Australia
This clippings page has samples of my writing and editing work for various economic outlets. The IEEFA pieces cover my work as Asia-Pacific editor and communications associate at the institute.
SYDNEY -- Australia faces an "insolvency tsunami" when government handouts to help businesses cope with coronavirus restrictions expire on Sept. 29. The payments are a major plank of the government's stimulus package, which now runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
SYDNEY -- Australia's former ambassador to China places much of the blame for persistent tensions with Beijing on a failure of Australian diplomacy, threatening economic ties with his country's largest trade partner and fellow member of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership free trade pact.
SYDNEY -- Australia's announcement earlier this month that it would tighten its foreign investment rules as a national security measure set off a wave of speculation that China, its biggest trading partner, was the primary target. Now the business community is awaiting the draft legislation, expected in July, followed by a six-week industry consultation period.
September 3, 2020 (IEEFA) - Utilities globally started changing the way they do business years ago, but Indonesia's PLN power company stands out as a laggard, focused on a confused menu of piecemeal generation options rather than holistic planning that provides system-level solutions, finds a new report from IEEFA, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial [...]
SYDNEY-- Australia's top-earning exports -- coal, iron ore and liquefied natural gas -- are pretty basic for a highly developed country. So basic that Australia ranks 59th in the world for the complexity of its exports. South Korea, a regional peer and potential defense partner, ranks 6th of 129 exporters, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, under the MIT Media Lab.
Legal challenges to critical policy standards in Asia are rare, especially in the area of environmental law. As countries in North Asia struggle with the impact of climate change, new legal strategies are emerging that take aim at the policies and goals that underpin global carbon emission reduction targets.
June 26, 2020 (IEEFA Indonesia) - Weaker coal demand in China and India in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic and compounded by policies favoring domestic coal industries will cause severe shortfalls in output for 10 major listed Indonesian coal producers in 2020, finds a new report from the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial [...]
SYDNEY -- When Australia announced a deal for $150 million Australian dollars ($102 million) to ensure its space industry's participation in NASA's Artemis mission, it was leveraging its 50-year collaboration with the U.S. space agency. It was also a show of shrewd but potentially risky space diplomacy as China readies to become America's most powerful space adversary.
7 May 2020 (IEEFA India) - Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and Rural Electric Corporation Ltd (REC), big state-owned institutions charged with financing a large part of India's growing need for electricity generation, may instead be funding a herd of white elephants - obsolete and economically unviable coal-fired power plants that could soon become stranded assets.
Xinja Bank CIO Greg Steel outlines how the neobank’s service proposition is underpinned by consumer confidence and a trusted technology partnership.
22 September 2020 (IEEFA Vietnam): Implementing Vietnam's soon-to-be-launched next Power Development Plan will ultimately depend on the country's ability to mobilize more innovative sources of offshore financing, finds a new report by think tank the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). Vietnam is poised to launch Power Development Master Plan 8 (PDP 8) [...]
Southeast Asia is young. Its median age is under 30, and its demand for energy has grown by 60% in the last 15 years and is likely to continue growing twice as fast as other regions. But as this youthful population moves into leadership positions, they will see that incentive and market design failures in [...]
September 14, 2020 (IEEFA Indonesia) - With only one leading coal company currently making a profit, the Indonesian government must let the market decide the future for financially broken coal companies wishing to avoid payments of much-needed royalties and loans, finds a new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
July 1, 2020 (IEEFA) - Asia leads Europe in deploying floating solar, also known as floating photovoltaic (FPV), a new IEEFA report finds. Energy finance analysts Sara Jane Ahmed and Elrika Hamdi note that power demand in the Philippines and Malaysia has dropped by as much as 16% during the COVID-19 lockdown, causing extreme stress [...]
23 July 2020 (IEEFA India) - Increasing electricity demand and rising grid tariffs for commercial and industrial customers are driving business users to rooftop solar, which is not only cleaner and cheaper but also gives them tariff certainty for 25 years. In Powering up Sunshine - Untapped Opportunities in India's Rooftop Solar Market, a new [...]
‘Experience gap’, ‘situational normality’ and ‘perceived trustworthiness’ are just three terms that will become everyday words in a new financial services paradigm in which banks and other institutions will have to compete more nimbly to attract and retain customers. That’s the view of Aarron Spinley, director strategy and customer experience at software company, SAP (pictured), which is using insights from social sciences such as anthropology and psychology, to meet clients' rapidly changing...
Laying the right technology foundation is key for better customer outcomes, says icare general manager, financial management and treasury Fehraz Fallil. It is said that the truest measure of a society's greatness is how well it treats its most vulnerable people.
Currency fluctuations offer risk and reward -- the trick is knowing how to hedge
German art from 1910 to the Nazi era at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Terracotta warriors and eternal treasure on show at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Alfred Stieglitz's photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales