Cross-border lending in Asia Pacific continues to grow steadily despite external factors such as COVID-19. While the region is not immune to external factors, borrowing volumes for financial institutions, credit funds and other market participants remain high in Asia Pacific. Considering the demographics of many of the nations, the various financial centers and many market participants investing more substantially in some of those financial centers, we remain optimistic that lending activity across Asia Pacific will continue to grow.

In December 2019, Myanmar’s first Anti-dumping Law (“ADL“) was passed by the Assembly of the Union of Myanmar (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw), marking the introduction of a legal framework for the imposition of anti-dumping measures in Myanmar for the first time. Although Myanmar has been a member of the World Trade Organization (“WTO“) since 1995, Myanmar did not have a national anti-dumping law until the passing of the ADL. The new legislation is expected to enter into force on 1 July 2021.

The Malaysia Competition Commission has initiated the process of amending the Competition Act 2010 to introduce merger control regulations and the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs is planning to table the legislative amendments to the Act by the end of 2021. Once in force, mergers and acquisitions which exceed certain thresholds will need to be reviewed and approved by the MyCC.

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