand ready to makefull use of our trade defence instruments if this is necessary.And what was European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speakingduring Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Paris?For more on his trip to Europe, let's bring in our Asia government and economycorrespondent Rebecca Choong Wilkins in Hong Kong.Rebecca, of course, she's first tour in Europe in five years.Beyond the symbolism, what's in there? What are some of the key takeaways fromthat trilateral meeting he had? Well, that trilateral meeting, probablythe sort of most awkward or the most.

Potential to be awkward because we haveseen the EU increasingly move lockstep with the US when it comes to introducingthis litany of probes into not just Chinese EVs, but other forms of theso-called three new drivers of growth, those clean tech areas, andinvestigating Beijing's state subsidies into supporting those industries.The EU has been very vocal on this point, particularly including a phoneline, and China was very forthright in that meeting point blank, saying thatChina doesn't create an over capacity problem.And there was also these sort of tacit or oblique references, perhaps to theUS, too.

It urged China urged thatthe continue not to trust or target any third party.The EU and China should work directly together and that this shouldn't bedependent or dictated by any third party to.So certainly a little bit of sort of tacit push back, it seems, there betweenon the influence that China sees the US having on EU policy.Of course, Xi Jinping also calling on Macron to perhaps help to fend off a newCold War. She also made some comments on theMiddle East conflict. Take a listen.Change or regarding the.

Palestinian-Israeli conflict.The delay of the strategy to this day is a test of human conscience.The international community must do something.We call for an immediate, comprehensive and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza.At the same time, support Palestine to become a full member state of the UnitedNations. What is your.Rebecca, what do you make of she statement?Well, this is so interesting. I think this context she sees because onthe one hand China is that and Xi Jinping is there with a really bigagenda of its own, which is to keep.

Those trade barriers open with the EUand with European nations. But on the other hand, there have beenthese huge issues, not just the Middle East conflict, but also the issue ofRussia's war in Ukraine that have come up.The huge sort of geopolitical landscape has really shifted under way when itcomes to the Middle East specifically. China has in the past historically sortof stepped up to try and act as something of a peace broker and to sortof legitimize its credentials on the world stage as a global actor.But it hasn't really weighed in particularly vocal over the recentissues.

So I think although it sort of XiJinping has tried to step into this role, by and large, he has sort of notleaned in too far. He's remained quite, quite careful.Rebecca thank you so much for that. Our Asia government economycorrespondent Rebecca Choong Wilkins. Now for an update on the Middle East.Israel's war cabinet has rejected a cease fire proposal that Hamas hadearlier accepted, saying the proposal falls far short of its demands.Israel has also promised to continue military operations in Rafah in thesouthern Gaza Strip. On Monday, Israeli forces warnedcivilians living in that area to leave.

A possible prelude to a long expectedattack on the city where more than 1 million Palestinians have soughtshelter. U.S.and Philippine Marines have conducted rare military drills in the SoutheastAsian nations. Northeastern inhabited island in BaghdadIsland sits just about 160 kilometers south of Taiwan.The inclusion of NBA in this year's drills highlights the role that thePhilippines could play in any potential China-U.S.conflict over Taiwan. The U.S.is adding a tank, destroying drone to an.

Accelerated effort to prepare for apossible conflict with China. The Switchblade 600 is the first of anew wave of low cost autonomous weapons. The Pentagon is publicly acknowledgingits funding through its replicator program.The weapon is known for helping Ukraine push back on Russian advances.Plenty more ahead. Keep it here with us.This is Bloomberg. The Apollo program was something thatwas inspiring to everyone around the world.And we don't want the Apollo program to be the high watermark of of humanexploration.

You want to have somesome sense that the future is going to be better than the past, that we'regoing to be out there going to other star systems.And you know what you see in a science,science fiction, non dystopian sci fi story?I mean, I might be the most important question of all.I mean, the percentage of intelligence that is biological and, you know, growssmaller with each passing month and eventually the percentage ofintelligence that is biological will be less than 1%.Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaking at the.

