Daily Briefing: Grab eyes cheaper fares following Toyota partnership; AVA assures alternative sources for eggs

And Grab sees no impact on its network following Go-Jek’s expansion.

From Channel News Asia:

Grab users could see cheaper fares in the long term as drivers leverage on Toyota’s total care service which uses vehicle data to optimise maintenance and insurance costs.

The comments by Russell Cohen, Grab's head of regional operations, came as the company and Toyota Motor announced that the carmaker would offer its specially designed mobility services for ride-hailing companies to 1,500 GrabRentals-owned Prius' from next year.

Total-care service - which uses data collected from sensors embedded into the vehicle to provide drivers with more cost-efficient and timely maintenance services - is the world's first service specially developed for ride-hailing companies, said Toyota.

Amongst the services provided include fleet management, automotive insurance and vehicle maintenance packages.

Read more here.

From Yahoo! News Singapore:

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) assured that there is a wide range of alternative sources for eggs amidst Malaysia’s plans to limit or stop egg exports in a bid to ensure sufficient supply for its domestic market.

Malaysian domestic trade and consumer affairs minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said that egg prices had been rising every week for the past month. “We will study if stopping the export is reasonable or not, even if it is for a short term. If it helps to reduce the price of eggs and benefit the people, we will definitely look into it,” he added.

About 73% of eggs in Singapore are from Malaysia with around a quarter being produced here, according to AVA. Less than 1% are imported from accredited farms in Thailand, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

Read more here.

From Deal Street Asia:

Go-Jek’s Southeast Asian expansion had no initial impact on the number of transactions and drivers on Grab’s network according to regional operations head Russell Cohen.

“It’s still early days obviously, but we’re very focused on what we’ve been doing all along, which is ensuring customer quality and safety and being relevant to our users. There are lots of competitors in each of our markets so we treat this no differently,” he added.

Grab claims to work with 8.5 million ‘micro-entrepreneurs’ across the region. Of these, 4 million are drivers and the rest are merchants and agents, including those part of Indonesian firm Kudo’s network.

Go-Jek has been revving up its overseas presence after Grab announced the acquisition of Uber’s Southeast Asia business in March this year. Apart from its Indonesian home base, Go-Jek is now also present in Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand.

Read more here.