But industry bodies argue that starting production at the sites would provide much-needed jobs and improve the UK’s energy security as overseas conflicts threaten supply.

Advocates of the project also told the BBC that Jackdaw’s output is critical to extending the life of other North Sea infrastructure including Shearwater – a large offshore oil and gas production hub that processes hydrocarbons before piping them to coastal refineries and terminals.

Adura said that if approval comes in September, the field could start delivering gas to UK homes by this winter as the construction is “99% complete”.

A public consultation on the future of Jackdaw and another new oil field, Rosebank, closed in August and the decision now rests with Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh.

Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, Energy Minister Kate White said that the energy secretary would make separate decisions on the two sites, but gave no indication of the timings of an announcement.

“The process ended in August, and the Secretary of State will be taking those decisions in due course,” she told MPs.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham recently said there needs to be a “pragmatic approach” towards domestic oil and gas.

“We won’t be able to stop using oil and gas for some time. That’s just a fact,” he said.

“The question is whether we can accelerate use of it so that we pay for the transition.”

China’s humanoid robot manufacturers now dominate 97% of global shipments, establishing an early leadership advantage over U.S. competitors. This dominance highlights China’s rapid advancements in robotics technology and its growing influence in the global market. The trend underscores shifting technological power dynamics, with Beijing solidifying its position as a key player in humanoid robot development and deployment worldwide.

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Humanoid robots are revolutionizing the technological landscape in China, positioning the country at the forefront of innovation. These advanced machines are capable of simulating human behaviors, including speech, gestures, and decision-making processes. Chinese tech companies and research institutions have invested heavily in developing sophisticated robots that can perform tasks ranging from customer service to healthcare support. This focus has enabled China to make significant technological breakthroughs, gaining a competitive edge in the global robotics industry.

The deployment of humanoid robots in various industries has bolstered China’s economy and technological reputation. In public spaces, such as malls and airports, these robots assist visitors, providing information and guidance efficiently. Moreover, in healthcare, humanoid robots are helping with patient care and rehabilitation. Such innovations showcase China’s commitment to integrating cutting-edge robotics into everyday life, enhancing efficiency and demonstrating technological leadership.

By advancing humanoid robotics, China is not only streamlining services but also driving the future of automation and AI. This progress positions China ahead in the fierce global tech race, attracting investments and talent from around the world. As these technologies evolve, China’s dominance in the robotics sector is likely to expand, reaffirming its status as a global tech powerhouse.

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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.”