Milken Institute Global Conference inL.A.. While most touch on AI and a variety ofother topics from free speech to space travel to the existence of aliens butavoided mentioning the EV maker while staying with the conference.The IBM CEO says its air unit has booked more than billion worth of businessalready this year. Arvind Krishna spoke with us at theMilken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills about the regulatorylandscape for A.I. and tech.I think every regulator is worried about three topics, not just safety andregulation.

They're worried about innovation.They're worried about competition and they're worried about safety andregulation. So when you take those three together,the air have opened, really come together to help you foment innovation.So I think that that actually helps the regulators to think about what is goingon here. Well, I would caution there will be someguardrails that are always put. But in my experience, open technologieshave always been safer and more secure than closed technologies.Is one of the risks that maybe your obviating with your emphasis on openarchitecture that some of the I'll call.

The big guys get an advantage and reallyhave an entrenched position. But I use the concept of a walledgarden. When you have a walled garden, how thoseareas, the technology has been more innovative or less innovative outside ofwalled garden has always been less innovative.And so I think that is actually helps you create more competition.Does it avoid regulatory locking of a certain one or two players?Likely. But isn't that good for all of us?Are you pro regulation? I am pro regulation as long as it islight touch and allows innovation to.

Happen.I absolutely would be pro regulation if regulation tries to reduce innovation.I think that's the problem. What about the distinction betweenregulating the technology as opposed to regulating the uses?We had Sam Parmesan or somebody you know well on who said he thinks regulate theuses, don't regulate the technology because that will impair innovationalways. How can you regulate the technology whenyou don't even know where the technology can go?Two years ago, we had heard of a large language model.If we come out with our technical.

Instruct lab.Six months ago, nobody had heard of that.There will be another one. And another one and another one.So I think trying to regulate the technology implies that the regulatorand and the policy folks believe that innovation can happen.I think that's a bad bet to make. And that was IBM CEO Arvind Krishnan,speaking with Bloomberg's David Westin. And Amazon plans to spend $9 billionexpanding its cloud computing infrastructure in Singapore.The outlay will be done over the next few years.The firm says investment doubles Amazon.

Web Services investment in the Lion Cityand will accelerate the adoption of AI in the markets by keeping an eye onChina Property plays, in particular S&P saying that China property are lookingfor a bottom. Still, we're seeing AI trying to bunkerpoly property group all in negative territory, reversing earlier gains.Times China holdings down more than 4%. Logan Group down about 2%.We're also keeping an eye on those property plays for consumption, easinghome buying to revive sales. But that's not helping sentiment.Of course, it says it will allow larger families to buy second units in somenon-core districts and Aussie assets in.

Focus, as well.As we count down to the RBA decision, it is expected to stand pat for fourmeetings in a row, likely to keep rates at 12 year highs.The Aussie has 6625 unchanged, but the risk really is on the downside for theAussie. If the RBA sounds pretty dovish, whilein the broader markets, Asia pretty much trending higher, it's looking fordirection somewhat. Wall Street of course higher, but theS&P coming off its best three days since November.This optimism, the Fed will start cutting interest rates.Take a look where we are in terms of the.

Cost me up almost 2% and we have theHong Kong dollar unchanged. Plenty more ahead.Keep it here with us. This Islamic. Combine trying to market Jones headingto launch CSI 300 index in negative territory.We know that property plays a pretty much in the negative revising all yourgains with S&P saying that you know what property plays in China still lookingfor a bottom CSI 300 index down 2/10 of 1% Ain't too shabby.Remember that we're seeing renewed optimism about China's economy,Beijing's latest policy stance.

Supporting market sentiment along withsuper cheap valuations in terms of the yuan.Seven 2179 is the level we're looking at.We're seeing dollar strength today putting pressure on the Chinesecurrency, of course, well supported by the p, b, o c.Now let's do a check on how markets are faring with Avril Hong, in the Lion City.Avril Yeah, has we are looking at Japan just about to return from the lunchbreak and that's not all. There have also been returning from thatlong holiday and of course they're playing catch up today to that bout ofFed optimism and the run up in US stocks.

