PM Edition: Top 10 Business Articles on LiveNews.co.nz for August 12, 2026 – Full Text

New DHL daily flight service on Boeing 767 freighter strengthens connections between China, Indochina, the Middle East and Europe

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 11 August 2026 – DHL Express has added a new direct flight between Shanghai and Bangkok, increasing capacity on a trade lane linking China and the rapidly growing economies of Indochina. The new flight route, Shanghai-Bangkok-Bahrain*-Brussels-Shanghai, significantly enhances connectivity among manufacturing, sourcing, and consumption markets across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

Operated by a DHL Boeing 767 freighter with a maximum payload of 50 tons, the new daily service demonstrates DHL Express’s ongoing investments in network capacity and infrastructure to strengthen connectivity for customers in high-growth markets. Equally, it also reflects DHL’s constant review of evolving trade patterns and swift action to adapt to those changes.

“This route is a direct response to how trade flows in Asia are shifting,” said Peter Bardens, Senior Vice President for Network Operations & Aviation – Asia Pacific, DHL Express. “We’re seeing increasing movement of goods between China and Southeast Asia, alongside continued demand from customers in Europe and the Middle East for products manufactured across the region. This new route boosts our network where customers need it most, providing additional capacity and more direct connections between key production and consumption markets.”

Bangkok serves as a strategic gateway to the Indochina region, while Bahrain and Brussels are key DHL Express hubs. The introduction of the Shanghai-Bangkok route enables DHL Express to efficiently consolidate shipments originating from China and Southeast Asia before connecting them to destinations across Europe and the Middle East.

The direct flight comes at a time when manufacturers and traders in markets such as Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are sourcing more from China. For many customers, those shipments are part of production chains that stretch across multiple countries. As trade links between China and Southeast Asia deepen, DHL Express is improving speed, flexibility and network resilience for customers moving materials, components and finished products across Asia and onward to global markets. Last month, DHL Express also expanded its Shenzhen gateway, located at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport. The facility can handle 900 tons of cargo daily – approximately three times the original throughput – as it supports booming cross-border trade and e-commerce shipments in China.

At the same time, businesses in Europe and the Middle East continue to trade heavily with their peers in China and Southeast Asia for a wide range of products, from electronics and industrial components to consumer goods. As international business activity remains highly dispersed across global markets rather than concentrating within regions, the new route opens more trading opportunities for businesses while strengthening access for both regions.

As both intra-Asia and global trade flows continue to show resilience, DHL remains focused on investing in its dedicated air network. Another recent example includes the introduction of a new transpacific service by DHL Global Forwarding that connects Southeast Asia and the United States. These expansions seek to better connect businesses to global markets as well as build more agile supply chains.

*Note to editor: Due to the current conflict in Middle East, flights are tentatively diverted to other locations in the Middle East.
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Hashtag: #DHLExpress #Globaltrade #Indochina

DHL – The logistics company for the world

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About Atradius

• Expansion adds first BioReliance® Cell Line Characterization and GMP Next-GenerationSequencingin Asia Pacific
• Enhanced testing capabilities to deliver speed, sensitivity, and sustainability for biopharma customers in the region
• Supports industry shift to molecular methods and animal-free testing

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 11 August 2026 – Merck, a leading science and technology company, is expanding its Singapore lab to further strengthen analytical and biosafety testing services for customers across the Asia Pacific region. Biosafety testing is a critical step in the drug development and manufacturing process, helping to ensure that biologics are safe, effective, and compliant with regulatory requirements.

The expansion builds on Merck’s global testing expertise of more than 75 years and marks a significant milestone in providing an advanced, local contract testing services portfolio for the region’s growing biopharma industry.

“Localizing these BioReliance® testing capabilities means our Asia Pacific biopharma customers can accelerate their development timelines, improve operational efficiency, and meet evolving regulatory and sustainability standards” said Paolo Carli, Head of Advanced Solutions for the Life Science business of Merck. “This investment underscores Merck’s commitment to empowering medicine makers by providing industry-leading analytical and biosafety testing services and technical expertise.”

