Russia’s deputy prime minister on Sunday said his government could support French company Renault taking control of troubled carmaker Avtovaz, but will have to find other investors if it declines.
“If the Renault-Nissan alliance wishes to increase its participation to the point where it takes control, Russia will not be against it,” Igor Shuvalov said in an interview with Russian TV station Vesti-24.
Should Renault decline, “we will have to go to other potential partners and investors,” he said.
“The state is shouldering a substantial part of the debt burden by settling social matters linked to employment, but that means that all shareholders — Russian and foreign — will have to present an appropriate development program for the company,” he said.
Renault currently holds a 25 percent stake in Avtovaz, which plans to cut a quarter of its workforce in the face of shrinking sales in Russia’s first recession in a decade.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had earlier pressed Renault to take part in rescuing Avtovaz, maker of the iconic Lada brand.
Renault said this month it would hold on to its 25 percent stake in the carmaker and contribute to its restructuring, but would not take part in a capital increase.
Putin said on Nov. 5 that the Russian government would settle Avtovaz’s debt and invest millions of dollars to bail out the company.
The government would budget 38 billion roubles (US$1.3 billion) to cover Avtovaz’s debts, 12 billion roubles to build a new assembly plant and 4.8 billion roubles to create new jobs, he 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