Overnight.But of course today, a bit of bucking the trend coming through from the likesof Sony. Its stock falling by the most in aboutthree months after its proposal to buy Paramount Global is raising financingconcerns. Those are among the stocks that we'rewatching today. But also this week, we'll be keeping aneye on the likes of Tokyo Electron as well as Toyota, to see how thenarratives of the weak yen and the AI boom for these respective companies areplaying out and benefiting them. Let's take a look at how the Japanesecurrency's faring because it has.

Returned to weakness as traders focus onthose yield differentials. That's despite what was likely tworounds of intervention last week. We're moving back towards the 155 handleon dollar yen. That's despite that verbal interventioncoming through from the currency chief today.That almost sounded like a challenge to more aggressive currency traders thatthey wouldn't need to intervene if the markets are orderly.Let's take a look at what's at play for the Reserve Bank of Australia.We'll hear from them in the next hour. And after that cue one upside surpriseto inflation traders more or less.

Bracing for a more hawkish central bank,though, as our colleagues have been pointing out, if they follow what theFed has been signaling about no rate hikes this year, then we could see moredownside risk for the Aussie has. All right.We'll follow developments, of course. Avril Hong, thank you.For more on markets, let's bring in Bloomberg and live executive editor MarkCudmore. Let's start on the Fed.I mean, talk about being optimistic when, you know, the data was only everso slightly softer. Yeah, look, 175,000 jobs on it is stilla lot of jobs being added.

And look, last month we saw this dynamicof where an unemployment report saw Treasurys rally yields come lower andthen we had a hot CPI print and yields blasted I like way higher.So we've got our CPI coming next week. I think that there's a risk that dynamicagain I look this is I think we're tactically due for a bit of recovery intreasuries and we're seeing that I am still of the view that later on thisyear there's a good chance we'll see yields go a chunk higher yet again.But I to remain open minded at the moment, I think at the moment there'stoo a risk. I'm not too excited either way.So a lot more conviction is needed.

Right.I mean, we talk about how when it comes to a data defend a fed, it must be atleast three prints which are softer than anticipated.Then only perhaps the Fed will consider its next move.Yeah, and I think it's really important here.It's not just three prints softer than it is, but I think it's actually softprints, as in, you know, just outright remember, like we're still adding jobs.It becomes a came in lower. It is true.The unemployment rate picked up and I think the wages were softer, important.But I think we really we you know, we've.

Got some other data.We've got like a soft headline ISM data, but the prices paid component wasstrong. We could be in a dynamic here where weactually do see the economy slow a little bit, which might see the Fed kindof go, look, we're definitely in a cut. It's just a timing issue.Maybe it's December, maybe it's next year.Want a cut? That might cut the front end.But as long as prices are sticky, which we're seeing in all the ESM components,which we're seeing generally, that sticky inflation, what we'll see is thecurve steepen and that will become a bit.

More dynamic.So I think that, you know, rather than having a strong directional view onyields the next month or two, I think that that the strong view I have at themoment a steepening of the curve. And I think we'll finally see this thisrecord long inverted curve finally end its inversion in the coming months.Okay. The yen we've been talking about the yenlike forever despite the two interventions, supposed interventionswhich we saw the yen still did, it managed to get to 152 Bearish, bearish,bearish, bearish. The yen, I said to you said at the Bankof Japan, came in and bought the yen.

Maker hedge funds around the world to becelebrating and high fiving each other. It's just a chance to sell yen at betterlevels. It is fundamentally a currency whichshould continue to weaken and the dynamics are not changing.The BOJ have been helped much more than. An intervention by the fact that yieldshave turned around and that has changed the picture a little bit, but only atthe margin. Overall, the story is you want to sellthe and you may not want to sell the ending as the dollar.I think we should stop focusing on dollar because I actually think thedollar is turning.

So I think dollar can become softer fromhere. I like the idea of being a bit morebearish the dollar from here. But the point is, is that yen you wantto be short against the crosses bearish dollar from here or towards the tail endof the year. I think in a longer term dollar over thenext couple years they will go lower. You know, I think that I've been lookingfor months for a turn in when you might want to become bearish the dollar forthe longer term. I well, I was wondering whether the Fedmight be the catalyst. It's kind of provided that opportunity.I'm I'm not 100% convinced is the long.

