Asia still accounts for roughly half of global GDP on a purchasing-power-parity basis, and multilateral forecasters expect that share to keep inching up even as headline growth rates cool. The World Trade Organization sees Asia-Pacific trade growth slipping to 3.8 percent in 2026 from 4.1 percent, and the Asian Development Bank’s most recent outlook points to a similar moderation across the region.

None of that changes the underlying story: Asia remains the world’s principal growth engine. What has changed is that the opportunity is no longer automatic. It has to be seized, through reform, positioning, and the willingness to move before the window narrows. Thailand and its ASEAN neighbours offer one of the clearer test cases for how that plays out on the ground.

The productivity gap is the real battleground

The most consequential divide in Asia’s 2026 growth story is not between fast and slow economies but between those ready to absorb AI-driven productivity gains and those that are not. ADB’s modelling finds that generative AI lifts GDP growth earlier and more strongly in advanced economies, while gains in developing Asia and the Pacific arrive smaller but more durable, held back by constraints in computing capacity, workforce skills, innovation ecosystems, and data governance. Closing that readiness gap, rather than waiting for the technology to diffuse on its own, is where policymakers have the most leverage.

Thailand’s own experience illustrates both the opportunity and the risk of moving too slowly on distribution. The country secured $43.6 billion in first-half 2026 investment, concentrated in data centres, cloud infrastructure, and AI-adjacent electronics manufacturing. But the Bank of Thailand has simultaneously flagged that the country’s high-income ambitions require a shift toward higher-value industries, warning that large digital and data-centre inflows are struggling to spread their benefits across the wider economy while older sectors such as automotive parts and garments shed jobs under Section 75 suspensions. The policy task is converting foreign direct investment into local supply chains and skilled employment, not simply attracting the capital in the first place.

Deepening regional integration over global dependence

With global trade policy still unsettled, ADB’s 2026 economic integration report urges policymakers to deepen and better implement free trade agreements, capitalise on cross-border digital investment, and improve financial connectivity as a hedge against external volatility. The data backs the direction of travel: intra-regional trade dependence in Asia rose from 56.3 percent in 2023 to 57.2 percent in 2024, according to the Boao Forum’s Asian Economic Outlook, with China and ASEAN identified as key contributors to that stability.

For Thailand, this integration push is inseparable from its recalibration toward China as both an investment source and a strategic hedge, formalised through the AI cooperation agreement signed in mid-2026 and reflected in robotics and semiconductor capital flows into the Eastern Economic Corridor. It also underscores why governance quality has become a competitiveness issue in its own right: the Department of Business Development’s tightened rules on foreign nominee companies, which extend ownership scrutiny across a company’s entire lifecycle rather than just at incorporation, signal to legitimate investors that the rules of engagement are being cleaned up even as they close a route that badly-behaved capital had been using.

Where Thailand fits in the named growth sectors

Across ADB, Boao, and private-sector outlooks, the same cluster of sectors keeps recurring as the drivers of Asia’s next cycle: semiconductors, artificial intelligence, green energy, digital health, and electronics. Thailand’s positioning here is deliberate rather than incidental. The country’s pivot from Detroit of the East to regional linchpin rests on the National Semiconductor Roadmap 2050, the EEC’s digital cluster strategy, and a data-centre investment framework designed to make Thailand a node that regional supply chains route through by reliability rather than by cost.

The EECiti project is the physical anchor of that ambition. Now in its most concrete phase, with land compensation underway and a public-private partnership structuring the 2,339-hectare smart city between Pattaya and U-Tapao, EECiti is being framed by EEC officials as the administrative and commercial heart of the corridor rather than another industrial estate. Whether the ambition converts into durable economic architecture depends on infrastructure delivery timelines, whether the semiconductor workforce pipeline can scale fast enough, and whether the political continuity needed for a twenty-five-year industrial strategy survives Thailand’s domestic politics.

Financial deepening as the connective tissue

Asia’s growth remains substantially demand-led, powered by young populations and rising middle classes, but converting that consumption strength into durable productivity gains requires financial-sector deepening alongside it. This is where the region’s digital finance experimentation, including the rollout of tokenised deposits and regulated stablecoins across APAC financial centres, matters beyond the fintech trade press.

Multi-rail systems in which tokenised deposits, stablecoins, and traditional banking coexist are increasingly framed by regional policymakers as infrastructure for cross-border trade and settlement, not speculative instruments, with interoperability and shared standards taking priority over any single dominant model. Where Thailand positions itself in that build-out, relative to Hong Kong and Singapore’s more advanced regulatory frameworks, will shape how much of the region’s digital-asset capital flows through Bangkok rather than around it.

