13/12/2025

BIZ & FINANCE SATURDAY | DEC 13, 2025

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India eases entry for China professionals

o New Delhi cuts red tape to speed business visa approvals, seeking to revive investment ties and ease labour shortages

production across categories from finished goods to components and sub-assemblies, he added. India’s warmer ties with China follow the surprise levy of a 50% tariff on Indian goods by US President Donald Trump, including a penal tariff of 25% for buying Russian oil. That prompted India to reshape its diplomatic calculus, reworking ties with China and strengthening ties with Russia, while continuing to negotiate a trade deal with Washington. In this effort, Modi has doubled down on focusing measures to boost growth by improving the environment for foreign investment, including business with China. India also recently cut consumption tax and eased labour laws to lure foreign investors. “We are cautiously easing some rules around restriction on China, which we hope, will improve the overall business environment,” the second official said.

after Modi visited China this year for the first time in seven years, meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping and discussing ways to improve ties. Subsequently, both countries resumed direct flights, for the first time since 2020. The easing of curbs was prompted by a high-level committee headed by a former cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, now a member of the top government think tank, which also aims to ease investment curbs on China that hurt foreign investor sentiment. “We welcome the government’s decision to expedite skilled-visa approvals for professionals from land-bordering countries,” said Pankaj Mohindroo, head of industry body the Indian Cellular and Electronics Association. “This reflects a collaborative approach and the government’s acceptance of our recommendations.” The changes come at a crucial time for India, which is scaling up

foreign ministry said it had noticed “positive action” from India to facilitate people-to-people exchanges in the common interest. “China is willing to maintain communication and consultation with India to continuously enhance the level of facilitation of exchanges,” ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun added. Think tank the Observer Research Foundation estimates the tougher scrutiny led to production losses of US$15 billion (RM62 billion) over four years to Indian electronics makers, which import key machinery from China to make mobile telephones. Major Chinese electronics companies such as Xiaomi, struggled to get visas, Reuters reported last year. Industry executives have said such curbs hit their plans to expand in India, while the solar industry was also hit by shortages of skilled labour. The removal of red tape comes

NEW DELHI: India has cut red tape to speed business visas for Chinese professionals, two officials said, a major step to boost ties between the Asian giants and end chronic delays that cost output worth billions of dollars because of scarce technicians. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi cautiously rekindles ties with Beijing in the face of punishing US tariffs, the officials said New Delhi dropped a layer of bureaucratic scrutiny and shortened visa approval times to less than a month. Reuters is the first to report the development. India had blocked virtually all Chinese visits after the nuclear armed neighbours clashed on their

Himalayan frontier in mid-2020, widening its vetting of business visas beyond the home and foreign ministries. The issues around securing visas have now been completely resolved, said one of the officials with knowledge of the matter, who both spoke on condition of anonymity. “We have removed the layer of administrative vetting and are processing the business visas within four weeks,” the official added. India’s ministries of external affairs, home and trade, as well as the prime minister’s office and the top think tank on policy, did not respond to e-mail requests for comment. Following the news, China’s

Do Kwon jailed 15 years over US$40b crypto collapse NEW YORK: Do Kwon, the South Korean cryptocurrency entrepreneur behind two digital currencies that lost an estimated US$40 billion (RM164 billion) in 2022, was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison for what a judge called an “epic fraud.”

