Indonesia, S. Korea aim to sign trade deal by Nov

JAKARTA • Indonesia and South Korea agreed yesterday to resume talks on a bilateral trade and investment agreement and aimed to sign a deal by November.

Indonesian Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita told a business conference in Jakarta an agreement could boost two-way trade to US$30 billion (S$41 billion) within three years from US$20 billion in 2018. Indonesia had put the talks on hold in 2014 due to a change of government in Jakarta.

REUTERS

Honda to close its British car factory in 2021

LONDON • Honda will close its only British car plant in 2021 with a loss of up to 3,500 jobs, a major departure of Japanese investment announced just over a month before the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union.

The Japanese firm, which builds a tenth of Britain's 1.5 million cars at its Swindon plant, said the move was not related to Brexit.

REUTERS

Malaysia nears deal with China to revive ECRL

KUALA LUMPUR • Malaysia is making progress in talks with China to revive a high-speed rail project that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government said it would cancel, according to Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah.

China is willing to reduce the US$20 billion (S$27 billion) price tag for the East Coast Rail Link project and talks are "in the last mile", Datuk Saifuddin said in a Bloomberg interview yesterday.

BLOOMBERG

Trump calls talks to remove him 'treasonous'

WASHINGTON • US President Donald Trump said Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein's reported talks about invoking the Constitution to remove him from office were part of an "illegal and treasonous" push against him.

Former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe had said in an interview on Sunday that Mr Rosenstein raised the possibility of removing the President in 2017 after he fired FBI director James Comey.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE