■ Finance
APEC says SMEs need cash
A new APEC report has found that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Taiwan's tourism industry are facing difficulties in getting access to financial assistance. The findings are outlined in the Development Needs of Small- to Medium-Sized Tourism Businesses report prepared by the APEC International Center for Sustainable Tourism (AICST). The difficulty in obtaining financial assistance was found to be particularly damaging for the growing "homestay" sector, according to the report. AICST executive director Lan Kean said that despite the homestay sector becoming increasingly professional, there is still concern that business owners are having difficulty getting access to financial assistance from many institutions.
■ Airlines
Cathay to recruit new staff
Cathay Pacific Airways is recruiting 500 new cabin crew staff to handle additional flights as the airline eyes the expansion of its fleet, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Cathay, which currently employs a cabin crew of about 5,700, will hire an extra 400 Hong Kong-based flight attendants and 100 to be based in London, said Cathay spokeswoman Maria Yu. Yu said Cathay plans to expand its 85-aircraft fleet, and is currently negotiating with Boeing Co and Airbus to buy new passenger jets. She declined to give details. Without citing sources, local newspapers reported that Cathay was planning to order from Boeing and Airbus nine new wide-bodied jets worth between US$1 billion to US$1.5 billion.
■ Internet
Amazon offers campaign site
Shoppers at online retailer Amazon.com Inc can now spend money on something new -- US presidential candidates. A new feature that debuted on Friday collects campaign contributions of up to US$200 for US presidential candidates. Amazon said it is not endorsing any candidates and is charging each campaign its usual processing fees for the payments, which it will donate to a non-profit, non-partisan civil group. So far the campaign contributions page (www.amazon.com/gp/misc/flag.html) lists 17 presidential hopefuls, in alphabetical order, including US President George W. Bush. Among others, by early yesterday Democratic poll leader John Kerry had garnered 62 contributions totaling $1,699 at Amazon.com, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean had had 72 for a total of US$1,095.01 and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik had had 26 contributions totaling US$252 at the site.
■ Engineering
Bechtel gets Qatari contract
US engineering giant Bechtel signed yesterday a US$5 billion contract to build a new airport for the Qatari capital of Doha, the head of the Gulf emirate's civil aviation authority announced. The first of three stages in the construction of the new airport would be completed in 2008 at a cost of US$2.5 billion, Abdul Aziz al-Nuaimi told a press conference. "The airport will be one of the biggest in the world with an [annual] capacity of 50 million passengers in Qatar" when it is finished around 2015, he said. The chief executive of Qatar Airways, Akbar al-Baker, announced last month that tenders were going out for the first phase, adding that it would boost capacity to 12 million passengers.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained