■ INFLATION
Beijing orders faster food
China's government has issued a wide-reaching order to speed up food shipments to markets as the bad winter lashing much of the country hampers efforts to rein in persisting inflation. The order, issued late on Friday and published in state media yesterday, calls on police, railway bureaus and even gas stations to do all they can to ensure timely delivery of food supplies after snow and ice storms clogged roads, cut electricity and delayed deliveries. Under the measure, food trucks will be exempt from paying road tolls. Potential shortages in food and energy would add to inflationary pressures.
■ BANKING
Crisis followed FSA 'failure'
The Northern Rock crisis has revealed systemic failures at Britain's financial regulator after it failed to spot the reckless behavior of the bank's directors, British lawmakers said in a report published yesterday. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) failed to properly supervise Northern Rock, Britain's fifth-largest mortgage lender, the Treasury select committee said. The report recommended the FSA improve its communications procedures to prevent panic in the future as well as an expanded role for the central bank's deputy governor, who would advise the Treasury chief on potential crises. The FSA said it was studying the report and would release the conclusions of an internal review in March.
■ AVIATION
China to build 100 airports
China yesterday announced plans to build nearly 100 new airports by 2020 to cater for soaring demand. The proposals will mean eight out of every 10 residents will live within 100km of an airport within 12 years, the General Administration of Civil Aviation said. It put the cost of building the 97 new airports at 450 billion yuan (US$61.6 billion). Air traffic volume rose 16 percent to 185 million passengers last year, official figures show. The General Administration predicts passenger traffic will grow by 11.4 percent a year between now and 2020, and freight traffic by 14 percent.
■ FOOD
Dunkin' to enter Shanghai
Dunkin' Brands Inc, the owner of the Dunkin' Donuts chain, will open up its first shop in Shanghai this year and plans to have 100 stores in China in the next decade. The first store might open in May, Michelle King, a spokeswoman for the Canton, Massachusetts-based firm, said on Friday. Dunkin' Brands recently granted franchisee rights for Dunkin' Donuts for Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Mercuries & Associates Ltd (三商行), which is the company's partner in Taiwan. Dunkin' Donuts opened its first outlet in Taiwan last January.
■ WTO
Green light for Ukraine
The WTO agreed on Friday to accept Ukraine as a member, giving President Viktor Yushchenko a powerful new sales pitch as he made the case here for greater foreign investment. WTO membership also will require the former Soviet republic to continue reforms aimed at bringing Ukraine closer to the EU, which it has aims of ultimately joining. Yushchenko said joining the body could also improve Ukraine's troubled trade relations with Russia, which also aspires to WTO membership but still has numerous issues to resolve. The WTO's 151-member general council will formally invite Ukraine to join on Feb. 5, after which the country still must sign the accession treaty.
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