SOFAZ and five other leading sovereign wealth funds established the China-ASEAN Joint Investment Council (CAJIC) to strengthen cooperation and explore investment opportunities across China and Southeast Asia. The platform focuses on relationship-building, knowledge-sharing, and capital deployment through joint initiatives like the Galaxy Orientis investment program.

Key Points

• SOFAZ and five leading sovereign wealth funds established the China-ASEAN Joint Investment Council (CAJIC) to strengthen relationships, exchange investment perspectives, and explore bilateral and multilateral cooperation opportunities across China and Southeast Asia.

• CAJIC complements the Galaxy Orientis China-ASEAN Investment Program (CAIP), a jointly governed private equity platform with approximately US$520 million in first close and US$1 billion target size, focusing on long-term investment opportunities in industrials, healthcare, consumer, business services, and technology sectors.

• SOFAZ’s participation strengthens financial and institutional ties between Azerbaijan and Asian investors, supporting its portfolio diversification strategy and access to high-quality investment opportunities through trusted institutional networks.

Strategic Formation of China-ASEAN Investment Council

Establishment and Core Structure

Six leading sovereign wealth funds have established the China-ASEAN Joint Investment Council (CAJIC), a significant collaborative platform announced at the 26th China International Fair for Investment and Trade in Xiamen. The founding members include SOFAZ (Azerbaijan), China Investment Corporation (CIC), Thailand Government Pension Fund, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, Kumpulan Wang Persaraan, and Indonesia Investment Authority (INA). Convened by CIC with CGS International Securities serving as secretariat, this member-led institutional platform strengthens long-term relationships and explores bilateral and multilateral cooperation opportunities across China and Southeast Asia.

Operational Focus Areas

CAJIC operates across three strategic dimensions: People, through investment forums and executive programs; Insights, through research and knowledge-sharing initiatives; and Capital, through separately governed investment programs. This comprehensive approach enables participating institutions to develop deeper connections while identifying mutually beneficial opportunities across the region’s growing economic landscape.

SOFAZ’s Progressive Engagement Strategy

Building on Established Relationships

For SOFAZ, CAJIC represents the evolution of its decade-long investment engagement in China. The fund has progressively expanded institutional relationships with leading Chinese partners, culminating in an April 2025 Memorandum of Understanding with CIC establishing a strategic framework for deeper cooperation. This foundation demonstrates SOFAZ’s commitment to strengthening financial and institutional ties within the region, complementing Azerbaijan’s position as a physical bridge between Asia and Europe through the Middle Corridor.

Joint Investment Initiatives

In April 2026, SOFAZ, CIC, and INA jointly established the Galaxy Orientis China-ASEAN Investment Program (CAIP), a sovereign-led private equity platform. The program achieved a first close of approximately US$520 million with a target size of US$1 billion, focusing on long-term opportunities in industrials, healthcare, consumer, business services, and technology sectors. While CAIP and CAJIC are separate initiatives, they remain complementary—CAJIC provides the institutional platform while CAIP serves as the mechanism for deploying capital into specific opportunities.

Strategic Value and Long-Term Benefits

Regional Connectivity and Financial Integration

SOFAZ’s participation in CAJIC strengthens the financial infrastructure supporting Azerbaijan’s geographic position between Asia and Europe. As physical connectivity through the Middle Corridor develops, parallel institutional relationships with leading Asian sovereign investors create complementary channels for growth and cooperation. This dual approach—physical infrastructure and financial institutional ties—positions SOFAZ strategically for sustained engagement.

Portfolio Diversification and Partnership Building

For long-term investors, trusted partners, local market knowledge, and co-investment capabilities prove as valuable as capital access itself. CAJIC membership provides SOFAZ practical channels to deepen relationships with regional sovereign institutions while accessing high-quality investment opportunities through strong institutional networks. This approach fundamentally supports SOFAZ’s objective of long-term portfolio diversification and sustainable partnership development with aligned global capital.

Source : SOFAZ, Leading Sovereign Investors Establish China-ASEAN Joint Investment Council

Skip To Content

New Delhi: In a major structural push to reset urban governance and accelerate infrastructure development, the Centre has executed a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, replacing senior bureaucrats and appointing new leadership to spearhead its flagship missions.

The administrative revamp follows the government’s decision last Thursday to split the ministry into two specialised verticals: Department of Capital Development (Rajdhani Vikas Vibhag) and the Department of Urban Development (Shehari Vikas Vibhag). The division is designed to enable dedicated focus on distinct aspects of urban planning while streamlining service delivery, execution, and policy interventions.