Term turning point.But I think that, you know what? It's not going to go much higher fromhere. Maybe we get one more scare if yields gohigher in the year. Overall, there's no upside to beingbullish on the dollar from here, but that does not mean you particularly wantto be long. The yen is there.So therefore, I think, you know, you've got to still be bearish the yen on thecrosses. And I think probably turning moreneutral in the dollar longer term, bearish.We heard from Canada yet again that, you.

Know what, there's no need to interveneif it's orderly. Is the fixed market even listening tohim? I mean, they listen.But, you know, I think there's some comedy element to this as to why youlisten to these kind of statements. I don't think, you know, they're alwayslisten to see if there's anything new. I think overall, as we've seen, youknow, this is kind of like providing a green light to kind of push the yenweaker again. Fundamentally, this is a country withdeeply negative real yields and yet an economy which is still not strong andand an economy which needs to import.

Almost all its commodities in a worldwhere commodities are strong and the strong competition, those commodities,this is not a country that has a fundamental basis to have a strongcurrency. We might get to, we can argue, say,let's depreciated a long way, fine, it has, but it's depreciated a long way forvalid reasons. Maybe don't be bearish yet any more.Fine. I'm still bearish yen, but there's noreason to turn bullish the yen. Nothing that's really important.So the yen level by the end of 2024 would be so I'm bearish the yen I'm notbullish the dollar anymore so I don't.

Get excited but I think cross yen willbe a chunky and that's where I've conviction.If you're going to ask make a call on dollar yen.Look I still think we'll we'll see yen probably go above 160 again this yearwhere it finished the year it might finish the lower because lower onlybecause we get a big dollar turn. But I said dollar is not the interestingplay cross yen higher. We shall keep track of your words andleave executive editor Mark Cudmore there here in Singapore.Well, more on criminal proceedings in Hong Kong now against a GMT capitalmanagement.

The hedge funds founder Simon Sadler anda former trader. The fund has long played a vital role,helping Wall Street banks unload chunks of stock.Dominating one of the market's last old school businesses, Hedge Fund ReporterBei Hu, joins us now. Bei, what is the Segantii?Why is it in the news? It's in the news because there was a SLCstatement last week announcing it is initiated a criminal case against Segantii, its former founder, Simon Sadler, and a long time trader for using insideinformation to trade. Give us a sense of what a block tradeis.

BLOCK Trade is actually a very looselydefined idea. It's basically someone and unloading alarge chunk of shares in listed company. It could be the company selling newshares itself. It could be a corporate insider.It could be institutional investor selling.But the key point here is it's a privately negotiated transaction.Talk to us about inside information. How is inside information shared beforea block trade? And why is it problematic?What is the FFC doing about it? Basically in order to gauge investorinterest in a blog trade banks of and.

Try to determine the right price and onwhat level banks oftentimes have to go out to a small group of investor beforethe deal as a sharing certain information.Usually the detailed information is not shared until the investor agree to betaken across the wall, which means signing applies to not act on thatinformation until it becomes public. But even before that, banks will have togive enough hint of what's happening, you know, in order to get them to sign apledge. And that's where the problem begins,because oftentimes bolster investors in the bank will have calendars of pendinglockup ending who may have short starts.

To sell in a certain company.So the limited information that you share can actually help the investorguess what is selling and how much and act on that information.Hey, thank you so much for that Lima hedge fund reporter Bay, who and ofcourse, you can get the story on the Bloomberg terminal.Still to come, our exclusive interview with the CEO of global hospitality groupMinor Hotels. We'll discuss their India expansionplans this Islamic. Welcome back to Bloomberg Markets Asia.You're watching India. Focus.We're counting down to the India Open in.

Just under 3 minutes.We have futures pointing to a higher open Sensex rally up by a 10th of 1%gains for the other benchmarks as well. Of course, when it comes to India, it'sbeen the darling of investors, including its bond market as well.In fact, global funds have been piling into India's ,000,000,001 trillionsovereign bond market ahead of the country's addition to the global debtindexes. So India pretty much front and center.Now, India's prime Minister Narendra modi, has cast his vote as his nationalelections move to his home state of Gujarat is among 11 states andterritories voting today as part of the.

