■ Transport
Virgin America clears hurdle
A new airline called Virgin America said on Friday it had passed a major hurdle in its bid to gain approval for domestic US service, and hopes to start passenger flights by early next year. The wannabe low-cost airline has been licensed to use the "Virgin" brand by Britain's Virgin Group, but is independent from the companies headed by Richard Branson. The US company said that it had successfully passed the Federal Aviation Administration's airline certification review process, and is awaiting final approval from the Department of Transportation before taking to the skies.
■ Banking
Bank predicts low inflation
Taiwan's central bank expects inflation this year to fall below the statistics agency's forecast of 0.68 percent, Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said on Friday in a report which is to be delivered to the Legislative Yuan tomorrow. "For the whole of this year, the annual rise in CPI will probably be below the statistics agency's forecast of 0.68 percent," Perng said in the report. In the first 11 months, the CPI rose an average of 0.59 percent from a year earlier, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said. Next year's average CPI rise will accelerate to 1.52 percent, though it is still lower than the DGBAS target of 2 percent, Perng said.
■ Industry
Goodyear, union reach deal
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co and the union representing about 12,600 US workers reached a tentative deal on a new contract that would bring an end to an 11-week strike over health care benefits. The tiremaker and the United Steelworkers union reached the deal on Friday after both sides resumed talks early this week. The strike began on Oct. 5. The deal allows Goodyear to stick with plans to close an unprofitable plant in Tyler, Texas that makes wholesale private label tires, but provides for a one-year transition period during which workers will have the opportunity to take advantage of retirement buyouts. Workers will vote at ratification meetings in their communities on Thursday.
■ finance
Brokerage heads set to quit
The two most senior executives of Nikko Cordial Corp, one of Japan's top brokerages, are expected to resign as early as tomorrow over alleged accounting irregularities, news reports said yesterday. Nikko Cordial, which has an investment banking alliance with Citigroup, plans to hold an emergency board meeting tomorrow when Nikko Cordial chairman Masashi Kaneko and chief executive Junichi Arimura are expected to resign, Japan's largest daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Business daily Nihon Keizai and Kyodo News agency had similar reports. On Monday, Japan's financial watchdog recommended a ?500 million (US$4.24 million) fine against Nikko Cordial for allegedly padding profits.
Industry
CTSP set for growth
The Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) is expected to have the largest congregation of 12-inch silicon wafer fabrication factories in the country, with 14 companies deciding to build their foundries there, the director of the CTSP preparatory office said yesterday. Yang Wen-ko (楊文科) said the park is currently home to 85 factories, 28 of which are precision machinery plants. There are also 25 plants manufacturing opto-electronic products in the Taichung County-based science facility.
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