The administrative reshuffle moved at breakneck speed. Within 24 hours of the Gazette notification, secretary Srinivas Katikithala (a 1989-batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre) handed over charge of the newly-created department of capital development to D Thara, a 1995-batch IAS officer from the same cadre. Simultaneously, the Centre posted Satendra Singh (a 1995-batch Jharkhand cadre IAS officer) as secretary to lead the Department of Urban Development. The overhaul extends deep into the operational leadership of Centre’s core urban schemes.
Crucial personnel shifts include Kuldeep Narayan, who was directing the flagship housing scheme Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), moving to Niti Aayog. Roopa Mishra, who spearheaded the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), has also been reassigned. New directors are slated to assume charge within the next fortnight to ensure seamless administrative continuity. At the heart of this structural realignment is a targeted policy focus on the national capital. The Centre has set its sights on resolving Delhi’s long-standing, complex urban challenges through a bifurcated strategy. With a BJP government in power in Delhi, the ministry bifurcation will also help in better implementation of infrastructure projects, including the ambitious Central Vista project.

Young boys and men appear to be over-represented in the stats. Of the casualties, 302 – the most of any age and sex category – were males aged 10-19.

Six deaths were recorded in 2024, unchanged from the previous year. Five of these were riders and one a pedestrian.

Although the numbers aren’t conclusive, it is thought more accidents are happening on privately owned e-scooters. Winchcomb says police statistics “aren’t reflective of the number of injuries”.

Nonetheless, campaigners believe there is enough evidence to show that regulation is urgently needed.

Carly Calland’s 14-year-old son Jacob died in March 2025 of a catastrophic head injury. He was a passenger on an e-scooter that was involved with a collision with a car.

If privately owned e-scooters are legalised for public use, Carly believes, there should be mandatory helmets, a ban on carrying passengers and penalties for parents that allow children to ride illegally.

“If Jacob was wearing a helmet that day, he would still be here,” Carly, from Wythenshawe in Greater Manchester, says.

Carly is not against e-scooters. They “are really good for people to get to work, and they are eco-friendly”, she tells me, but “they just need to be used in the correct way.”

What happens if the current situation goes on? Her answer is emphatic: “More deaths.”

BOSTON — McCormick & Co., Inc. is preparing for its next chapter — one that includes the recently acquired Unilever Foods and a refined growth agenda.

In a presentation at the Barclays Global Consumer Conference in Boston on Sept. 9, Brendan Foley, president and chief executive officer of the Hunt Valley, Md.-based company, highlighted five key priorities behind McCormick’s strategy to deliver growth synergies.

First, the company intends to win where it leads by strengthening commercial execution and accelerating growth in key countries, including Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States, Foley said.

“We’ve assessed the key markets, the key categories and brands with the greatest opportunity and this is important for near-term revenue growth,” he said.

A second priority for McCormick is to bring the company’s brands to more homes globally by using the combined footprint and routes to market of McCormick and Unilever Foods to expand high-growth potential brands such as Maille and Cholula.

“There is significant white space for these brands, and we intend to pursue it,” Foley said.

He said a third priority will be pairing the flavor expertise, consumer insights, R&D and digital capabilities of McCormick and Unilever Foods with a goal of driving scalable innovation across the portfolio.

Fourth, the company will seek to capture the global foodservice opportunity presented through the combination of McCormick and Unilever Foods’ complementary capabilities and networks. Foley said foodservice represents one of the biggest opportunities within the acquisition of Unilever, calling the geographic unlock “significant.”

“Unilever Food Solutions is already established in 75 countries where McCormick has limited or no foodservice presence in 51 of them,” he explained. “That gives us an immediate path to bring McCormick’s flavor capabilities into attractive new markets.”

The fifth and final priority for McCormick moving forward is to “strengthen our flavor capabilities and customer co-innovation to become an even stronger partner to leading and emerging food brands,” Foley said.

Foley said the combined capabilities will help McCormick capture the trends that support long-term growth. The opportunity is expected to develop in phases, he said.

“Year 1 will focus on strengthening, integrating and prioritizing the highest value opportunities,” he said. “Year 2, on scaling early wins and accelerating innovation. And Year 3, on delivering sustainably higher growth from a stronger combined platform and then continuing to build on this improved growth.” 

For decades, Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, over Taiwan, and along the disputed India-China frontier were treated by most Southeast Asian executives as a distant security matter, relevant to diplomats and defence ministries but not to quarterly planning.

That assumption is eroding. As shipping routes tighten, insurance premiums shift, and supply chains reroute around flashpoints, what was once background geopolitics is now showing up directly in cost structures for firms trading through the region, including many with operations tied to Thailand’s trade and export sector.

The claims reshaping regional risk maps

China’s most consequential claim for Southeast Asian business is the so-called nine-dash line, which asserts sweeping jurisdiction over most of the South China Sea, overlapping with waters claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei. A 2016 international arbitration ruling rejected the legal basis for this claim, but Beijing has not recognised the decision, and Chinese coast guard and maritime militia activity in contested waters has continued. For Thailand, which does not have a direct claim in these waters, the practical exposure is indirect: roughly a third of global maritime trade transits the South China Sea, and any disruption there raises freight costs and delivery risk for Thai exporters and importers alike, a concern increasingly reflected in coverage of trade between Thailand and its major partners.

