Authorities in Vientiane Capital are struggling to control unlicensed currency exchange businesses amid a widening gap between official and market exchange rates.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 27 April 2022 – MetaSnake comes with the “Genesis Ancient Spirit NFT” featuring three major empowerment benefits, which are “ecosystem benefits,” “game benefits,” and “asset benefits.” Holders do not just put the concept of “Play to Earn” into practice in a single game but all the Blockchain games launched by METASENS in the future. The public minting has been arranged to hold at 12:30 a.m on May 5th, which is expected to be a two-day event. The price is fixed at 1BNB and the quantity is restricted to 200 pieces.
Attracted 30,000 GameFi players by unique core gameplay
MetaSnake is based on the classic game “Snake,” in which players need to consume crystals to lengthen their teams and participate in a PvP combat for magnets, scythes, energy drinks, and running shoes to beat their opponents. 30,000 players from the United States, Germany, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam joined in the beta test. Launched in April, MetaSnake is made available to the public on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.
The game is completely free to earn, allowing people to unwittingly enter the world of GameFi. Players who make it to the Top500 will be rewarded MSU and UCG tokens, both of which are available on the AAX exchange and can be easily exchanged for USDT. The winner in a recent season won over US$2,200 in equivalent value. When players equip characters with NFTs, they will be able to earn tokens more effectively.
Hold MetaSnake NFTs to enjoy three major empowerment benefits
The project recently has introduced three major empowerment benefits to community members. The first benefit is ‘ecosystem benefit,’ which will occasionally distribute airdrop prizes based on revenue growth. 50,000 MSUs worth US$150,000 were issued in the first quarter of this year. Furthermore, NFT holders will get reward-weighted when they participate in community events.
The second feature is “Game benefit,” which includes assured player’s access to all new MetaSnake characters in the future, as well as a first deposit bonus. The project will also release a special “Mystery NFT” in May, which players can burn it for claiming a commemorative avatar, weighted token bonuses, and genetic potions. Furthermore, NFT holders will be able to compete in a unique Battle Pass competition in the game, which will directly reward them with UCG tokens.
Last but not least, there are also the “asset benefits.” The project is now starting the minting event for “Genesis Ancient Spirit NFTs,” which are limited to 5,000 pieces and will never be produced again. If a player has more than two NFTs, they can use the derivation function to claim more Ancient Spirit NFTs, which can be traded in the market to increase their assets or power up characters in the game.
Based on the concept of “One Ticket to the end,” METASENS will airdrop new NFTs to players for experiencing the fun of each newly-launched game.
METASENS is funded by a Hong Kong-listed company, “Imperium Technology Group Limited.” Any NFT holder can join METASENS and contribute to the project’s goal of creating a “playable” cosmic amusement park. The public sales will begin at 12:30 p.m on May 5th. The price is 1BNB and the quantity is restricted to 200 pieces.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach – 27 April 2022 – Two years into the pandemic, owners of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in South and Southeast Asia are optimistic about their future economic and business growth prospects and plan to expand this year. But many highlight a gap between how well protected they are and the risks they currently face, according to the Sun Life Asia Business Growth and Resilience Index.
The index is based on a Sun Life survey of around 2,400 SME business owners in seven Asian markets: Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam in late 2021, which found:
74% expect the financial position of their business to improve in 2022 and 70% expect their national economic situation to improve.
84% have plans to expand or grow their business in 2022, with the top plans being to expand their product offering (44%), digitizing to grow the business (30%), hiring new employees (30%), and expanding into new industries (22%).
46% of respondents reported the pandemic has had a negative impact on their business, however, 19% said their business fared a lot better in the pandemic.
More than 90% had adapted their business strategy to navigate the pandemic, including adding new methods of distribution (51%), virtualizing the business (43%) and offering new products (33%).
Pandemic and health-related risks (51%), decreasing demand (43%) and increasing market competition (41%) are the top three risks facing SMEs.
“The pandemic has created tremendous challenges for businesses over the past two years, so we are glad that business owners now see a more positive outlook for 2022,” said Jay Sala, Head of Strategy, Investment Management & Client Impact, Sun Life Asia. “We produced the Sun Life Business Growth and Resilience Index to better understand how confident business owners feel about their growth prospects and how resilient their business is in this highly uncertain environment. It shows that SME business owners have a healthy level of optimism for improved growth prospects this year, but this is counterbalanced with the knowledge that they are still more vulnerable to some risks than they would like, particularly the impacts of the pandemic. Successfully navigating the turbulence requires equal measures of planning for growth and building resilience.”
