Unemployment stays low
South Korea's jobless rate stayed near a five-year low last month, a sign that consumer spending may increase.
Unemployment was 3.2 percent, compared with 3.1 percent in October, the lowest since December 2002, the National Statistical Office said yesterday.
Consumer spending, which represents about half of the country's US$887 billion economy, is likely to continue a steady expansion on the back of an improving market, the central bank said on Dec. 5.
Employment growth this year has been driven by finance companies, transport and services.
"Consumption is likely to hold up" amid labor-market strength, Go You-sun, an economist at Daewoo Securities Co in Seoul, said before the report was published. "Still, there are risks to economic growth and consumption may cool next year," he said, citing rising oil prices and the US' economic slowdown.
Airwave ban lifted
Reliance Communications Ltd, India's second-largest mobile-phone operator, may be awarded airwaves to extend its second network nationwide after an industry court ended a one-month ban.
A group representing Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's largest wireless operator, and Vodafone Group Plc's local unit had sought to bar Reliance from getting airwaves to operate networks on two competing platforms.
Carriers with dual-technology licenses may now be given spectrum to enter new regions, Goolam Vahanvati, the solicitor general of India, said yesterday.
Bharti and Vodafone Essar Ltd yesterday failed to end a dispute over additional space for their networks as they seek to accommodate more users.
India's telecom ministry last month was barred from allocating more airwaves until the dispute is resolved.
Japan account surplus up
Japan's current account surplus rose 45.7 percent in October from a year earlier, buoyed by growing exports of automobiles and communications equipment, the government said yesterday.
The trade surplus was at ?2.229 trillion (US$20.08 billion) in October before seasonal adjustment, the Finance Ministry said. The surplus grew 40.4 percent in September.
The result, which marked 10 straight months of growth, exceeded the estimate by economists surveyed by Dow Jones and Nikkei, who predicted a 35.3 percent rise.
Growing exports of automobiles, auto parts and communications equipment contributed to the trade surplus, the ministry said.
EPZs doing well
Taiwan's eight export processing zones (EPZs) attracted a total of NT$44.4 billion (US$1.37 billion) in investment in the first 11 months of this year, a Ministry of Economic Affairs official said yesterday.
Tseng Sheng-bao (′¿°ÑÄ_), director-general of the ministry's Export Processing Zone Administration, said the figure was higher than the administration's original target of NT$35.2 billion for the whole year.
Taiwan established its first exporting processing zone in 1966 in Kaohsiung. Tseng said that over the years, the focus of the EPZs has transformed from traditional industry to high-tech production.
Because of their successful development, the EPZs have become a model that is followed by many developing countries, he said.
Tseng said 330 enterprises had established operations in Taiwan's export processing zones, with one-quarter of them having increased paid-in capital in their operations within the zones this year.
NT dollar dips again
The New Taiwan dollar further weakened by NT$0.025 yesterday to close at NT$32.363 against the greenback on turnover of US$759 million.
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