The risk counterweight

None of this is a guaranteed trajectory. ADB flags renewed trade tensions, financial market volatility, geopolitical pressure, and a worse-than-expected deterioration in China’s property market as the principal downside risks to the regional outlook. For Thailand specifically, the same forces that have exposed the country to scrutiny over transshipment practices and territorial-claims-adjacent investment risk remain live variables, as does the distributional question of what happens to the workforce displaced from automotive and light manufacturing as capital shifts toward capital-intensive data centres and semiconductor fabrication.

The Thailand test case

Seizing Asia’s next growth cycle is less a matter of one large bet than of running several structural reforms in parallel fast enough to outrun the drag from tariffs and China’s property overhang: AI readiness, regional integration, sector positioning, and financial-market depth, all while managing the distributional costs of the transition. Thailand’s experience over the next two to three years, as EECiti moves from blueprint to construction and the semiconductor roadmap’s workforce targets are tested against reality, will be one of the clearer regional readings of whether that combination can actually be pulled off.

Mumbai: The surge in surplus liquidity has prompted lenders to look at ways to deploy funds that give them assured returns with an aim to protect their margins. HSBC and Kotak Mahindra Bank have taken the lead, tweaking mortgage products, while some banks are preparing to introduce similar loan plans.

Banks are looking at semi-fixed home loans to deploy a surge in surplus liquidity following a record mobilisation of funds through the RBI’s FCNR(B) scheme, while protecting lending margins amid uncertainty over interest rates.

Read more: India’s bank liquidity surplus hits all-time high riding flood of dollar deposits

The special swap facility mobilised $136.4 billion in forex-inflow programs by August 31, including $127.2 billion through FCNR(B) deposits.

HSBC is offering such a product, with its three-year fixed option starting at 7.50% and a five-year fixed option at 8.25%, before switching to the prevailing floating rate.

Read more: Record FCNR (B) inflows as banks mobilise $127 bln
After the fixed rate period of three and five years, the bank will move customers to prevailing repo-rate at the time of roll-over and margin as communicated at the time of loan disbursement. Similarly, Kotak Bank is offering hybrid home loans for up to 65 months during which their interest rate and EMI remain unchanged even if the Repo Rate rises. The home loan has a fixed interest rate of 7.60% for 65 months, thereafter it will be linked to the prevailing rate.Traditionally, excess funds could be invested in government securities.

‘Risk Mitigation’

“For banks, the attraction is less about betting on the direction of rates and more about putting surplus money to work while locking in a spread,” said a bank executive. “Banks will look to deploy part of the sum into government securities but those assets carry marked-to-market risks when yields move.”

New Delhi | Mumbai: The Centre does not expect the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to face material costs from the unprecedented $127-billion inflows through forex inflow schemes underpinned by a swap facility, people aware of the details of the dedicated plans that closed August 31 told ET.

This assessment comes amid concerns the foreign currency non-resident-bank (FCNR-B) and other forex inflow programmes may have a high cost for the central bank, stemming largely from hedging and liquidity management expenses.

The RBI is, however, expected to earn good returns when these record inflows are deployed in US treasuries that have seen a sharp rise in interest rates, which would offset anticipated costs for the central bank, said the people cited above, setting aside concerns by a section of economists that hedging costs could eventually crimp future central bank surplus transfers to the government.

The investment yield on 52-week US Treasury bills was 4.14% a year as on August 31, 2026, they said. Robust flows are also expected to reduce intervention costs for the central bank to manage currency volatility, as the record proceeds are expected to calm the markets.

Creating Buffer
These flows carry two costs for the central bank: the cost of absorbing excess liquidity from dollar inflows (sterilisation cost), and the cost of exchange rate risk.
Economists believe the first task is an immediate priority, while in the medium term, the RBI will have to create a buffer for the dollar debt that must be repaid within a fixed period. The 3% hedging costs, some economists estimate, could cost the RBI up to Rs 36,000 crore.
“The swap costs that RBI will bear on the dollar inflows could come to about 3% of approximately the Rs 12 lakh crore collected – or about Rs 36,000 crore – that will be reduced from the RBI’s income in the next three to five years,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist, Bank of Baroda. “The contingent risk buffer (CRB) of the RBI will also increase as the balance sheet of the central bank increases, which also means that we could see a lower transfer of surpluses to the government.”

The 2013 Precedent

The CRB is a reserve pool of funds set aside from the central bank’s annual profits to cover potential monetary, financial stability, and operational risks. In 2025-26, the CRB threshold was 6.5% of the total balance sheet size of the RBI.

However, some economists believe that just like in 2013, when India had tapped into the diaspora to shore up its currency through the so-called taper tantrum, the key for the RBI to walk away without much stress on the rupee would be the return of capital inflows.

The rupee had plunged to a then record low of Rs 68.85 per dollar in 2013, but strong portfolio inflows ensured the currency recovered close to Rs 61 per dollar in 2014. Although the rupee had weakened to Rs 67 per dollar by the time the three-year swap matured in 2016, a stronger forex kitty ensured the RBI was in a better position to pay off the debts.