Growth Index shows optimism for the future
The Sun Life Business Growth Index analyzes the sentiment of business owners towards the general economic situation, their financial position and growth plans in 2022. It found Asian business owners are optimistic about growth prospects in 2022, with a score of 65 out of 100 for Asia overall.
Business owners in Indonesia (76) and India (74) are most optimistic about the outlook, while entrepreneurs in Singapore (62) and Hong Kong (51) are more cautious. Manufacturing industries including automotive (75), chemical & petroleum (74) and mining (72) are highlighted are particularly positive compared to others.
Resilience Index shows resilience is borderline
The Sun Life Resilience Index is based on business owners’ perceptions of the severity of 15 business risks and their preparedness for managing them. It shows Asian business owners feel they sit on the borderline of resilience with a score of 55 out of 100 for Asia overall.
Business owners in Indonesia (60), Philippines (56) and Malaysia (56) feel they are somewhat better prepared for business risks than those in other markets such as India (53) and Hong Kong (52).
According to the survey, pandemic and health-related risks are the most severe challenge for business owners, however less than half of respondents were using risk mitigation tools to build resilience to health risks. Only 46% of respondents have personal health and accident insurance, 34% had employee health and accident insurance, and just 20% had key man insurance in place.
Sala said, “Many SME businesses still face a health risk protection gap. Proactively taking action to mitigate the impact of these health risks can build greater resilience in business operations and provide owners and employees with greater security and ultimately peace of mind. Sun Life can help business owners to build greater resilience so they can navigate the uncertain environment and achieve their growth ambitions. We partner with our Clients for impact, helping them to secure their financial future and build a legacy that will last for generations.”
The study found the Covid 19 pandemic has had a disparate impact on SME businesses. While almost half (46%) report their business suffered a negative impact in the pandemic, one fifth reported a positive change in performance. Owners who experienced a positive impact were more likely to have innovated and adapted their strategies such as by adding new distribution methods, virtualizing the business and offering new products. By contrast, owners who experienced negative performance often used price and workforce reductions and delayed investments to overcome challenges.
In the Philippines, 33% of owners experiencing a positive impact from the pandemic had adopted new distribution methods, compared to 22% of owners suffering negative effects. In Singapore, 27% of owners who experienced a positive impact had virtualized aspects of their business, compared to 14% who experienced a negative impact. In Malaysia, 21% of owners with a positive performance had adapted and offered new products, compared to 11% of those whose businesses were negatively affected.
Sala said, “The results show that adaptation and innovation have played a decisive role in helping businesses capture new opportunities in a rapidly changing environment, and digitalization is at the core of many successful SME strategies.”
To know more about the index details, please click here.
About Sun Life
Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization providing insurance, wealth and asset management solutions to individual and corporate Clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of December 31, 2021, Sun Life had total assets under management of $1.44 trillion. For more information please visit www.sunlife.com.
Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF.
#SunLifeFinance
The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA – Media OutReach – 27 April 2022 – SIBUR, the largest integrated petrochemicals company in Russia and one of the fastest-growing companies in the global petrochemicals industry, has launched the Green Formula forestation initiative as part of a wide-reaching decarbonisation strategy.
In 2022, SIBUR will plant more than one million trees in five regions of Russia where the Company operates, increasing this number to at least five million by 2025. SIBUR also expects to pilot the issuance of carbon credits at a carbon monitoring site in the Voronezh Region.
The launch of the Green Formula comes as SIBUR pursues a business expansion on the Chinese market in support of the Company’s long-term development. The Company sees particular growth potential in regard to China’s green agenda and the country’s aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. This synergizes with SIBUR’s robust sustainability goals, including the Company’s push to increase production of environmentally friendly products and boost the share of renewable feedstock in its output.
During the current year, SIBUR will partner with the forestry units of local schools in Russia to plant 500,000 seedlings in regions of Central Russia and the Far East. The initiative includes a set of measures to support the development of regional ecosystems, such as fitting out forest facilities to monitor rooting and take care of the seedlings, in addition to providing methodological assistance to teachers, developing an educational programme and providing support for scientific research in schools.
