■ APPAREL
Wacoal goes domestic
Thailand’s largest lingerie-manufacturer has refocused on the domestic market amid predictions that US demand for women’s underwear will feel the pinch as a result of the financial crisis, news reports said yesterday. “We can’t rely much of the export market because the crisis will make other countries suspend orders,” said Amnuay Bumroongwongtong, managing director of Thai Wacoal. Amnuay said Thai Wacoal had yet to receive any cancellations of orders but he predicted the US market for lingerie would “dry up” next year.
■BANKING
ANZ subsidiary approved
Vietnam has given the go-ahead for Australia’s ANZ bank to set up a wholly owned subsidiary based in Hanoi, an official statement said yesterday. ANZ will be allowed to operate for 99 years, an online statement by the State Bank of Vietnam said, citing a license signed on Thursday. The bank, which has been operating in the country since 1993, already has retail and institutional businesses in the country and holds a 10 percent stake in Sacombank, Vietnam’s leading commercial bank.
■LABOR
Coke plant ousts protesters
A Coca-Cola bottling company in Venezuela retook control of a distribution plant from protesting ex-workers on Friday, ending a standoff that the company says cost it about US$9 million. Coca-Cola FEMSA de Venezuela SA recovered control on Friday of all its distribution centers that were blocked by former contract workers and transport workers, company legal director Rodrigo Anzola said. He told reporters the Mexican-owned company received help from police.
■MEDIA
Viacom trims outlook
Viacom Inc is trimming its outlook for the year, blaming slowing advertising revenue and the souring global economy for the decline. Viacom said its full-year net earnings from continuing operations would grow in the “mid-single to low double-digit” percentage range, down from the “low double-digit” growth it predicted in July, based on a 2 percent decline in global ad revenues. Viacom earned US$2.36 per share last year. The media company is a media conglomerate that owns MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Paramount Pictures.
■INTERNET
YouTube goes full-length
YouTube said on Friday it is adding full-length television shows to the menu at its globally popular Web site famous for snack-sized video snippets. Episodes of classic television programs including Star Trek, MacGyver and Beverly Hills 90210 will be available in a “theater view” format unveiled at YouTube earlier this week. “We are starting to test full-length programming on YouTube, beginning with some fan favorites requested by you,” the Google-owned Web site said in a message posted online.
■SHIPPING
NOL drops Hapag-Lloyd bid
The Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) has dropped out of the race to buy German container shipping line Hapag-Lloyd, NOL said. NOL, which is 66 percent owned by Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings, said in a statement late on Friday “it is no longer engaged in the bidding process for the sale” of Hapag-Lloyd. The Singapore firm’s binding offer submitted on Sept. 26 has lapsed, NOL said.
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