24/09/2025

BIZ & FINANCE WEDNESDAY | SEPT 24, 2025

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Indian regulators said to be planning quicker entry processes for foreign investors MUMBAI: India’s markets regulator and its central bank are in advanced dis cussions to ease entry processes for new overseas investors, four sources said, at a time when foreign flows into the economy remain weak. The changes would include fewer and standardised documentation and less scrutiny on investors that are already regulated in other countries. That will reduce the time taken to register in India to 30-60 days from nearly six months, bringing them in line with global standards, said the sources, who have direct knowledge of the matter. They declined to be named as discussions are private. Email queries sent to market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) were not answered. “To facilitate the ease of investments by foreign investors in India we are engaging with various stakeholders to streamline the know your customer norms across the regulators,” Tuhin Kanta Pandey, India markets regulator chairman, said last week, without elaborating. The proposed changes come at a time when India faces harsh trade tariffs from the US, leading to uncertainty for the economy and its markets. Overseas investors have sold a net US$10 billion (RM42 billion) in Indian equities and bonds so far in 2025, with selling intensifying in July and August because of muted corporate earnings and US tariff concerns. Top Indian regulatory officials have met over 200 global asset managers across Europe, Asia and the US in the last five months to seek feedback on ways to make Indian markets more accessible, two of the four sources said. Separately a delegation of investors from six countries met officials at the RBI, Sebi, exchanges and finance ministry in India earlier this month, the two added. As part of the changes, the central bank will match Sebi’s more liberal documentation needs for regulated overseas pooled funds, such as insurance and mutual funds, which are considered to be low-risk, the sources said. RBI will also align norms for foreign investors to open bank accounts with Sebi’s registration requirements, a second source said. At present, RBI requires banks to follow a risk-based assessment which includes seeking a declaration on the source of funds and proof of identity, among other requirements. – Reuters

Australian critical minerals firms flock to US opportunities

about US$5 billion of net foreign inflows, both from passive and active investors, could be recorded before and after the upgrade. However, foreign investors have decreased their exposure to the Ho Chi Minh City bourse, the country’s largest, this year by about 90 trillion dong (US$3.4 billion), pushing foreign ownership down to around 15.5% of the total this month from 17% in 2024 and nearly 19% at the end of 2023. “Foreign investors are selling due to concerns over exchange rate volatility and to lock in profits following the strong performance of the Vietnamese index, but this does not necessarily mean they are fully divesting from Vietnam,” said Maybank’s Huy. – Reuters earths exports in April galvanised the US to supercharge its rare earths industry, and higher Western world prices that have emerged are attracting investors and greasing the wheels of project finance. Even so, access to US funding is expected to be highly competitive. Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths, the biggest supplier outside China, warned last month that its heavy rare-earths processing plant in Texas may not go ahead after the Trump administration provided multibillion dollar funding to its US rival. The trend highlights critical policy challenges in Australia that are impeding the government’s ambition to develop new export markets beyond its mainstay fossil fuels. That opportunity was worth A$170 billion (RM470 billion) to its economy by 2040, according to a PwC report as recently as 2023. “Australia has been struggling to set up the critical minerals industry beyond primary extraction,” PwC Australia chief economist Amy Lomas said. Australia’s high power and labour costs, and a cumbersome approvals process, are dragging on growth and diminishing the country’s inter national competitiveness, major miners regularly complain. Mean while, advanced manufacturing is still a small sector, its development clipped by the closure of Australia’s car industry in the 2010s. “For an Australian company to look at building it in Australia, where do we sell our materials? Where is the metals, alloys, magnet capacity being built? It’s not being built in Australia because our cost base is too expensive and we have minimal advanced manufacturing industry,” Ionic’s Harrison said. Still, Australia passed a A$17 billion production tax credit in February that will provide a 10% offset for critical minerals pro cessors from 2027. It is also building critical minerals partnerships with allies including Japan, India and Britain that could deepen its customer base, PwC’s Lomas added. – Reuters

materials into magnets used in everything from wind power to missiles. That is the case for Ionic Rare Earths, which is planning to replicate the magnet recycling technology it has developed in Belfast in several US states, including Tennessee, where it is in advanced discussions, managing director Tim Harrison said. “There are a number of other states that can provide very low cost of power .... they also have a lower labour cost base and they have both federal and state governments that are willing to deploy immense funding,” he told Reuters. International Graphite, which is building an advanced processing plant in Western Australia, is also looking at options to build in the US and Europe, to be more closely aligned to the specific requirements of its customers, CEO Andrew Worland said. China’s restrictions on rare

