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Taiwan's Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) recently announced guidelines for the 11th round of COVID-19 vaccinations. Those eligible for the first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech, and the second dose of either Moderna or AstraZeneca PLC respectively may start booking their appointments next week. Questions were also raised on whether different vaccine brands may be taken as substitutes due to the significantly higher count of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines available compared to the other brands.

The Malaysian Ministry of Health declared that 9,380 new COVID-19 cases were detected in the last 24 hours, accounting for a 6.4 percent increase from the previous day's record of 8,817 cases. This is also noted to be the fourth day in a row of recording less than 10,000 cases. The breakdown of cases according to location includes Sarawak and Kelantan had 1,503 and 1,170 cases, respectively. Overall, Malaysia cases are now at a total of 2,303,837 since the beginning of the pandemic.

India’s BPO market is currently set to reach a valuation of $8.8 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 5.8%. New guidelines given by the Indian government earlier this year for BPO and ITES industries regarding remote work allowed BPO firms to "improve scale and speed of services." These have also helped India become a tougher competitor in the industry against other countries such as Philippines and Malaysia.

The government has recently announced that the BPO and KPO sector will no longer be considered as intermediary services, resulting in the absolving of the 18% GST. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) also explained that intermediary services are only applicable to those who supply to or receive services from locations outside of India as well as arrangements including more than two parties.

Outsourcing has always been and will always be a reliable way for companies to cut costs while still attaining quality services. When the economy is doing well, business expansion is seen as an opportunity, and the most efficient way to achieve that is through outsourcing. Alternatively, outsourcing also became a solution for corporations that were pushed to significantly decrease their costs such as labor to avoid losses due to the current state of the economy. These, along with the variety of services now being offered including data analytics, healthcare, and software development, allow the Philippine BPO sector to remain a stable industry.