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By Nantoo Banerjee The country is experiencing a significant surge in commodity and transportation costs following geopolitical tensions in the Persian Gulf region and a weak Indian Rupee. Retail prices of daily essentials are rising rapidly. The prices of edible oils, pulses and packaged foods, including drinking water, have moved up since last month. Precious […]

The article Prices Are Fast Shooting Up Fanning Inflation appeared first on Latest India news, analysis and reports on Newspack by India Press Agency).

Starting from April 13, 2026, owners and renters of VinFast electric vehicles in Indonesia and the Philippines can register to become service partners on the Green SM Platform. Developed within GSM’s fully electric mobility ecosystem, the platform is designed to expand driver and vehicle supply, while ensuring all operations are delivered under consistent, professional service standards.

Upon successful registration, driver partners will undergo structured training programs covering operational procedures and service standards to ensure a consistent and high-quality customer experience. The platform offers a competitive revenue-sharing model of up to 90%, along with performance-based incentive schemes, enabling driver partners to maintain stable income and pursue long-term development opportunities.

In parallel, Green SM Indonesia and Green GSM Philippines are introducing comprehensive support policies to help partners access vehicles more easily through VinFast electric vehicle purchase and rental programs. These initiatives reducebarriers to entry and accelerate the expansion of the driver network.

In Indonesia, partners can register for the program and quickly gain access to VinFast electric vehicle models such as VF 5, VF e34, VF 6, and Limo Green, enabling them to begin operation as soon as the required procedures . are completed. The model requires no loans or significant upfront investment, enabling drivers tobuild stable income streams.

In the Philippines, Green GSM is rolling out the program with VF 5 and Limo Green models, supported by comprehensivepolicies covering registration, insurance, and operations. This enables drivers to join the platform with ease and gradually build stable operations, with income potential aligned with local market conditions and business needs.

Notably, drivers operating VinFast electric vehicles will continue to benefit from free charging policies through March 31, 2029, significantly reducing operating costs and improving income efficiency.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, Global CEO of GSM, said: “Green SM Platform is not only a step forward in service expansion, but also a solution to accelerate the transition to green mobility across Southeast Asia. By building an open platform with high service standards, we aim to rapidly increase the number of electric vehicles in operation, delivering a sustainable, modern, and reliable mobility experience for the community. This is a strategic move toward shaping a comprehensive green transportation ecosystem across the region.”

Amid growing demand for flexible employment in major cities, the Green SM Platform enables workers to quickly access vehicles, start earning, and generate stable income withoutlarge upfront investments or complex financing schemes. The platform rollout in Indonesia and the Philippines not only strengthens Green SM’s regional presence but also helps shape a sustainable urban mobility model, where technology, environmental responsibility, and livelihoods can grow in parallel.

Hashtag: #GreenSM #GSM

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

The early-April figures reinforce a broader pattern already visible through the first quarter. South Korea, one of the world’s most closely watched export economies because of its central role in memory chips, displays and consumer electronics, has been benefiting from a steep recovery in semiconductor sales after a prolonged industry downturn. Reuters reported at the end of February that the country’s chip exports had jumped 160.9 per cent in that month alone, passing $20 billion for a third straight month as AI investment and stronger memory prices lifted demand.

Semiconductors were again the main engine in the latest 10-day release. Chip exports surged 152 per cent from a year earlier, underscoring how heavily South Korea’s trade performance is now tied to data-centre investment, high-bandwidth memory demand and the wider AI build-out led by large technology firms. That strength has helped offset a less even backdrop in other parts of the economy, where investment, household demand and external policy risks remain more mixed.

The export rebound matters well beyond monthly trade headlines. South Korea’s central bank raised its 2026 growth forecast to 2.0 per cent in February and signalled that a chip-led upswing was giving policymakers more room to hold interest rates steady while watching inflation and financial stability risks. Reuters also reported this month that central bank officials see strong semiconductor exports and an extra budget as factors easing downward pressure on growth, even as won weakness and higher energy costs complicate the inflation outlook.

