■ AUTOMOBILES
Chrysler may cut products
Chrysler LLC president Jim Press said on Friday the automaker's rejuvenation plan could include jettisoning some US dealers and cutting its product lineup by as much as half. Press, speaking to industry executives at the JD Power and Associates Automotive Roundtable in San Francisco, said that Chrysler's management team had not yet decided the severity of the cuts. The consolidation, under a plan called Project Genesis to align the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge brands under one roof, should occur within the next four to five years, Press said. "There are no numbers. We don't know how many models we're going to have. No one knows that," he said.
■ COMPUTERS
Dell drops AMD online sales
Dell has stopped selling many computers with processors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on its Web site, although it will continue selling some through retailers. The news was a setback for AMD, which wooed Dell for years before breaking the computer maker's exclusive supplier relationship with Intel in 2006. Dell.com will continue to offer desktop and notebook computers and servers with AMD processors for business customers and a single consumer-oriented desktop model with an AMD processor. AMD spokesman John Taylor said the firm could benefit from Dell's push into retail sales, and the shift at Dell.com would not have "a near-term significant financial impact on AMD."
■ INTERNET
Yahoo board discusses bid
A week after Yahoo learned that it would be the target of a US$44.6 billion hostile bid by Microsoft, the company's board met on Friday to consider its options, a person briefed on the meeting said. The directors listened to a series of presentations from Yahoo's management and its bankers, who argued that the company was worth more than what Microsoft had offered. The board was also presented with various options for maintaining Yahoo's independence, the person said. One possibility is a search-related joint venture with Google. Lawyers at the meeting discussed the antitrust implications of such a tie-up, the person said. They also discussed how to press Microsoft to increase its bid.
■ AVIATION
Air Canada being wooed
Private equity players and pension funds have approached Air Canada's parent, ACE Aviation Holdings, touting a possible buy of Canada's top airline, ACE chief executive Robert Milton said on Friday. However, he refused to identify the potential bidders for ACE's 75 percent stake in Air Canada, which ACE is looking to divest. "We've now been approached by private equity, by pension funds," Milton said. Given the wave of consolidation in the US airline industry, "I don't think it's inconceivable that Air Canada could be part of it," he said. In the US, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines were discussing merger, while United Airlines and Continental Airlines are in early merger talks.
■ MACROECONOMY
IMF warns of slow growth
IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said emerging economies were "not immune" from slowing global growth. "What has been said about decoupling is probably much too exaggerated," Strauss-Kahn said yesterday in Tokyo on the sidelines of a G7 meeting. "Emerging economies are not immune at all." The IMF chief said he told G7 finance ministers and central bank governors that monetary policy should be seen as "the first line of defense" in response to weaker growth in the world economy. He said there was also "room for fiscal stimulus" in order to address problems resulting from the US subprime meltdown.
■ BANKING
Government favors Muto
The Japanese government is planning to nominate Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Toshiro Muto as the next head of the central bank, the Yomiuri Shimbun said yesterday. Toshihiko Fukui, the 72-year-old Bank of Japan governor who helped pilot the economy out of a decade-long slump, must stand down when his five-year term ends on March 19. The government may nominate Muto to parliament as the next bank governor as soon as next week, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, without citing sources. He would need the approval of the opposition-controlled upper house of parliament to become head of the central bank.
■ TRAVEL
Snow hits businesses
China's travel agencies may lose 70 percent of their forecast sales during the Lunar New Year holidays because of snowstorms that disrupted people's travel plans, Xinhua news agency said. The biggest snowfalls since 1954 caused direct economic losses of about 80 billion yuan (US$11 billion), toppled 300,000 homes and damaged 90 million hectares of crops in 19 provinces and regions. More than 10,000 group tours were canceled nationwide, Xinhua said, citing Wang Zhifa, vice director of China's National Tourism Bureau. About 50 percent of trips from Beijing to southern China were also canceled, Xinhua said.
■ LCD GLASS
Corning upbeat on demand
Corning Inc, the biggest maker of glass for flat-panel display screens, yesterday reiterated its first-quarter forecast, saying a slowing US economy would not hamper demand for high-definition televisions. Profit, leaving out costs such as a legal settlement, will climb to US$0.41 to US$0.43 a share, the Corning, New York-based company said in a statement released before the company's investor meeting. Revenue will reach US$1.59 billion to US$1.62 billion, it said. The firm also forecast a 25 percent to 30 percent increase in total LCD glass demand this year. "Although we are not recession-proof, we have not seen any signs of a slowdown in our businesses," chief financial officer James Flaws said.
■ INDONESIA
Growth forecast trimmed
The economy faces greater "downside" risks stemming from record oil prices and a global economic slowdown, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said yesterday. The economy will grow between 6.4 percent and 6.5 percent this year, lower than the 6.8 percent expansion target predicted earlier this year, she said. "We are working on a new forecast taking into account the prospect of global recession and the effect of higher commodity prices," Sri Mulyani said in an interview in Tokyo. "Higher growth is becoming even more difficult.
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