■ Retail
Online shoppers prefer COD
Most of those who shop in cyberspace would prefer to pay for goods when they receive them, using a cash-on-delivery payment method. Four of five (78.6 percent) of shoppers indicated that they would prefer this type of payment, according to a recent poll of over 1,000 online shoppers in Germany. The survey results no doubt stem from the fact that four of five of those polled are concerned about security issues while shopping online, especially when patronizing shops with which they have never conducted business, as well as when stepping through the online payment process. In addition, the survey revealed that many online shoppers abandon their transactions in progress when the online payment process seems insecure.
■ Corruption
Ghost firms hamper probe
The UN-ordered probe into oil-for-food corruption is being seriously hampered by an elaborate system of ghost firms set up around the world to cover the tracks of bribes to former president Saddam Hussein as he cheated the US$60 billion program, a top investigator said. Some front companies in this global oil trading center and elsewhere that dealt with Saddam have been liquidated or have hidden ownership, complicating the search for evidence of financial improprieties, said Swiss criminal lawyer Mark Pieth. He's one of three commission members leading the probe headed by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Major oil trading companies and individuals -- from US businessmen to French, Chinese and Russian politicians -- are suspected of benefiting from lucrative Iraqi oil contracts.
■ Oil
Petronas set to expand
Malaysia's national oil company said it will expand its investments in Thailand by buying the Thai operations of Kuwaiti Petroleum International, which operates over 117 gasoline stations across the country. Under the agreement signed on Friday, Petronas would acquire Kuwait Petroleum (Thailand), taking over the gasoline stations and KPTL's lubricant businesses, the company said in a statement. No financial details were disclosed. The acquisition -- expected to be completed by end January -- does not include KPTL's aviation business, which will be handed over to a subsidiary of Kuwaiti Petroleum, the statement said. About 70 percent of KPTL's 117 gasoline stations are located in the Thai capital, Bangkok. The statement said Petronas will embark on a 12-month program to upgrade the stations to provide more products and services.
■ Banking
Two sentenced over fraud
A businessman has been sentenced to life in prison and his wife to 14 years behind bars for stealing 420 million yuan (US$50 million) in China's second-biggest bank fraud since the start of communist rule in 1949, a news report said. Chen Manxiong and his wife, Chen Qiuyuan, were convicted of embezzling the money from a branch of the state-owned Bank of China with the help of two bank clerks, Xinhua said on Friday. It said they stole the money in 1993-1995 from a bank branch in the southern city of Zhongshan, near Hong Kong, but didn't give any other details. The couple fled to Thailand but were caught and repatriated in 2002, the report said. One of the clerks was earlier sentenced to life in prison and the other to 20 years behind bars, Xinhua said. It said the case was China's second-biggest bank fraud after a case in Kaiping, a city near Zhongshan.
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