Factory data has pointed in the same direction. A Reuters report on S&P Global survey findings showed South Korea’s manufacturing activity expanded in January at the fastest pace in nearly a year and a half, helped by stronger export orders from China, North America and Europe. Manufacturers reported improving optimism as orders strengthened in sectors such as autos and semiconductors, indicating that the recovery is not only statistical but also visible in production and order books.

Still, the trade picture is not free of risk. South Korea remains highly exposed to swings in global demand, to US trade policy and to supply disruptions linked to tensions in the Middle East. Reuters polling before the March trade data showed imports rising sharply as higher oil prices pushed up the energy bill, even while exports surged on semiconductor strength. That combination can support headline trade values, but it also leaves the economy vulnerable to a renewed squeeze from commodity inflation and currency volatility.

Another uncertainty lies in concentration. The same chip boom that is lifting exports also raises dependence on a narrow cluster of products and companies. South Korea’s trade resilience is being powered largely by memory and advanced semiconductor demand, especially products linked to AI servers. Investment plans such as SK Hynix’s announcement in February of 21.6 trillion won in new facilities show confidence in long-term demand, but they also underline how central the semiconductor cycle has become to the country’s broader growth model.

For now, the momentum remains hard to ignore. Reuters polling ahead of the March data had already pointed to the fastest export growth in nearly five years, with shipments to the United States and China both showing strong gains alongside the semiconductor surge. Monday’s early-April figures suggest that pace has carried into the second quarter, strengthening the case that South Korea’s exporters are entering another period of outsized performance after a weak stretch in 2025.

The immediate trigger has been the collapse in exports from the Gulf after the outbreak of war in late February and the severe disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Middle Eastern LPG exports fell 73% in March from the previous month to 419,000 barrels per day, according to Kpler data cited by Reuters. The squeeze sent April-loading spot premiums for propane and butane from the Gulf to record highs of $250 a tonne over March Saudi contract price swaps, while Saudi Aramco lifted its April official selling price for propane by $205 a tonne to $750 and for butane by $260 a tonne to $800.

That shock is now reshaping trade flows. Preliminary Kpler data show U. S. LPG exports are expected to rise to a record 2.7 million barrels per day in April, with about 1.8 million barrels per day heading to Asia, up 14% from March. Traders say cargoes are also being drawn from Canada, Norway, Argentina and Australia, but the United States has emerged as the principal swing supplier because of its sheer export scale. Marex’s Vasudev Balagopal told Reuters that major importers were actively diversifying beyond the Gulf, although brokers caution that U. S. export terminals were already running close to capacity before the conflict and cannot fully replace Middle East barrels on their own.

The substitution is costly and slow. U. S. Gulf terminal fees for propane and butane hit record levels in March, and cargoes from the Gulf Coast to Asia typically take more than 30 days to arrive, compared with roughly two weeks from the Middle East. Even where a ceasefire has allowed some movement through Hormuz, traders are treating the route as fragile and unpredictable. Reuters reported on April 11 that some tankers had begun exiting the Gulf after a truce, but hundreds of vessels remained stranded or delayed, underlining how quickly physical dislocation can outlast any diplomatic pause.

India’s position illustrates the strain most clearly. The country consumed 33.15 million metric tonnes of LPG last year, with imports covering about 60% of demand and roughly 90% of those imports sourced from the Middle East. State-backed retailers have kept prices for 14.2-kg domestic cylinders unchanged to protect households, even as commercial LPG prices were raised in April and the government diverted supplies away from industry to shield cooking-gas consumers. Reuters also reported that India increased domestic daily LPG output by 40% to 50,000 tonnes and secured 800,000 tonnes of replacement cargoes from the United States, Russia, Australia and elsewhere.