Merck’s Singapore laboratory will become the first BioReliance® facility in Asia-Pacific to offer both Cell Line Characterization services and GMP next-generation sequencing (NGS) capabilities. It will also offer advanced molecular methods including Blazar®, a proprietary platform for rapid virus detection.

The expanded facility aims to support the industry’s move towards state-of-the-art quality control testing of biologics and 3Rs (Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement of animal use) through advanced molecular methods.

“Merck’s expansion of the BioReliance® lab will bring world-class and next-generation testing services to biopharmaceutical companies in Singapore and the region. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Merck to strengthen Singapore’s ecosystem, build new capabilities within our local workforce, and enable the delivery of innovative therapies to patients,” said Goh Wan Yee, Senior Vice President and Head of Healthcare, Singapore Economic Development Board.

The Singapore BioReliance® lab was opened in 2018, and the expansion will bring the total lab area to over 1,000 square meters. This expansion is also a key step in Merck’s broader strategy to support the region’s dynamic life science ecosystem and drive scientific progress.

Hashtag: #Merck #BioReliance #biosafety

About Merck

The Company further deployed the Dual-Gigabit network joint-entry implementation and made significant progress in implementing special projects such as upgrading signal strength and extending broadband coverage to all border areas, forests and grasslands. We focused on enhancing resource sharing and coordination of network resources in order to fully satisfy our customers’ diverse, high-quality network construction needs, and support the expansion of 5G network penetration and coverage. In the first half of 2026, our TSP business recorded revenue of RMB 40,357 million, a decrease of 5.0% year-on-year.

Tower business. We deepened the implementation of our embedded service mechanism, aligning with TSPs’ network construction planning and comprehensively addressing their demands for network standards/frequency bands. We strengthened the innovative application of regionalized products and comprehensive solutions to fully meet customers’ differentiated needs. Leveraging our extensive site resource data, we proactively conducted coverage analysis to enhance network optimization capabilities, helping TSPs achieve precise planning and precise construction. Focusing on customers’ most pressing concerns, we leveraged the Company’s resource coordination advantages and carried out special initiatives to tackle difficult sites, enhancing construction and delivery efficiency. We fully implemented the integrated coordination of “resources + demand”, actively engaging with network coverage needs in key industries such as culture and tourism, education, and transportation. Adhering to a customer-oriented philosophy, we continued to optimize end-to-end business processes and management standards to serve customers’ network coverage construction efficiently. Impacted by customers’ optimization and adjustment of network deployment, simplified base station upgrades, and the continued development of the unified 4G network by China Telecom and China Unicom, our Tower business revenue in the first half of 2026 reached RMB 35,263 million, a decrease of 6.7% year-on-year. As of 30 June 2026, the Company managed a total of 2.172 million tower sites, an increase of 23,000 sites compared to the end of 2025. TSP tenants reached 3.565 million, a decrease of 2,000 compared to the end of 2025. Our TSP tenancy ratio was 1.69.

DAS business. We continued to focus on high-value and livelihood-critical scenarios, strengthening resource coordination, joint construction and shared development. In support of the implementation of the Technical Standard for Engineering of Mobile Communication Infrastructure in Buildings, we accelerated engagement with newly constructed building projects and coordinated the synchronized planning and construction of supporting telecommunications facilities, achieving early resource deployment and efficient rollout. We continued to enhance product and service competitiveness, and steadily advanced iterative 5G network upgrades on high-speed railways, upgraded signal strength to tackle coverage in elevators and underground parking lots and deployed shared repeaters at scale in everyday scenarios such as tunnels and residential communities, helping TSPs achieve efficient, intensive and low-cost expansion of indoor and outdoor network coverage. In the first half of 2026, our DAS business revenue reached RMB 5,094 million, an increase of 9.2% year-on-year. As of 30 June 2026, we had covered buildings with a cumulative area of 16.17 billion square meters, while the coverage in railway tunnels and subways reached a cumulative length of 36,111 kilometers.

