Hong Kong is uniquely positioned to connect Asean and the Greater Bay Area. John Lee Ka-chiu made the remarks at the South China Morning Post’s GBA-Asean Summit 2026 on Tuesday. The summit also saw the launch of a new chamber of commerce for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in the city.

The Bank of Maldives imposed a 30% surcharge on purchases from a group of popular international e-commerce platforms, including China’s Temu, Shein, Alibaba, and AliExpress, as well as U.S.-based eBay. The bank argued that online shopping was worsening the country's foreign-currency shortage. Even after the surcharge, Temu remained cheaper than stores in the capital, Malé. The app's free shipping had become so popular that the national postal service struggled to process the volume of incoming packages.

The Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) workshop was held June 23-24 in Asunción, Paraguay. It brought together around 100 academics, officials and business representatives from Taiwan, Argentina, Honduras and Paraguay and the U.S. The participants discussed global economic challenges, the impact of low-priced imports on local industries and the diversification of supply chains. 300 representatives of Paraguayan MSMEs participated in training sessions.

Shanghai has been urged to build itself into a hub serving the rising outbound investment needs of Chinese firms. The suggestion was made in mid-June at a closed-door meeting hosted by China Finance 40. The city has the Yangtze River Delta at its back, more regional headquarters of multinational companies than any other mainland city, and policy support from the central government.

The Future-ready Hong Kong Summit 2026 took place on June 12. It was organised by Chinachem Group, City University of Hong Kong and Hang Seng Bank. The event brought together leaders from industry, finance and academia, innovators, visionaries and policymakers. It also saw the launch of a joint white paper, which is being made available to the public and formally submitted to the Hong Kong government.

Cristina Aldeguer-Roque is speaking at the South China Morning Post’s GBA-Asean Summit 2026 in Hong Kong. She urges investors to view the Philippines as a springboard into the region and tap into the country's young, digitally fluent workforce. Manila is also committed to expanding Asean-Hong Kong ties.

Pakistan relied heavily on Chinese-made aircraft and air defence systems during its four-day conflict with India in May 2025. China's weapons exports and defence partnerships had a direct impact on India's security. Problems with reliability, spare parts and after-sales support undermine China's ambitions as a major arms exporter.

China has emerged as the sole winner in Asia from the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to the report by the geopolitical consulting firm Asia Group. The report looked at Asia's largest economies, China, India, Japan and South Korea, as well as emerging markets across south-east Asia. It concluded that China was a clear winner from the crisis caused by Donald Trump’s foray into the Middle East. China has long maintained strategic reserves of energy and last year took advantage of cheap prices to build up bigger stockpiles.