Officials in New Delhi are also using the shortage to accelerate a structural shift towards piped gas. Emergency powers have been invoked to direct limited LPG toward households, while expansion of city gas networks has been fast-tracked. India added 580,000 new household piped-gas connections in March, up sharply from a year earlier, and credit-rating agency ICRA estimates the policy push could cut LPG imports by 10% to 15% by 2030. The fiscal logic is clear: household LPG is sold at deeply subsidised rates, while piped gas is priced closer to the market, easing pressure on public finances as well as on import dependence.

China faces a different kind of pressure. There, LPG is not only a cooking fuel but also a crucial petrochemical feedstock. Rystad Energy estimates regional steam crackers lost about 135,000 barrels per day of LPG demand in March from February levels, with further declines expected in April and May. In China, propane dehydrogenation plants, already running at only 60% to 65% because of weak margins before the conflict, are expected to cut operating rates again as feedstock shortages bite. That matters beyond the energy sector because PDH plants make propylene, a building block for plastics and a wide range of manufactured goods.

The package, unveiled on Sunday at the close of Cheng’s visit to China, includes moves to restore more flights across the Taiwan Strait, permit some residents of Shanghai and Fujian to visit Taiwan, ease standards affecting food and fishery imports, and allow selected Taiwanese television dramas, documentaries and animation to be broadcast on the mainland provided they meet Beijing’s content requirements. Chinese state media also said officials would explore a regular communication mechanism between the Communist Party and the KMT.

The announcement followed Cheng’s meeting with Xi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday, a politically sensitive encounter that stood out because China has refused to engage with Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, branding him a separatist. During the talks, Xi repeated Beijing’s long-held position that both sides of the strait belong to “one China”, said Taiwan independence was the main threat to peace, and called for efforts toward what he described as reunification. Cheng, presenting her trip as a peace mission, said people on both sides wanted stability, development and more balanced exchanges.

That combination of outreach and warning is central to the significance of Sunday’s measures. Beijing appears to be trying to show Taiwanese voters that practical benefits may be available through engagement with the opposition, while keeping pressure on the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and preserving the political precondition that any improvement in ties must rest on opposition to formal independence. The trade and tourism sweeteners may carry appeal for sectors in Taiwan that have long depended on mainland visitors and mainland demand for agricultural and aquatic products, both of which have been disrupted by years of political tension, pandemic-era restrictions and Chinese import curbs.

Taipei’s response was sharply critical. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said Beijing’s unilateral concessions were “poisoned pills” dressed up as generous gifts and argued that healthy cross-strait exchanges should not be tied to political conditions. That reaction underscored the core divide between the two governments: China says the issue is domestic and insists on a one-China framework, while Taiwan’s administration says only the island’s people can decide their future and that Beijing should talk directly to its democratically elected government rather than sidestepping it.

The KMT, by contrast, welcomed the package and cast it as beneficial to ordinary people in Taiwan. That stance is consistent with the party’s longstanding preference for deeper economic and diplomatic engagement with the mainland than the ruling DPP supports. Cheng’s trip was the first by a KMT leader to China in a decade, making it symbolically important as well as politically divisive at home, where critics say opposition outreach risks strengthening Beijing’s narrative while weakening Taiwan’s bargaining position.

Any goodwill message from Beijing has also been complicated by events in the skies and seas around Taiwan. Reuters reported that Chinese military activity around the island continued during Cheng’s visit, and Taiwan’s defence ministry said warplanes were detected near the island as Xi met the opposition leader. That has allowed Lai’s administration and its supporters to argue that China is offering conciliation in public while maintaining coercion in practice. The contrast has sharpened a broader political argument inside Taiwan between those who say deterrence and defence spending are indispensable, and those who believe dialogue must have a larger role in reducing risk.

Washington has added another layer to the story. Raymond Greene, the top United States diplomat in Taiwan, said Beijing should abandon threats and military pressure and keep communication open with all of Taiwan’s political parties, especially leaders elected by the Taiwanese people. His remarks reflected a familiar United States position: support for dialogue across the strait, opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo, and insistence that talks cannot be divorced from the balance of deterrence.