Briefs

The global aviation industry will take at least two years to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and for mass travel to return, Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung says, stressing the importance of developing a widely available and effective vaccine to help countries open their borders.

“When a vaccine is widely available around the world and people gain confidence to travel again and visit other countries, then we will have aviation back on its feet, almost fully,” Ong says in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “How long that will that take, I can’t make a guess; I would say minimally a couple of years.”

Singapore has to “find ways to try to revive” the aviation sector, the minister says, adding that Singapore’s testing capacity is now around 30,000 a day and may rise to 40,000 by November and probably further after then. A balance needs to be struck between travel and epidemic control, he adds.

Asked about Singapore Airlines (SIA), which posted a record quarterly loss in the three months through June and is reducing its workforce by about 20%, Ong says the carrier faces a “dire situation” because of the pandemic and the fact that it has no domestic market to fall back on.

Virus-related travel restrictions mean SIA, which raised $11 billion largely through a rights issue earlier in the crisis, is flying at a tiny fraction of its usual capacity. Traffic figures for August show the carrier’s passenger numbers were down 98.4% from a year earlier.

Whether SIA needs to raise more funds will largely depend on how successful any revival in travel is, Ong says. “The more we can revive, the more cash they can generate, the less their need for recapitalisation.”

A regulatory filing in August showed the airline had used half of the $8.8 billion it raised through the share sales, highlighting that carriers keep incurring expenses even when planes are left idle. The company is reviewing its fleet and operations.

To open borders and encourage people to travel again, quarantine must be replaced by effective Covid-19 testing, Ong says. “We have to gradually open up the borders, establish the key links that made us a hub.”

Ong says Singapore will need to review plans for a fifth terminal at Changi Airport. Construction of the terminal, originally planned to be completed in 2030, has been suspended for at least two years.

“The assumptions when we went into Terminal 5 have totally changed,” he says. “I don’t have a prediction or a crystal ball to say what will happen to Terminal 5 and what will happen to global aviation.”— Bloomberg

Majority see better work-life balance with WFH as new norm, says UOB survey

Almost three quarters (73%) of Singaporean employees expect work-life balance will improve as working from home (WFH) regularly becomes a permanent option, according to the UOB Asean Consumer Sentiment Study which was conducted jointly by UOB and Blackbox.

The study, which surveyed some 3,510 individuals aged between 18 and 65 years’ old across five Asean countries including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand found that flexible work arrangements are “critical” to achieving work-life balance post-Covid-19.

Some 70% of Singaporean employees also expect their productivity to improve as they have greater freedom to manage their working hours.

Despite the optimistic outlook, 89% of Singapore employees feel that they have to work longer hours to avoid losing their jobs.

In terms of job security amid Covid-19, Singapore employees ranked fourth behind Indonesia (92%), Malaysia and Vietnam (90% each) while 87% of employees in Thailand felt that they had to put in extra hours to hold their jobs.

However, employees in Singapore (88%) were also the most concerned that companies will choose to retrench workers in a bid to cut costs, compared to their Asean counterparts.

In terms of mental health, about one in two Singaporeans (56%) have expressed concerns over their mental well-being and happiness due to the impact of Covid-19.

Similarly, about 70% of Singaporean employees believe their employers will pay more attention to their staff’s well-being.

Of these, 62% of those between the ages of 24–39, as well as professionals married with children (71%) expressed the greatest concern over their mental well-being. These two groups also possess the strongest view that their employers will focus more on workforce well-being.

“The last six months have been one of the most disruptive periods for companies and their employees but by and large, Singaporeans have risen to the challenge and adapted to new ways of working. Now that they have had the experience of a different way to work, many employees are expecting more flexibility in working from wherever they will be most productive and which best suits their work-life needs,” says Dean Tong, head of group human resources at UOB.

Mary Tan, UOB’s business director of personal financial services, notes, “As most of our teams shifted to remote working during the pandemic, many of us had to adapt to various changes such as the way we collaborate and connect with one another, in addition to managing the stress that may arise from these changes.” — Felicia Tan

Trump administration to consider adding China’s Ant Group to trade blacklist

The US State Department has submitted a proposal for the Trump administration to add China’s Ant Group to a trade blacklist, according to two people familiar with the matter, before the financial technology firm is slated to go public.

It was not immediately clear when the US government agencies that decide whether to add a company to the so-called Entity List would review the matter.

The move comes as China hardliners in the Trump administration are seeking to send a message to deter US investors from taking part in the initial public offering for Ant Group. The dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong could be worth up to a record US$35 billion ($47.5 billion).

The latest swipe at China also comes in the run-up to the Nov 3 election, in which US President Donald Trump, trailing in the polls against his Democratic rival Joe Biden, has made a tough approach to China an important foreign policy platform.

While the Alipay payment app is currently unavailable for American users in the United States, according to a spokesperson for Ant, Trump administration officials fear the Chinese government could access sensitive banking data belonging to future US users.

A powerful security panel known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) stopped its US$1.2 billion bid to buy the money transfer company Moneygram in 2018 over national security risks.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment. Ant, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, declined to comment but in a recent statement to Reuters emphasised that only 5% of the company’s business is outside China.

The entity list, which makes it more difficult for US firms to sell high-tech items to blacklisted companies, has become the tool of choice for the Trump administration to punish Chinese companies, though its real-world impact is sometimes questionable.

Ant is China’s dominant mobile payments company, offering loans, payments, insurance and asset management services via mobile apps. Based in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, Ant is 33% owned by Alibaba and controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma. — Reuters