Consolidated advantages to drive rapid growth of Two Wings business

The Company continued to strengthen product innovation and optimized business planning to improve core competencies and drive the continued rapid growth of our Two Wings business. In the first half of 2026, revenues from our Two Wings business reached RMB 7,923 million, accounting for 16.3% of our overall operating revenue and representing an increase of 2.3 percentage points over the same period last year.

Smart Tower business. Focusing on spatial digital intelligence governance, we continued to deepen our presence in key sectors and key scenarios. More than 260,000 “digital towers” now serve over 10 industries, including land and resources, emergency response, water conservancy, and environmental protection, with our market share steadily improving in key areas such as straw burning prohibition, farmland protection, and disaster alert. We deepened resource sharing on the distributed platform and optimized algorithm iteration for mid-to-high points. We continued to implement the “AI+” special project, deepening the application of large models for spatial digital intelligence governance and promoting the innovative upgrading of industry application scenarios. We actively positioned ourselves in emerging fields such as the low-altitude economy, accelerating the R&D of related products. We continued to uphold a customer-oriented philosophy, improved our high-standard service system and the development of local technical support teams, strengthened full-process support for product iteration and development, project construction and delivery, and operation and maintenance, and continuously enhanced customer satisfaction. In the first half of 2026, our Smart Tower business achieved revenue of RMB 5,332 million, a year-on-year increase of 12.8%. Of which, RMB 3,200 million was generated from Tower Monitoring business, accounting for 60.0% of our Smart Tower business.

Energy business. We focused on developing key business segments including battery exchange and power backup. By leveraging our core strengths in product, service, and platform, we continued to refine the quality of our operations and solidify our competitive advantages in the market. For the battery exchange business, we strengthened our presence in the consumer express delivery and food delivery sectors and strengthened the refined operation of our user base, reinforcing customer retention with high-quality service. As of 30 June 2026, we had approximately 1.493 million battery exchange users, an increase of 16,000 from the end of 2025, further maintaining our leading position in the market. We accelerated the deployment of our community charging infrastructure network for low-speed electric vehicles, enabling service upgrades and continuously expanding our service coverage and user base. For the power backup business, we focused on key industry sectors, analyzed customers’ core needs, strengthened platform and service capability development, stepped up the promotion of comprehensive industry solutions, and continued to enhance the influence of the China Tower “energy butler” brand. In the first half of 2026, our Energy business achieved revenue of RMB 2,591 million, a year-on-year increase of 17.3%. Of which, the battery exchange business accounted for RMB 1,595 million, up by 20.6% year-on-year, contributing 61.6% of the Energy business revenue.

Innovation-driven development with steadily enhanced technological capabilities

Focused on the “One Core and Two Wings” strategy, the Company concentrated its resources on solving technological challenges, accelerating the commercialization of research achievements, and fostering the development of new quality productive forces. In the first half of the year, our R&D investment and R&D team size increased by 23% and 22%, respectively, while patent applications and patent authorizations grew by 15% and 132%, respectively, compared to the same period last year. One technological achievement received the second prize of the State Science and Technology Progress Award, and we led the initiation of two additional international standards. A series of innovative products achieved large-scale commercial application, including new 5G leaky cables, the Tower Monitoring platform, video AI algorithms for mid-to-high points, and the integrated energy service platform. The cumulative number of technological achievements and the number of achievements deployed at scale increased by 43% and 57%, respectively, from the end of 2025. The spatial governance data set of our Tower Monitoring network was recognized as an outstanding achievement among the high-quality industry data sets of central state-owned enterprises, while our digital intelligence IoT integrated governance scenario was included among the strategic high-value AI scenarios for central state-owned enterprises. Our technology innovation system continued to improve, with the high-quality development of our six technological innovation centers. We joined the innovation consortia and technology commercialization consortia of central enterprises for fields including the low-altitude economy, robotics, and quantum technology.