OpenAI beefs up GPT models in AI race with Google SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI released its latest artificial intelligence (AI) models on Thursday, shrugging off worries about how it will cash in on massive spending in its technology race with Google. The San Francisco-based AI superstar touted GPT-5.2 Pro and GPT-5.2 Thinking as its best models yet for handling math or science work. “Strong mathematical reasoning is a foundation for reliability in scientific and technical work,“ OpenAI said in a blog post. “These capabilities are also closely tied to progress toward general intelligence.” Artificial general intelligence has become a holy grail of sorts in the tech world, seen as a threshold where machines think the way people do or even better. The release comes on the heels of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman urging his team to strive to keep up with Google, the search engine juggernaut that has been relentlessly innovating in AI. While Google can tap into its massive online ad revenue to invest in AI, OpenAI has been committing tens of billions of dollars to computing infrastructure while having yet to turn a profit. “We are confident we can continue to drive the revenue growth to meet” the investments in computing power, Altman said Thursday in a CNBC interview. Without the infrastructure investments, “of course, we can’t drive the revenue growth, but we see way more reasons to be optimistic than reasons to be pessimistic.” OpenAI chief of applications Fidji Simo told reporters during a briefing about the new models that she expects a ChatGPT “adult mode” to debut early next year, noting that the company wants to improve detection of user age before making it available. Altman earlier this year announced plans to ease restrictions to allow adult users to engage in erotic conversations with ChatGPT. OpenAI also faces a series of lawsuits from families accusing the startup of allowing teenagers to have dangerous interactions with its AI chatbots that in some cases led to suicide. Simo confirmed that a “red alert” about Google sprinting ahead had been issued at OpenAI, but refuted the notion it has sped up the release of new GPT models. – AFP

US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer, who handed down the sentence, sharply rebuked Kwon for repeatedly lying to everyday investors who trusted him with their life savings. “This was a fraud on an epic, generational scale. In the history of federal prosecutions, there are few frauds that have caused as much harm as you have, Mr Kwon,“ Engelmayer said during a hearing in Manhattan federal court. Kwon, 34, who co-founded Singapore based Terraform Labs and developed the TerraUSD and Luna currencies, previously pleaded guilty and admitted to misleading investors about a coin that was supposed to maintain a steady price during periods of crypto market volatility. He is one of several cryptocurrency moguls to face federal charges after a slump in digital token prices in 2022 prompted the collapse of a number of companies. Dressed in yellow prison garb, Kwon addressed the court and apologised to his victims, including the hundreds who submitted letters to the court describing the harm they had suffered. “All of their stories were harrowing and reminded me again of the great losses that I’ve caused. I want to tell these victims that I am sorry,“ Kwon said. Ayyildiz Attila, one of the hundreds of victims who submitted letters to the court, said he lost between US$400,000 and US$500,000 in the collapse. “My savings, my future, and the results of years of sacrifice disappeared. I struggled to keep up with payments and responsibilities, and everything I had worked for was erased,“ Attila said. Kwon’s lawyer Sean Hecker said in an email after the sentencing that Kwon spoke from the heart, expressed genuine remorse and will continue his efforts to make amends. US Attorney Jay Clayton in Manhattan said in a statement following the hearing that Kwon devised elaborate schemes to inflate the value of his cryptocurrencies and fled accountability when his crimes caught up to him. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of at

South Korean cryptocurrency tycoon Do Kwon was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Dec 11 over a fraud linked to his company’s failure, which wiped out about US$40b of investors’ money and shook global crypto markets. – AFPPIX

of dollars of the token to artificially prop up its price, according to charging documents. Kwon pleaded guilty in August to two counts, conspiracy to defraud and wire fraud, and apologised in court for his conduct. “I made false and misleading statements about why it regained its peg by failing to disclose a trading firm’s role in restoring that peg,“ Kwon said at the time. “What I did was wrong.” Kwon agreed in 2024 to pay US$80 million as a civil fine and be banned from crypto transactions as part of a US$4.55 billion settlement he and Terraform reached with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He also faces charges in South Korea. As part of his plea deal, prosecutors will not oppose Kwon’s potential application to be transferred abroad after serving half his US sentence. – Reuters

least 12 years in prison, saying the crash of Kwon’s Terra cryptocurrency caused billions of dollars in losses and triggered a cascade of crises in the crypto market. Kwon’s lawyers had asked that he be sentenced to no more than five years so he can return to South Korea to face criminal charges. Prosecutors charged Kwon in January with nine criminal counts for securities fraud, wire fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering conspiracy. Kwon was accused of misleading investors in 2021 about TerraUSD, a so-called stablecoin designed to maintain a value of US$1. Prosecutors alleged that when TerraUSD slipped below its US$1 peg in May 2021, Kwon told investors a computer algorithm known as “Terra Protocol” had restored the coin’s value. Instead, Kwon arranged for a high frequency trading firm to secretly buy millions