OCTOBERASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK8MICROSOFT TO ONBOARD AMAZON AS A CUSTOMER FOR ITS OFFICE PRODUCTSCHINA'S REAL ESTATE WEAKNESS TO IMPACT ASIAN GROWTH, SAYS IMFAccording to Insider, Microsoft is preparing to add Amazon.com as a customer for its 365 cloud productivity tools in a $1 billion agreement, citing an internal document and a person familiar with the situation. According to the source, the e-commerce giant has committed the sum for more than five years to obtain more than one million Microsoft 365 license seats.Microsoft declined to comment despite its shares rising roughly 1 percent in extended trade following the news. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. According to the article, Amazon will begin implementing the new systems in early November, and the corporation now employs a local, on-premise version of Microsoft's Office products.Microsoft Corporation is a multinational technology company based in Redmond, Washington. The Windows operating system, the Microsoft 365 suite of office programs, and the Edge web browser are among Microsoft's most well-known software products. Its major hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface family of touchscreen PCs. Microsoft was rated 14th in the 2022 Fortune 500 list of the top firms in the United States by total revenue.Amazon is a multinational technology firm based in the United States that specializes in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world" and is widely regarded as one of the world's most valuable brands.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowered its growth projections for China for 2023 and 2024, noting that the country's recovery was "losing steam" and pointing to weakness in the country's real estate market. In a report on the regional economy released on Oct18, the IMF predicted that the world's second-largest economy would grow by five percent this year and 4.25 percent the following year, down from its April forecast of 5.25 percent and 4.55 percent."In China, the recovery is losing steam, with manufacturing purchasing managers' indexes entering contracting territory from April to August and conditions in the real estate sector weakening further," the report stated.The report projected that a prolonged housing market correction in China would in the near-term "Trigger greater financial stress among property developers and larger asset quality deterioration".The impact of that could cause China's gross domestic product (GDP) to decline by as much as 1.6 percent relative to the baseline by 2025, while world GDP would decline by 0.6 percent relative to the baseline, it added. The IMF's outlook for Asia and the Pacific in 2023 was more optimistic, calling it "The most dynamic region this year."The agency maintained its previous growth forecast for the region at 4.6 percent in 2023, and stated that economic activity in the region was on track to contribute roughly two-thirds of global growth this year.However, growth in Asia and the Pacific is expected to slow to 4.2 percent next year. The IMF expects it to fall further in the medium term to 3.9 percent, the lowest in the last two decades except for 2020, as China's structural slowdown and weaker productivity growth in many other economies weigh on the region.NEWSROOM
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