Third round of polling.Voting India's marathon election will run through June 1st, with a countexpected on June 4th. And Global Hospitality group MinorHotels is set to intensify its presence in India.It's targeting 50 new openings within the next decade.The company says it plans to focus its strategy on the upscale and luxuryhotels segments. Joining us exclusively, CEO Dilip Rajakarier, Dilip good to have you with us. Give us a sense of what potential youfight for us when it comes to the Indian market.Good morning, all.

I think the Indian market is becomingvery strong over the years especially, we see the luxury and the high endsegments has really taken off. And and we see in protests outsideIndia, because today we don't have a luxury.The Anantara brand is not in existence at the moment.We have we're hoping to open our first anantara in India in July or August thisyear. But I think the Indian travellersoutside India or the outbound travellers have been very, very strong for us.And therefore we see a huge potential in the Indian market, sort of both outboundand inbound in the coming years.

But deliver quantify that for us interms of India's contribution perhaps 3 to 5 years down the road.How much with the Indian market contribute to revenue, for instance?I think today we are hoping to have at least the target is to get at least to50 or just in the next ten years or maybe sooner based on the growthtrajectory we have at the moment. And the Indian market will account forat least about 20% of our annual revenues coming from this segment of themarket in the next in the coming years. Today, we see Indian markets being oneof the strongest markets, especially when it comes to weddings, functions,and also the luxury and the segments,.

The holidays as well.You talk about filling the gaps, and by that you mean the luxury or the upperscale hotels. I'm just wondering, are you also lookingat maybe, you know, tier two cities and beyond?Yes, we are. We have eight brands today.So Anantara, which is our top end luxury hotel, will be in Tier one cities.And then we have the other brands. We have a Barneys, we have an edge,which is a European brand, which we acquired in 2018 and also NH collectionsand Avani Plus, which will go into Tier two and Tier three hotels.We already have a hotel which is also.

Under our Oaks Hotels brand in Bodega inthe north of India in Bihar province. And our plan was to create a pilgrimagecircuit around that which is which is on target as well.It is a tough market, though. We have our local brands, the likes ofthe Taj, for instance. How will you compete?What's what's your what's your advantage?I think our advantage is bringing a global brand which has a very strongdistribution globally and also adding other elements to the experience aswell, because the Anantara brand is all about.It's an experiential driven brand.

It's all about guest experience andthat's where we excel compared to some of the other brands.And it's not a cookie cutter brand. Each of the brand, each of the hotels iscurated based on the local culture, the local architecture, and bringing thatconcept into the hotel as well, and adding other concepts like wellness,other experiences. FNB Food and beverage is also one of ourkey focus as well. So we bring a holistic solution so thatthe guests can actually enjoy and experience the luxury end of the thebrand as well. How are you doing so far?Talk to us about occupancy and the kind.

Of growth you're anticipating.So far. Last year was a record year for us atMining International. This year is is is is trailing betterthan last year. So occupancies are around 65 to 70%.But what we have seen is a massive rate growth and mainly it's to eradicate oroffset some of the other challenges we are facing, like inflation, cost oflabor, increasing interest rates going up and all these.So we we have focused on the high end, top, top end quality travellers andfocusing on the rates and therefore we've seen a very strong year this year.You've opened an office in Bengaluru as.

Part of the expansion plans.Any plans to perhaps open more offices? And what are you doing in terms ofhiring? Yes.So we've already hired a VP for operations and and we are now planningto beef up our local presence in the market.We already have about five or six guests, our general sales agents who arelooking after the outbound outbound traffic.And our plan is to enhance this both on inbound and outbound.So the next is to we will beef up on the commercial side, on the human resourceside, and also on the tech services or.