The central bank, however, may face rupee losses if the Indian currency depreciates more than expected when these deposits mature.

Policymakers, while accepting the risk, believe there are chances the rupee may appreciate as it happened in 2013 following a similar scheme, and the central bank may even gain.

Any rupee loss to RBI may be partly or fully offset, or even more than offset, by the returns earned from deploying the foreign currency assets in US treasuries, said one of the people cited above.

Liquidity Absorption

Separately, the excess liquidity due to these flows is seen at around Rs 5-7 lakh crore over the next six months. Policymakers believe the economy can easily absorb this liquidity given high growth, and the central bank may not need to absorb it significantly.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday accepted the settlement terms arrived at between Securities and Exchange Board of India and National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) in the co-location and dark fibre cases, removing a key regulatory hurdle to the exchange’s listing that’s expected to be the country’s second-largest initial public offering (IPO) ever.

The proposed NSE IPO is expected to garner as much as ₹31,000 crore, making it the country’s second-biggest IPO – next only to the proposed initial share sales by Jio Platforms. The nearly ₹28,000-crore IPO by Hyundai Motor India, launched in October 2024, remains the country’s biggest concluded IPO to date.

Last week, Sebi Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said on the sidelines of an event in Mumbai that the regulator was ‘close’ to giving its approval to the NSE IPO.

Read more: Up to 290% gains! SBI, Federal Bank make massive windfall as Arcil’s Rs 733-crore IPO hits D-Street

The country’s biggest stock exchange had filed on June 18 the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for its initial public offering . The offering comprises an offer for sale of 148.91 million shares to be offloaded by some existing shareholders.

The case relates to the alleged lapses in high-frequency trading offered through the exchange’s colocation facility that allegedly gave some entities preferential access.
The market regulator had in July accepted the National Stock Exchange of India’s application under the settlement proceedings regulation for a settlement amount of ₹1,491 crore. NSE said the capital markets regulator granted in-principle approval to settle certain past regulatory lapses, subject to the payment of ₹1,491 crore.The NSE had filed the settlement application of ₹1,224 crore to close the market regulator’s pending appeal in the Supreme Court in the co-location facility case. The NSE had also filed another application for a settlement amount of about ₹268 crore to another pending appeal in the co-location facility-related dark fibre case. However, the co-location case pending against NSE’s former managing director and chief executive officer Chitra Ramkrishna, and others will continue and will be decided separately, a bench led by Justice JB Pardiwala said. It disposed of Sebi appeals challenging the Securities Appellate Tribunal orders that set aside the market regulator’s disgorgement directive in the co-location and dark fibre cases.

Sebi’s 2019 order had imposed a ₹625 crore disgorgement penalty on the NSE. SAT had set aside the disgorgement order in January 2023 and instead imposed a ₹100 crore penalty on the exchange for lack of due diligence in following norms while offering colocation.

It said the stock exchange did not make any illicit gain in the colocation case and there was no finding of fraud, unfair trade practice or collusion against them.

The NSE launched the colocation facility in 2009, allowing traders and brokers to establish their IT servers within its premises for a fee.

Columbia Threadneedle Investments is a leading global asset management group that provides a broad range of actively managed investment strategies and solutions for individual, institutional and corporate clients around the world. Columbia Threadneedle Investments is the global asset management group of Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE: AMP). For more information please visit columbiathreadneedleus.com.

Mumbai: Jio Platforms (JPL), the telecom, digital and technology arm of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries, may launch its estimated $4-billion initial public offering (IPO)-India’s largest ever-by the end of October or early November, people familiar with the development told ET.

“Most likely, Jio plans to launch the IPO toward the end of October, particularly around the auspicious days during Navratri,” said a person aware of the likely timelines. “If the launch gets pushed toward the end of October, there could also be some spillover into the first week of November. If not the Navratri, the company could target Diwali for the IPO.”

Jio is likely to finalise the exact dates within a couple of weeks after which it would initiate roadshows overseas before holding them at home, said a source close to the development.

The company plans three weeks of international and two weeks of domestic roadshows, three people in the know said.

Details from the DRHP
If the IPO coincides with the Navratri, which starts on Oct 11 and ends on Dussehra (Oct 20), the roadshows could begin as early as next week. Diwali falls on Nov. 8, while Dhanteras is on Nov 6.
Emails sent to the company and lead bankers remained unanswered until the publication of this report.
The company that had filed draft IPO papers in June, received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on August 28 to launch its share sale.

Shattering Records

Bankers estimate the Jio IPO could raise around Rs 37,800 crore, potentially making it India’s largest public issue.

The Jio IPO is expected to surpass the proposed Rs31,000-crore-IPO by National Stock Exchange (NSE). Hyundai Motor India‘s Rs 27,000 crore IPO in 2024 remains the largest completed IPO in the country so far.

