WELLINGTON -- New Zealand achieved 91-percent renewable electricity generation in the June 2023 quarter, a 10-percentage point increase from the June 2022 quarter, according to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) on Thursday.

"This is the highest renewable electricity generation percentage achieved for any June quarter since records began in 1980," said Mike Hayward, manager of the Markets in the Digital, Data & Insights group of MBIE. (New Zealand-Renewable Electricity)

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MANILA -- The Philippines will resume exporting fresh Hass avocados to South Korea later this month, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Thursday.

Agriculture Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban said the commercial shipment will start by the end of September after Seoul approved the market access for Philippine-grown Hass avocados. (Philippines-South Korea-Export)

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SEOUL -- South Korea's export of information and communications technology (ICT) products fell for the 14th month in August amid continued weakness in global demand for locally-made tech products, government data showed Thursday.

ICT products shipment tumbled 16.7 percent from a year earlier to 16.05 billion U.S. dollars in August, continuing to slide since July last year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. (South Korea-ICT Export)

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VIENNA -- The Austrian government announced Wednesday that it would raise pensions by 9.7 percent next year due to high inflation in the country.

The package, worth a total of 5.3 billion euros (5.7 billion U.S. dollars), will cover 2.2 million pensioners in the central European country, said Austria's social affairs minister Johannes Rauch at a press conference. (Austria-Inflation-Pension)