HANOI (Dec 13): Vietnam’s newest ride-hailing player ‘be’ said on Thursday it secured “hundreds of millions U.S. dollars” of investments as it gets ready for launch next week to compete with regional players such as Grab. As Singapore-based Grab and Indonesia’s Go-Jek expanded across Southeast Asia with a wide range of services, the region has become a battle field for the two rivals following Uber’s exit from the market of over 600 million people. Language Undefined

BEIJING (Dec 14): China’s November retail sales grew at their weakest pace since 2003 and industrial output rose the least in nearly three years as the economy lost further momentum, heaping pressure on Beijing to defuse its trade dispute with the United States.  The world’s second-largest economy has been losing momentum in recent quarters as a multi-year government campaign to curb shadow lending put increasing financial strains on companies in a blow to production and investment. Language Undefined

KUALA LUMPUR: Blue chips snapped their two days of gains on Friday, as selling of IHH Healthcare, Tenaga Nasional and banks dragged the FBM KLCI into the red, in line with the weaker key Asian markets.