Another 500,000 seedlings will take root at the carbon monitoring site set up by SIBUR and the Voronezh Region government on the grounds of the Morozov Voronezh State University of Forestry and Technologies. The Green Formula site will occupy 155 hectares in 2022 and will be expanded to more than 2,600 hectares in the future. SIBUR is considering this site as the location for a pilot project on issuing carbon credits.
About SIBUR
SIBUR is Russia’s largest integrated petrochemical company and one of the fastest growing global petrochemical players, with approximately 50,000 employees. The Company’s unique vertically integrated business model enables it to deliver highly competitive products used in the consumer goods and automotive industries, as well as construction, energy, chemistry and other industries across 100 countries.
SIBUR helps to reduce CO2 emissions stemming from the burning of oil and gas extraction by-products by processing them into valuable petrochemical products.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA – Media OutReach – 27 April 2022 –SIBUR, the largest petrochemicals company in Russia and one of the fastest growing in the global petrochemicals industry, has launched the Green Formula forestation initiative as part of its wide-reaching decarbonisation strategy.
SIBUR will plant this year more than one million trees in five regions of Russia where it operates, increasing this number to at least five million by 2025. The Company may also start issuing carbon credits at a carbon monitoring site in the Voronezh Region in central Russia.
The launch of the Green Formula comes as SIBUR pursues a business expansion in South-East Asia in support of the Company’s long-term development. SIBUR sees particular growth potential for South-East Asia as the region goes ahead with its green agenda as part of the world-wide initiative to reach carbon neutrality in future. This synergizes with SIBUR’s robust sustainability goals, including the Company’s push to increase production of environmentally friendly products and boost the share of renewable feedstock in output.
During the current year, SIBUR will partner with the forestry units of local schools in Russia to plant 500,000 seedlings in central Russia and the Far East. Another 500,000 seedlings will take root at the carbon monitoring site set up by SIBUR and the Voronezh Region’s government. The Green Formula site will occupy 155 hectares in 2022 and will be expanded to more than 2,600 hectares in the future. SIBUR is considering this site as the location for a pilot project on issuing carbon credits.
About SIBUR
SIBUR is Russia’s largest integrated petrochemical company and one of the fastest growing global petrochemical players, with approximately 50,000 employees. The Company’s unique vertically integrated business model enables it to deliver highly competitive products used in the consumer goods and automotive industries, as well as construction, energy, chemistry and other industries across 100 countries.
SIBUR helps to reduce CO2 emissions stemming from the burning of oil and gas extraction by-products by processing them into valuable petrochemical products.
With this partnership, Cloud Comrade’s customers will reap the benefits of New Relic’s unified data platform, including improved uptime, operational efficiency, and greater innovation and growth.
SINGAPORE – Media OutReach – 27 April 2022 – Cloud Comrade, a Singapore-based cloud computing consultancy and managed services provider (MSP), has partnered with New Relic to bring its cloud-based observability platform, New Relic, to customers across the Southeast Asian region.
With New Relic, customers will gain access to Full-Stack Observability through a unified data platform that covers every stage of the software lifecycle, eliminating tool sprawl and data silos. Engineers will be able to easily access all telemetry data – metrics, events, logs and traces – on the unified data layer, complete with powerful full stack analysis tools to help them move past the “what” to uncover the “why”. With New Relic, they will be able to improve planning cycle times, decrease change failure rates, accelerate release frequency, and reduce mean time to resolution.
The solution is delivered through a usage-based pricing model, enabling companies to maximize value from their data. Customers will get to enjoy cost and time savings, with the usage-based consumption pricing that’s intuitive, predictable, and delivers more value for the money over the old subscription-based pricing model.
Unleash the full power of cloud for Cloud Comrade customers
As an existing user of New Relic itself, Cloud Comrade is excited to partner with New Relic to bring the same exceptional experience to organizations across Southeast Asia.
As one of the leading born-in-the-cloud Managed Services Providers, Cloud Comrade has served more than 500 customers in the ASEAN region in the past eight years. It is the first Singapore-headquartered AWS Premier Consulting Partner, and also holds Google Premier Partnership and Microsoft Gold Cloud Platform partnership. Cloud Comrade’s customers range from small and medium enterprises to large multinationals that are in almost every industry. In recent years, it has rapidly expanded into financial services to serve FinTechs, insurance companies and banks.
