HKTDC forecasts a 2% decline in HK exports in 2020

The protests and political unrest begin to bite hard in Hong Kong. This decline follows an 8.6% decline in Q4 compared to Q3 2019.

India’s PayTM raises US$660 million from Softbank and Alibaba

This comes only one month after PayTM raised US$1 billion (billion, not million!) from Alibaba’s Ant Financial and T. Rowe Price Associates. The company's valuation is now at least US$16 billion.

Good summary of some of Q4 exhibition M&A activity

TSNN provides a summary of recent deals involving Questex, AZTQ, Tarsus and a few others.

Alibaba opens research centre in Shanghai

The Alibaba Shanghai R&D Center (also questionably known as “Zhangjiang AIsland”) officially opened this week. The centre’s work will focus on cloud computing and integrated circuits.

Alibaba and Tencent focus on India

At the risk of too much Alibaba this week, we include this article, which is a good take from Quartz on Alibaba’s and Tencent’s incredible appetite for investment.