Planning side as well.So that so that we can actually be providing on the ground experience andbe close to the owners as well. Dilip, of course, Minor is a global brand.It is pretty much headquartered in Thailand.Talk to us about how you're doing in Thailand and the rest of Asia.I think the rest of it, how we're doing like we have, as I said, we've had thebest year ever. Last year was our best year ever in thein the history of Miner. And this year, based on what we areseeing, Q1 is going to be better than Q1 last year as well.So we are seeing a very strong growth,.

Especially coming out of Europe.Europe is normally the one. It's always been a soft quarter, butthis year it's come up as a very strong quarter.So we hope that this will continue to for the rest of the year.And this year we should be beating last year's numbers and and making anotherrecord in terms of comparing us to some of the other global brands as well interms of growth, in terms of pipeline, in terms of some of the rebranding wehave done and some of the new countries we have entered into as well.What are the plans for the Thai market? And just wondering, because this is onthe back of a backdrop where there is.

Conflict between the government as wellas the Bank of Thailand, and that has hurt investor sentiment.How are you looking at the situation and your own plans for Thailand?I think Thailand is our home base. So so we we continue to be bullish aboutThailand in spite of some of the external challenges we are facing.But I think these are I would hope these are temporary measures and we take along term view and we continue to invest in Thailand.We have quite a few projects coming in Thailand, including some of the high endluxury residences which we are doing under the Anantara brand, which alsocontinues to grow quite strongly.

We've signed many hotels in Thailand andtherefore we see Thailand as a very strong market market because from atourism perspective, Thailand will be one of the top five tourist destinationsand the government is really promoting the tourism drive in terms of reallybringing this destination up to up to the global market.Dillip, do you think Thailand needs a rate cut to boost the economy assuggested by the government? Well, I think it's it's it's a monetarypolicy which the government needs. The the thing is, there's pros and cons,because if there's a rate cut, then, of course, the interest rates becomecheaper and the currency, the investors.

Tend to leave the country as well.But if their interest rates go up, the investors tend to move in and the moneyflow actually comes into Thailand. But from our perspective, like, youknow, we have actually insulated ourselves in terms of the rate which isthere at the moment. We we operate in more challengingcountries compared to Thailand, like we operate in Argentina, we operate in Cubaand other places as well. So we're quite used to navigating aroundthe monetary policies of each of the countries as well.Right. Dilip, thank you so much for your timetoday.

Dilip Rajakarier, CEO of Minor Hotels.And we have some headlines to tell you about.You know, again, said to be mulling a new local bond restructuring plan.The firm is asking for a new grace period for Yuan bond payments, logo logoand of course, one creditor support to extend its local bonds in 2022.Again, Chinese builder Logan, mulling a new local bond restructuring plan, isasking for a new grace period for yuan bond payments.Plenty more ahead. Keep it here with us.This is Bloomberg. Clearly there is some stress on theeconomy.

I mean, that's you know, that's to beexpected given the interest rate rises, cost of living pressures, etc..So the market is subdued, particularly here in Australia and New Zealand.And we see that and we see that with customers, more customers struggling,although the number of customers struggling is still, you know, from anhistoric point of view, relatively low. And that was ANZ CEO Shayne Elliottgiving us his assessment of the Australian economy after the bank'sfirst half cash profit fell 7% and it announced a 2 billion Aussie dollarbuyback. Remember, because the RBA is out withits decision at 1230, take a look where.

We are in terms of the benchmark inAustralia, ASX 200 index up 8/10 of 1%. The Aussie pretty flat right now, 6628.Some say that if the RBA sounds less than hawkish, it will tilt to thelower side 6628 Of course, a day when the dollar is actually trading higher,the RBA see delivering a hawkish hold rates at 12 year highs overall.And of course you can also turn to your Bloomberg for more on the rate decision,go to t live, go to get commentary analysis from bloomberg's experteditors. And in terms of the broader market, thisis how it's looking asia trending higher pretty much in line with what we saw onwall street overnight on expectations.

Perhaps the fed will still cut ratesthis year front and center. Of course, the yen currently down 4/10of 1%, 154. It's a level we're looking at despiteintervention. Two interventions that we've beentalking about that is it from Bloomberg Markets, Asia Horizons, Middle East andAfrica. It's next.This is Bloomberg.

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