Hence, when Cloud Comrade outgrew its previous cloud-monitoring solution, the company started looking for a new, modern offering that could support its multi-cloud customers with stringent security and compliance requirements. Over the course of six months, Cloud Comrade conducted a thorough evaluation of modern observability solutions from various vendors that could help it to rapidly scale well into the future, choosing to partner with New Relic.
The experience with the New Relic platform has been positive thus far, and New Relic has helped to reduce the complexity for Cloud Comrade’s managed services engineers, enabling the company to serve customers better and deliver value by reducing incident response time up to 20%. Besides being cost-effective, New Relic also provided Cloud Comrade with new service options that widened their managed services portfolio, such as Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and log management.
“Observability of cloud workloads is one of Cloud Comrade’s key service areas, and with that, New Relic sits at the center of our core business. We were extremely satisfied with New Relic, who acutely understood our needs, our growth stage, and treated us as a partner rather than a customer. Cloud Comrade believes that our customers will benefit immensely from New Relic’s industry-leading observability service, in particular, those in the finance sector that run compliance-heavy applications and face stringent regulations. Leveraging New Relic, we are now poised to offer a wider set of capabilities, reduce false positives more effectively, and make better recommendations for workload optimization for our customers.”, says Andy Waroma, Co-managing Director, Cloud Comrade.
Commenting on the partnership, Stewart Cochrane, Senior Director, Alliances & Channels APJ at New Relic, says, “2022 is the “year of the partner” at New Relic, and it is exciting to have Cloud Comrade join our Partner Program. As one of Southeast Asia’s leading born-in-the-cloud Managed Services Providers, they will provide our mutual customers with New Relic’s Observability Platform, combined with the expertise and specialized services of the Cloud Comrade organization.”
About Cloud Comrade
Cloud Comrade (https://cloudcomrade.com) is a Singapore-based cloud computing consultancy company with a regional footprint in Indonesia and Malaysia. The company offers a comprehensive range of services from strategy and design to deployment, migration, and management of customers’ IT infrastructure. Cloud Comrade partners with the best solution providers in the field of cloud computing and is a preferred Amazon Web Services (AWS) consulting partner in ASEAN, as well as a managed service provider for AWS, Google, and Alibaba Cloud. In January 2019, ST Telemedia (https://sttelemedia.com), an active strategic investor specializing in communications & media, data centers, and infrastructure technology businesses, acquired a majority stake in the company. For more information on Cloud Comrade, visit cloudcomrade.com
The competition awarded £16,000 to student entrepreneurs who are breaking boundaries
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – News Direct – 27 April 2022 – Following the launch of UNiDAYS‘ fourth annual ‘Student Women of the Year’ competition last month, UNiDAYS is pleased to announce this year’s winner. After reviewing from women studying at over 220 different universities across the globe, from Tasmania to Texas, the top prize has been granted to Yanti Peng, 21, an undergraduate at University of News South Wales and Creative Director and co-leader of ‘Uplift‘ – who is awarded a £10,000 grant to further her impact.
Yanti Peng
Leaning into the International Women’s Day theme of #BreaktheBias, Yanti impressed the judges with her Sydney-based, student-run social enterprise ‘Uplift’ – a multi week upskilling workshop for the disadvantaged. It provides young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness with the opportunity to learn and experiment with the creative arts including Adobe Photoshop, fabric sewing, t-shirt design and screen printing. Uplift has worked with youth organisations including ‘Project Youth’ and ‘Oasis’.
UNiDAYS shortlisted six stand-out entries from all the inspiring young leaders who entered. Award-winning environmental activist, CEO and author, Maya Penn, leading British vlogger, Georgia Rankin, and Mariel Richards, CEO at Gal-Dem then decided on the winners and runners-up.
Rankin states, ‘It has been a privilege working with UNiDAYS on their ‘Student Women of the Year’ campaign – celebrating inspiring female entrepreneurs. All of the finalists were incredible, and it was a very tough decision to choose a favourite from all the strong entries! A HUGE congratulations to Yanti. Keep inspiring and I’m so excited to see what the future holds for you!’.