According to the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP), Jio Platforms plans to issue up to 270 million fresh equity shares, representing around 2.9% of its post-IPO equity capital. The proposed IPO does not include an offer-for-sale (OFS) component.

The offering will be the first IPO from the Reliance Industries group in nearly two decades, since the listing of Reliance Petroleum in 2006.

A portion of the IPO proceeds will be used to prepay up to Rs 27,500 crore of loans at Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL), the operating subsidiary of Jio Platforms. The remaining proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

Jio Platforms may provide funds to RJIL by subscribing to its equity shares, convertible or non-convertible preference shares or debentures, or through loans, or a combination of these, according to the DRHP.

Large investors collectively hold nearly 30.9% of Jio Platforms. Jaadhu Holdings, an affiliate of Meta Platforms, owns 9.98%, while Google International holds 7.73%. Other investors include Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Vista Equity affiliates, General Atlantic, KKR-backed entities and investment vehicles of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Some fast-food chains offer a free birthday meal or snack – Burger King members can claim a free Whopper or Plant-Based Whopper, while Chopstix offers a free small noodle box.

However, most restaurant birthday offers are buy-one-get-one-free deals rather than completely free meals.

At Harvester and Zizzi’s it’s a free main when buying another full-price main. At Frankie & Benny’s you get a free main when purchasing two or more main meals.

Byron offers a free burger with a £5 minimum spend, while Wagamama offers free gyoza when you spend £12 and have earned at least one stamp on your loyalty card in the last six months.

Some chains give money off instead. Turtle Bay offers members a £20 birthday credit with no minimum spend, while Bella Italia gives you £15 off your total bill when you spend a minimum of £30. Las Iguanas offers a free main when two other meals are purchased or a 20% off voucher.

Pizza Express birthday rewards depend on your loyalty level. Bronze members may get a free dessert with a £10 spend, while higher tiers can get a free pizza or drinks with a £15 minimum spend.

At Prezzo, members receive drinks or desserts when they spend at least £25, while Bill’s offers a bottle of prosecco or pancakes when qualifying meals are ordered and the booking is made in advance.

The board of German car giant Volkswagen has approved a plan to cut another 50,000 jobs as part of a sweeping turnaround programme. It brings the total number of roles the company plans to shed by 2030 to 100,000.

The group – which includes Audi, Porsche, Skoda as well as the VW brand – said in March that it would cut 50,000 roles by the end of the decade.

The move is a “strong signal” for the future of the firm, which is “taking responsibility for our entire workforce”, VW’s chief executive Oliver Blume said in a statement on Thursday.

Blume told the BBC in July that the firm was looking to make the additional cuts.

The company has been hit by a drop in profits due to falling sales and fierce competition, especially from Chinese brands.

VW’s statement also said that a “fundamental adjustment of the global workforce capability is necessary” to safeguard the competitiveness of the company, which faces shifting demand and technological change.

It added “a Group-wide workforce adjustment of approximately 50,000 positions – including management roles – will be necessary.”

As of 2025, the Beetle-maker employed more than 660,000 people worldwide.

Pooja Bhatt, an associate professor at OP Jindal Global University, says that mismatch is increasingly difficult to ignore.

“Given its young demographics and ‘Digital India’ aspirations, it makes sense for the nation to build and maintain its own internet infrastructure for security and governance purposes,” she says.

India has already taken a step: the government now treats submarine cable systems as critical telecommunications infrastructure, recognising their importance to international connectivity.

Sundararajan says the designation should bring faster clearances, emergency repair mechanisms and an Indian cable-repair capability, along with legally protected cable zones around landing sites and routes, restricting anchoring and trawling.

Technology could help too.

A technology called Distributed Acoustic Sensing can turn optical fibres into sensors capable of detecting vibrations from ships, anchors or underwater vehicles – potentially identifying threats before a cable is severed.

But the immediate fixes are possibly more mundane: more landing stations, greater geographical diversity, faster permissions, protected cable routes and an Indian repair capability.

“Connectivity has historically clustered around Mumbai because the ecosystem, infrastructure and demand were already concentrated there,” Gupta says. “But that concentration is exactly the risk the industry needs to design away from.”

That shift is already beginning.

Four new submarine cable systems are being commissioned, external, with three more planned. Lightstorm is leading a consortium building one of them, I-2SEA, linking India with Malaysia and Singapore. The system will have dual landings in India – at Machilipatnam, providing a shorter subsea route to Hyderabad, and at a new landing location in South Chennai, adding diversity to existing routes.

For a country consuming data at extraordinary speed, the infrastructure carrying it remains surprisingly fragile. India is adding data centres and preparing for an AI-heavy future. The question is whether its cables, landing stations and repair capacity can keep up.