■ Petroleum
Coffee coming to CPC
Europe's largest coffee shop chain Cup&Cino will open coffee shops at the petrol stations of China Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油), a newspaper said yesterday. "Under the contract, Cup&Cino will open coffee outlets at six CPC petrol stations, charging NT$40 (US$1) per cup of coffee," the Apple Daily reported. "The six Cup&Cino coffee shops are all in Taipei City. Soon Cup&Cino coffee shops will appear at CPC petrol stations in suburban Taipei. Besides selling coffee, they will also sell six kinds of foods such as sandwiches or bagels," Apple Daily quoted CPC official Hsu Song-poh as saying. CPC, Taiwan's petro-chemical monopoly, operates 1,700 petrol stations across the country. Cup&Cino Kaffeesysteme GmbH & Co KG is based in Hovelhof, Germany. It is the largest coffee shop chain in Europe and has already expanded outside Europe.
■ Electronics
Matsushita plans cost cuts
Japanese consumer electronics giant Matsushita aims to cut procurement costs by 10.5 percent in a bid to boost competitiveness against Asian rivals, a report said yesterday. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, better known through its Panasonic and National brands, would reduce costs to ¥72 trillion (US$34 billion) from its earlier estimate of ¥15 trillion in the fiscal year ending March next year, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. Overhauling parts and materials procurement costs is part of Matsushita's effort to improve its cost-competitiveness against Asian high-tech makers, the daily said. The company plans to do so by jointly buying parts and materials with Matsushita Electric Works Ltd, a building materials and lighting equipment maker, which became a group subsidiary in April, it said.
■ Shipping
US rejects foreign ships
The US Coast Guard said Friday that 20 foreign-flagged vessels calling on US ports did not meet international security rules that took effect on Thursday. A total of 228 foreign vessels arrived in the US on Thursday. The Coast Guard did not disclose how many have called on US ports since then. Foreign ships must have a signed certificate from their flag country that says they comply with the new standards aimed at foiling terrorists. The Coast Guard boarded and inspected 123 foreign ships on Thursday to check identification and make sure they met new requirements, such as having working alarm systems. The 20 that failed the security test were denied entry, detained or ordered to leave port.
■ Airlines
SIA ready to buy 7E7s
Singapore Airlines (SIA) is in the "final stages" of negotiations with aerospace giant Boeing for the purchase of 7E7 "Dreamliner" aircraft, a senior Boeing executive told The Business Times in remarks published yesterday. Mike Bair, senior vice-president of Boeing's 7E7 programme, said that SIA has expressed interest in purchasing the 7E7-3 and 7E7-8 models. "I expect them to make a decision by August," Bair was quoted as saying. "We have laid down the black and white for SIA, and it is now up to them to make a decision." The 7E7 is the first new airliner that Boeing has introduced since the 777 models in the early 1990s. The US-based Boeing said the company is in talks with more than 30 airlines which could amount to more than 600 orders.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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