JAKARTA -- Major Indonesian retailer Hero Supermarket has announced that it intends to close most of its hypermarket outlets over the next two months, as the coronavirus pandemic leads to intensified competition from e-commerce and convenience stores.

The company operates 19 supermarket outlets under the Hero brand and 75 larger Giant hypermarkets, according to its website. It said in a stock exchange filing on Tuesday that it was planning to convert five Giant outlets into Ikea stores and close the rest of them by the end of July.

Hero is

PALO ALTO, U.S. -- Tesla has built a new data storage center in mainland China, the American electric vehicle maker said Tuesday, a move made in response to Beijing's forthcoming rules preventing overseas transfers of sensitive information.

The company will expand the center in phases so that the site stores all data generated by its vehicles sold on the Chinese mainland, according to Tesla's release on microblogging platform Weibo.

Chinese authorities released a draft this month for rules concerning the safeguarding of data from vehicles.

HO CHI MINH CITY -- Last April, a shot rang out in Asia's culinary world, its echo still resonating across the continent.

For the first time in its decadelong history, Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list shone a spotlight on Vietnam, ranking contemporary Ho Chi Minh City eatery Anan in 39th place and formally acknowledging it as the country's most innovative restaurant.

For those living in what's colloquially known as Saigon, the recognition was long overdue. As far back as the

JAKARTA -- Indonesia Battery Corp. and a consortium led by South Korea's LG Group are set to soon begin building a $1.2 billion electric vehicle battery plant, the Indonesian investment minister says.

The facility will be constructed in the Kota Deltamas industrial area in Bekasi, West Java Province, about a two-hour drive from Jakarta. The site is near where another South Korean company, carmaker Hyundai Motor, is nearing completion of its first manufacturing plant in Indonesia.

Indonesia, the world's largest

YANGON/BANGKOK -- Myanmar's junta has shared lists of over 1,200 online services and domain names it deems acceptable for public viewing, conspicuously excluding Facebook and Twitter as it looks to curb anti-coup protests, Nikkei Asia learned on Tuesday.

The whitelists -- shared with local internet service providers and telecommunications companies, and obtained by Nikkei from sources in the sector -- contain over 750 services and 450 domains. Nearly 50 companies in the banking and financial sector are

TOKYO -- Japanese plant-based-meat startup Daiz has kicked off preparations to expand into the U.S., tapping that country's fast-growing market for alternative meats with plans to go global.

The company is conducting market research in the U.S. with investor and trading house Marubeni, laying the groundwork for research and development and other operations there after launching Daiz USA in Boston on May 1.

It aims to build an American factory for its soy-based Miracle Meat in 202

YANGON/BANGKOK -- Myanmar's military on Feb. 1 detained State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint in the country's first coup since 1988, bringing an end to a decade of civilian rule.

The Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy had won a landslide in a general election in November . But the military has claimed the election was marred by fraud.

For all our coverage, visit our Myanmar Coup page.

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TOKYO -- Norinchukin Bank, Japan's largest agricultural lender, will spend 10 trillion yen ($91.8 billion) in investments and loans for projects promoting environmental, social and corporate governance goals over the next decade.

This comes to roughly 1 trillion yen a year on ESG funding through the fiscal year ending March 2031, up 70% from the 600 billion yen spent in fiscal 2020.

Norinchukin will urge financing and investment targets to reduce greenhouse gases by

BEIJING -- The execution was as swift as it was unexpected. It also sent shock waves through China's bureaucracy and led to a flurry of self-initiated confessions of accepting bribes.

The speedy execution of Lai Xiaomin, former chairman of China Huarong Asset Management, in January after he was found guilty of accepting 1.79 billion yuan ($279 million) in bribes rattled bureaucrats for the breaking of an unwritten rule against carrying out death sentences for bribery or other financial crimes.

Meanwhile, Qin