Mr. Zhang Zhiyong, Chairman of China Tower said, “In the first half of 2026, we actively seized the opportunities brought about by the national strategies of ‘Cyberpower’, ‘Digital China’, and ‘Dual Carbon’ goals. Looking ahead, we will remain anchored in the ‘One Core and Two Wings’ strategic positioning, focusing on strengthening our core capabilities and competitiveness, further deepening resource sharing, and improving operating efficiency, to create greater value for shareholders, customers, and society.”

Source: Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland

TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2026

Understanding how Big Tech became so powerful starts with understanding corporations themselves, says Professor Susan Watson in a new paper.

When it comes to the unchecked growth and dominance of corporate titans, we’ve failed to learn the lessons of history, argues University of Auckland Professor Susan Watson in an article examining how Big Tech companies have accumulated power increasingly akin to that of governments.

In her paper Reining in Big Tech Corporations: Why Platform Governance Requires Structural Regulation<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6850220>, the Auckland Law and Business School academic says companies such as Amazon, Meta and Google no longer compete within markets. Instead, they own essential digital infrastructure, control platforms on which people and businesses depend, and set many of the rules for operating within them.

Corporations, says Watson, are often misunderstood as essentially private businesses, when in fact they are legal entities created and empowered by States. She says that misunderstanding has helped obscure the source of Big Tech’s power and contributed to the failure to adequately rein it in.

She argues the process of incorporation creates what the law treats as an artificial legal person, with its own legal status and powers. When a business is incorporated, it can own property, enter contracts, make its own internal rules and continue to exist even as the people behind it change. It can also hold onto invested money and use it to generate more wealth over time.

“Capitalism is both one of humanity’s greatest inventions, the greatest source of prosperity the world has ever seen, and a menace on the verge of destroying our planet and destabilising society,” she says. “Big Tech corporations are the latest and most potent manifestation.”

The paper, which will form part of a Cambridge University Press collection edited by Professor Alexandra Andhov, draws parallels with earlier periods when a few businesses became extraordinarily powerful.

The English East India Company was granted powers normally associated with governments, including the ability to make laws in territories where it held monopoly trading rights and, later, the right to collect taxes in India.

In the late 19th-century United States, corporations came to control key infrastructure such as railways and oil and, by 1890, three-quarters of the country’s wealth. That growth was eventually reined in through the 1890 Sherman Act, the first US competition law, and corporations controlling key infrastructure were broken up by the State.

Watson argues today’s tech titans represent a new version of this concentration of corporate power, but on digital rather than physical territory.

Their influence can also extend to governments: they lobby against laws that could restrict their activities and increasingly position governments as customers or partners for their technology.
Her paper proposes several possible approaches. Banning surveillance-based business models, limiting Big Tech companies’ claims over data, and requiring major platforms to be licensed, with conditions attached to their continued operation.

Another possibility is giving people affected by these companies a greater say in how they are governed. Watson points to New Zealand’s Whanganui River, which was given legal personhood as part of a system allowing different groups to share responsibility for its governance. She suggests a similar idea could be applied to major technology platforms, with governance rights given to people affected by them and public regulators and the State providing oversight.

Watson says the people who interact closely with these companies, particularly their employees and users, could reasonably expect their interests to be considered.

“Corporations have been likened to Frankenstein’s monster. They are artificial persons created by man. Just as we make them, we can unmake them, or reform and re-form them in a way that serves us all rather than just the gilded few.”

Watson will continue the conversation about Big Tech’s power at a New Zealand Centre for Leadership and Governance panel discussion on Wednesday 12 August 2026, alongside Honorary Associate Professor Jonathan Hardman and tech researcher Matt Bartlett.

The panel will explore how Big Tech accumulated its power, what today’s laws get right and wrong in responding to it, and what a fairer digital future could look like for regulators and everyday users.