given its rapidly developing electric vehicle, defence, and advanced manufacturing industries, as well as cheap energy and the hefty subsidies it is set to deploy. “We’ve identified six states as ones that we’re looking at seriously,” said chief legal officer Annaliese Eames of ASM, which is seeking to expand beyond its rare earths metallisation plant in South Korea. Of those states, ASM, an US$85 million (RM357 million) firm, is conducting detailed due diligence, including reviewing sites, in Oklahoma and South Carolina. What drew ASM to the US was more than strong federal and state support and incentives. “It’s the commitment that they’re making to grow the entire ecosystem,” she said. Some critical minerals firms that supply to customers in defence need to locate nearby for reasons of national security and the series of complex steps in turning raw

MELBOURNE: Some of Australia’s most advanced critical minerals producers are moving forward on plans to build processing facilities in the United States, despite Australia’s strategic push to build up its own domestic industry. An Australian delegation of critical minerals companies visited Washington and New York last week to meet senior administration officials and investors. ASX-listed firms including Australian Strategic Materials, Ionic Rare Earths, and International Graphite are looking to expand in the US, company executives told Reuters. The scale of the US customer base is a major attraction, they said, o Large, developed customer base is key attraction

CLOSER ECONOMIC TIES ... Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto (centre, left) and European Union Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Interinstitutional Relations and Transparency Maros Sefcovic hold their signed joint announcements on the Substantial Conclusion of the Indonesia-EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, after nearly a decade of talks. The pact, signed in Nusa Dua, Bali, yesterday, will bring resource-rich Indonesia and the 27-member EU into closer economic ties and will open investment in strategic sectors such as electric vehicles, electronics, and pharmaceuticals. – AFPPIC

Vietnam’s IPO market, stocks rally fail to stir overseas investors HANOI: Vietnam’s initial public offering (IPO) market is heating up, fuelled by a share rally, regulatory changes and a credit splurge, but has failed to stir fresh interest from foreign investors despite the prospect that the market could be upgraded by index provider FTSE Russell. best-performing stock market, LSEG data shows. “If firms had plans to launch IPOs, they don’t want to miss this wave,” Minh said. Vinpearl, the resort arm of Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup, raised about US$190 million in an IPO in May. prompted concerns the debt could fuel asset-price bubbles. Vietnam’s credit-to-gross domestic product ratio is already more than three times the median of emerging and middle income economies.

data provider LSEG Workspace. Vietnam-focused private equity fund Dragon Capital forecast at the start of the year that 13 companies, including Techcom Securities, would go public in Vietnam by 2028. It said the companies would have a projected combined market capitalisation of up to US$47.5 billion, roughly 14% of Vietnam’s current market value. There was just one IPO in Vietnam in 2024 and three in 2023. The share rally and a regulation adopted this month to shorten listing procedures, are stoking the enthusiasm, said Nguyen The Minh, head of research and development at Yuanta Securities Vietnam, a brokerage. The Vietnamese index has surged 29% so far this year, Southeast Asia’s

The IPO push of securities firms is driven by their need for additional capital to meet new regulatory requirements and to support margin lending, said Hoang Huy, equity strategist at Maybank Securities Vietnam. The possible upgrade of Vietnam’s stock market by index provider FTSE Russell to emerging market status, from frontier market – which could be announced as early as next month – has also increased interest, several analysts said. The World Bank estimated that

In recent weeks, the agriculture unit of steelmaker Hoa Phat Group and the securities arm of lender VPBank have announced plans for IPOs. Other potential listings could include the largest securities firm by market share VPS, and Long Chau pharmacy, a unit of tech firm FPT, Dragon Capital says. The market boom is partly supported by a credit splurge, including margin financing, that has

Last week brokerage Techcom Securities, a unit of private lender Techcombank raised US$410 million (RM1.72 billion), pointing to a company valuation of US$4 billion and marking one of Vietnam’s largest IPOs in recent years. That was worth nearly half the value of the combined 36 IPOs so far this year in Malaysia, Southeast Asia’s largest IPO market based on the value and number of deals, according to