Eva Chin writes for RECATOOLS on business and commerce in Southeast Asia: the commercial decisions small businesses actually face, and the markets and regulation around them. She also covers Chinese naming and cultural practice, education and qualifications across the region, and the arithmetic of a tropical home. Coverage of cultural practice is educational — it explains what a tradition holds and where it came from, and does not make predictive claims.

194
Articles
Business
Primary beat
Jul 2026
Writing since
~1230 min
Total reading
All 194 Business 125 Chinese Culture 46 Home & Living 23

Articles · Business Showing 41–50 of 125

Two office workers at their desks after dark, lit by a single desk lamp.
Business

Singapore's Employment Act has no overtime pay cap

The Ministry of Manpower publishes an overtime cap of S$2,600, or S$13.60 an hour. The Employment Act's Fourth Schedule computes overtime from the employee's own salary, and the only cap it ever had was deleted in 2019 — the published figure does not even reproduce from the formula printed beside it.

13 Sep 2026 · 4 min read
A tanker lorry on a multi-lane highway, seen alongside a concrete barrier.
Business

In Malaysia a lorry driver on RM6,000 still gets overtime and a clerk on RM4,100 may not

A lorry driver on RM6,000 and a coordinator on RM4,100 work for the same employer, and on the face of the First Schedule it is the driver who keeps a statutory right to overtime. The 2022 amendment moved the wage ceiling out of paragraph 1 and left paragraph 2, covering manual labour "irrespective of the amount of wages", exactly as it was.

13 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
A courier in a cap holds a stack of three plain cardboard parcels.
Business

Singapore's S$400 import limit is measured three different ways

A S$390 pair of trainers with S$35 shipping sits under Singapore's S$400 import threshold on one test and over it on another. On the tax authority's own worked example the parcel can be charged 9% twice, for S$76.50 of GST on S$390 of goods.

13 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
Wind turbines standing across open grassland under a dark sky and a faint rainbow
Business

DeepSeek Ordered 160,000 Huawei Chips. That Is Most of a Year's Output.

At the price reported two days ago the order runs to about $5.9bn — and to between 53 and 80 per cent of everything Huawei expects to build of that part in 2026.

13 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A parcel wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with blue string, photographed against a white background
Business

Registered post pays about US$41 if it is lost, whatever was inside

The Universal Postal Convention caps compensation for a lost registered item at a flat 30 SDR — about US$41 — regardless of contents, and owes nothing at all for ordinary letter post. The clause says operators are not liable above that limit "even in case of severe fault".

13 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A close-up of a red circuit board crowded with capacitors and memory packages
Business

The Memory Controls Did Not Stop China's AI Chips. They Made Them Dearer.

Huawei is asking 20 to 50 per cent more than in July. Nvidia, under no restriction at all, has signalled 15 per cent. The gap is what the policy costs.

12 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A person's hands holding a small beige behind-the-ear hearing aid
Business

Samsung and Meta cleared their hearing aids by pointing at Apple's

Apple's 2024 FDA authorisation was read as a competitive win. It created a new device classification instead — 21 CFR 874.3335, product code SCR — and every one of the four devices cleared in it since, including a pair of Meta smart glasses, named Apple's device as its predicate.

11 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
The Sacramento skyline at dusk, with the white dome of the California State Capitol rising among the trees.
Business

California's AI Audit Law Is in Force and Binds Nobody Until 2029

AB 1405 creates a registry of AI auditors and bans unregistered ones. Both obligations start 1 January 2029, which is three and a half years of nothing.

11 Sep 2026 · 5 min read
A desk with printed paperwork, a calculator, pens and a cup of coffee
Business

Malaysia says an e-invoice needs 55 fields; its own appendix marks 20 optional

The tax authority's guideline states that 55 data fields are required to issue an e-invoice. The appendix listing those 55 marks 20 of them [Optional] — including Quantity and Measurement, so a valid Malaysian tax e-invoice need not say how many of anything was sold. The unconditional count is 32, and the quoted figure is 72% high.

9 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
A dense city skyline lit up at night, with a broadcast tower rising among high-rise blocks.
Business

China Plans 9,800 Exaflops by 2030. That Is Slower Than Last Year.

The MIIT five-year plan targets 9,800 exaflops by 2030, up from 2,185 at FP16 in June. That implies about 40 per cent annual growth, against 177 per cent in the year to that point.

9 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
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