US eases some restrictions on China's Huawei to keep mobile networks operating. The US Commerce Department will allow Huawei Technologies to purchase American-made goods in order to maintain existing networks and provide software updates to existing Huawei handsets. The company is still prohibited from buying American parts and components to manufacture new products without license approvals that likely will be denied. The roll back, which is in effect for 90 days, suggests changes to Huawei's supply chain may have immediate, far-reaching and unexpected consequences.

Oil touches multi-week highs as Opec signals it may extend cuts. US West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose 34 cents to settle at US$63.10 a barrel, after hitting US$63.81, the highest price since May 1. Brent crude futures fell 24 cents to settle at US$71.97 a barrel, having earlier touched US$73.40, their highest since April 26. Opec indicated it was likely to maintain production cuts that have helped boost prices this year, while escalating Middle East tensions provided further support.

2019 growth forecast for Singapore non-oil exports cut to -2 to 0%; fell 6.4% in Q1. Both the electronic and non-electronic NODX registered declines of 17.2 and 2.6 per cent respectively. The latest decline led Enterprise Singapore to revise down the projected NODX performance for the full year from 0 to 2 per cent growth to minus 2.0 to 0.0 per cent growth.

MTI downgrades Singapore’s 2019 economic growth forecast to 1.5-2.5% on weak outlook. This comes as the economy saw growth of 1.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2019, coming in a notch lower than earlier estimates of 1.3 per cent and revised figures from Q4 2018. This was also below economist expectations of 1.5 per cent. On a sequential basis, the Singapore economy expanded by 3.8 per cent, compared to the 0.8 per cent contraction in the preceding quarter.

Tianjin Zhongxin gets GMP certification for herbal medicinal slices. Anhui Medical Products Administration has recently awarded its wholly-owned subsidiary a certificate of good manufacturing practices (drug GMP certification) for its pharmaceutical products. The subsidiary, Tianjin Darentang (Bozhou) Chinese Herbal Medicinal Slices, develops, manufactures and sells traditional Chinese herbal medicinal slices.

Olam prices US$120m of notes in private placement. The  wholly-owned subsidiary Olam Americas Inc (OAI) has successfully priced a US$120 million issuance of five-year fixed rate notes via a private placement. The notes were placed to nine investors at a fixed coupon of 3.89 per cent for five years. Proceeds from the notes issue will be used by OAI and its US affiliates for the repayment of existing debt and general corporate purposes. Source: SGX Masnet, The Business Times, Bloomberg, Channel NewsAsia, Reuters, PSR