As well as being crowned the Student Women of the Year winner, Yanti will also be a SWOTY ambassador for the next year, working with UNiDAYS to share her progress and inspire others.
The runners-up, who will be awarded £1,000 respectively, were:
● Wadi Ben-Hirki (25, UK) – founder of Wadi Ben-Hirki Foundation, which focuses on gender equality, quality education and peace building. Wahdi has a masters degree from The University of Sussex in International Education and Development.
● Gaia Cawley (21, UK) – Psychology and Criminology student at Nottingham Trent University. After being diagnosed with dyslexia, she wanted to change the narrative of this opportunity gap. She launched a self-help YouTube channel called ‘Gaia Rose’, building a community of young people and offering resources, making education accessible to all.
● Saskia Chelliah (21, UK) – alongside her degree at The Royal Veterinary College London, Saskia is the Vice President of ‘Animal Aspirations’ – a student-led organisation which aims to increase diversity within the veterinary world, encouraging young children from ethnically diverse backgrounds to consider working with animals.
● Emily Hale(24, UK) – Physio-Therapy student and founder of ‘Build and Breathe Scoliosis’. The company holds free resources for those with scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine – both educational, in conversation with surgeons, healthcare practitioners and mental health coaches, alongside practical advice including stretching and self-management.
● Meg Phillips(23, AUS) – Electronics Engineering student at UTAS, Australia. Whilst breaking gender stereotypes, her aim is to develop a roadkill mitigation device to alleviate roadkill in Tasmania, helping to decrease mortality of Australian species (many of which are endangered/threatened) and also reduce physical and psychological injury to drivers.
Pretty Munro, Global Marketing Director, UNiDAYS, says: “This year’s Student Women of the Year competition focused on entrepreneurship and aimed to empower those who have taken risks and made sacrifices to bring about change – overcoming stereotypes and breaking boundaries to create real value – not just economically, but societally, culturally and environmentally.
This generation of students is expected to be the most entrepreneurial ever with over 54% of Gen Z wanting to start their own business. Through our competition, we wanted to inspire the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, and help make their dreams a reality. Yanti, in particular, is a great example of a role model, paving the way for the next generation of young leaders.
To date, UNiDAYS has awarded £23,000 to women students to support their dreams and goals, however this year is our biggest prize fund yet. We can’t wait to see what Yanti does with it.”
Running from 2nd – 27th March 2022, the competition was open to all women students. Centred around the theme of #BreakBoundaries, the campaign focused on individuals who are breaking it down to build it better and succeeding, putting a spotlight on those doing so to inspire others to follow.
Each participant posted a short 60-second video, showcasing how they have been breaking boundaries, and outlining their plans for how they would spend the £10,000 grant to further their impact. Entrants were judged based on the content and creativity of the video, how well they explained how and what they are changing/contributing, how candidates will use the £10,000, and to what extent their project is breaking boundaries, and making the world a better place.
About UNiDAYS
UNiDAYS is the world’s leading Student Affinity Network, with a verified global audience of over 20 million student members across 115 countries.
UNiDAYS works with 800 of the world’s biggest brands globally, taking their products and services into the hearts and minds of tomorrow’s professionals, by inspiring Gen Z to discover and connect with the brands and services they need. Its global members have spent more than $5 billion through the UNiDAYS marketplace since 2018.
Through its identity technology, secure brand-safe environment and marketing solutions, UNiDAYS delivers reach and engagement for brand partners, maximising sales and building long-term affinity, at scale and speed across a full range of channels.
The company has over 200 staff, with headquarters in Nottingham, UK, and with offices in London, New York and Sydney.
www.sunlife.com. 
https://www.sibur.ru/en/ 
https://www.sibur.ru/en/ 
https://cloudcomrade.com) is a Singapore-based cloud computing consultancy company with a regional footprint in Indonesia and Malaysia. The company offers a comprehensive range of services from strategy and design to deployment, migration, and management of customers’ IT infrastructure. Cloud Comrade partners with the best solution providers in the field of cloud computing and is a preferred Amazon Web Services (AWS) consulting partner in ASEAN, as well as a managed service provider for AWS, Google, and Alibaba Cloud. In January 2019, ST Telemedia (
www.myunidays.com. 