Taiwan represents a different order of risk. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province and has not ruled out the use of force to achieve unification. Taiwan is also the world’s dominant producer of advanced semiconductors, meaning any serious escalation would hit the same chip supply chains that Thailand has been positioning itself to benefit from as data-centre and electronics investment shifts toward the kingdom. A disruption to Taiwanese fabrication capacity would ripple through every economy, including Thailand, that is betting on Asia’s tech and AI-driven growth as a growth pillar.

A third front, less visible to Southeast Asian firms but strategically linked, is the disputed Line of Actual Control between China and India, where a 2020 clash in the Galwan Valley marked the most serious military confrontation between the two countries in decades. This dispute shapes New Delhi’s broader posture toward Beijing, including its participation in groupings like the Quad, which in turn affects the wider balance of power that Thai policymakers must navigate.

How Thailand’s posture differs from claimant states

Unlike the Philippines or Vietnam, Thailand has no live territorial dispute with China. This gives Bangkok more room to pursue what officials and analysts describe as a strategic tightrope between Beijing and Washington: maintaining deep economic ties with Beijing, including significant Chinese investment in Thai manufacturing and infrastructure, while preserving security and trade relationships with the United States, Japan, and other partners. This is a materially different calculation from claimant states, which must weigh direct sovereignty costs against economic dependency in a way Thailand does not.

That flexibility is an asset, but it is not unlimited. Thai firms with regional supply chains, particularly those routing goods through Vietnamese or Philippine ports, or relying on Taiwanese components, inherit exposure to disputes Thailand itself is not party to. Executives increasingly ask not whether Thailand has a dispute with China, but whether their supply chain does.

What this means for planning, not just policy

For businesses operating in or through Thailand, three practical implications follow. First, shipping and insurance costs tied to South China Sea transit should be treated as a variable input rather than a fixed assumption, particularly for firms with just-in-time logistics models. Second, semiconductor and electronics-dependent businesses should stress-test supplier concentration in Taiwan against a range of scenarios, not just worst-case conflict but also softer disruptions like export controls or shipping insurance spikes. Third, firms benefiting from Chinese investment inflows into Thai manufacturing should track how Bangkok’s multi-alignment balancing act evolves, since shifts in that posture, whether toward Washington or Beijing, tend to precede changes in the regulatory and investment environment.

None of this requires Thai businesses to take a position on the underlying territorial questions, which remain contested between the claimant governments themselves. But treating these disputes as purely diplomatic matters, rather than as inputs into cost and risk planning, is increasingly a blind spot rather than a neutral stance.

Prices in the US rose by 3.4% in the year to August, with the cost of living pushed up by higher gasoline prices, official figures show.

The overall inflation rate was unchanged from July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

It comes ahead of the Federal Reserve making its latest interest rate decision next week, with growing expectations they will be increased in a bid to slow the rate at which prices are rising.

US household budgets have come under mounting pressure, especially at the fuel pumps, with a gallon of diesel hitting a new all-time high of more than $6 on average on Friday.

The spike in fuel prices has been driven by higher wholesale oil prices, caused by supply disruptions as a result of the US-Iran war.

Part of the soundtrack to a day in southern California is the drone of petrol-powered gardening equipment.

Noise is one of the main reasons that cities around the US, external are banning petrol landscaping tools or encouraging electric alternatives.

These alternatives have the additional benefits of reducing carbon emissions, vibrations and the exposure of landscapers to pollution.

In addition they can mean longer working hours, as they can be used at times when residents demand quiet.

Today, I’m taking part in training run by the American Green Zone Alliance (AGZA), an organisation supporting the transition towards electric landscaping equipment.

To my surprise, the electric backpack leaf blower I strap on is not much heavier than my normal rucksack. Using the blower to herd balls around the park feels fairly intuitive, though naturally I’m much clumsier and slower than the pro landscapers.

As for noise, there’s still a buzz, but the sound is higher-pitched and not quite so loud as the familiar petrol-powered machines.

The move to electric power is attracting new companies to the market for gardening kit.

US aerospace start-up Whisper Aero is one of those firms. Its main business is electric propulsion systems for aircraft.

But in 2022, after the Covid-19 pandemic made many people more sensitive to noise, and following a couple of years of research and development, the company realised that its aerospace-grade fans would work well in leaf blowers.

“Our technology is cleaner, quieter and more efficient than other air-moving technologies that exist today,” according to Andrew Terajewicz, Whisper Aero’s director of air management. “And the leaf blower is the perfect mix of this.”

The battery on Whisper Aero’s blower lasts up to 15 minutes at full power.

The company has had to scale up its manufacturing volume in its expansion to consumer technology.

Online pre-orders of Whisper Aero’s handheld leaf blower started this year. It’s priced at the high-end of electric leaf blowers, which are often more expensive than traditional petrol versions.

But for that you get a machine which is less likely to disturb the peace.

“It is so ultra quiet yet powerful, that the brain has a hard time understanding what’s happening,” says Dan Mabe, the former landscaper who founded AGZA.

Whisper Aero aims to further develop its products, including a backpack leaf blower that would be better suited to professional landscapers.