Singaporean inflation rising
Singapore's inflation rate could exceed 5 percent this year, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) was quoted as saying yesterday.
"Last year, inflation was about 2 percent. This year, it could be 5 percent, maybe even more," the Business Times quoted Lee as telling a Lunar New Year gathering.
Lee was speaking in the lead-up to the national budget, which is to be delivered on Feb. 15.
The newspaper quoted him as saying rising prices are a global phenomenon caused by factors including increased demand, disease and adverse weather.
He said that while the budget will offer something for the poor and elderly, "We cannot just distribute money and make the problem go away."
Lee was quoted as urging a diversification of the city-state's food sources, almost all of which are imported.
He also said people should buy cheaper "house brands," the report said.
Inflationary pressures began picking up in Singapore last year, with rents and wages increasing amid buoyant domestic economic conditions and rising global oil and food prices.
Faced with a slowing US economy, a key market for Singapore exports, the city-state's trade-reliant economy is expected to grow at a slower pace this year after expanding 7.5 percent last year.
The government has forecast 4.5 percent to 6.5 percent growth this year.
Ericsson, Lenovo sign deal
Ericsson AB, the world's largest maker of wireless networks, signed an agreement to provide broadband equipment for Lenovo Group Ltd's (聯想) computers.
Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks will include Ericsson's mobile broadband modules beginning this year, the Stockholm-based company said yesterday in a statement distributed by Hugin newswire. No financial details were provided.
Meanwhile, United Co Rusal, the world's largest aluminum producer, signed an accord with China Power Investment Corp (中電集團) to build plants in China and Africa.
The two companies will build an aluminum smelter in China's Qinghai Province and a bauxite and alumina complex in Guinea, Moscow-based Rusal said in a statement yesterday.
Suntory to sell blue roses
In Japan, gift-givers will soon have the option of blue roses.
The Japanese company that created the world's first genetically modified blue roses said yesterday it will start selling them next year.
Suntory Ltd, which is also a major whisky distiller, hopes to sell several hundred thousand blue roses a year, spokesman Kazumasa Nishizaki said.
"As its price may be a bit high, we are targeting demand for luxurious cut flowers, such as for gifts," he said.
The exact price and commercial name for the blue rose have not been decided.
The company is also growing the rose experimentally in Australia and the US to get approval for sales, but no timing has been set for commercial launches in the two countries.
Suntory in 2004 unveiled the world's first genetically modified blue rose after 14 years of study which also involved Australian researchers.
It created the flowers by implanting the gene that leads to the synthesis of the blue pigment Delphinidin in pansies. The pigment does not exist naturally in roses.
Display industry booming
The Ministry of Economics said yesterday it expects output from the flat-panel display industry will exceed NT$2 trillion (US$62.11 billion) in 2011.
Last year, the industry churned out NT$1.69 trillion in output, up 33 percent from 2006, the ministry cited DisplaySearch data as saying.
The ministry said the flat panel sector had been listed as a star industry by the government.
"We are also assisting the sector to enhance research and development and reinforce valued-added production," an official from the ministry's Industrial Development Bureau said.
The ministry said the sector was expected to benefit from growing demand for thin-film-transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) TVs, which have become the driver of the industry's growth.
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