■CURRENCY
More disputes over yuan
Proposed US legislation aimed at punishing China unless it lets the yuan rise would not be in line with WTO rules, China’s Ministry of Commerce said yesterday. US Senator Charles Schumer said on Wednesday that he and other colleagues would push for a vote in the next two weeks on legislation that would allow the US Department of Commerce to use anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws against China or any other country with a fundamentally misaligned exchange rate. Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian (姚堅) told a monthly news conference: “It’s against the facts and lacks support from WTO rules.”
■INVESTMENT
FDI gains in China
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China rose 14.3 percent year-on-year in the first five months of this year, the government said yesterday, in an announcement that could add to mounting concern over inflation. Foreign companies invested US$38.9 billion in the world’s third-largest economy from January through last month, Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian told reporters. That marked an acceleration from the 11.3 percent growth logged from January to April and 7.7 percent growth in the first quarter. Last month alone, FDI totaled US$8.1 billion, a jump of 27.5 percent over the same period last year, Yao said.
■LABOR
Honda plants back to normal
Honda Motor’s Chinese car plants are operating normally and expected to stay open this weekend, its China spokesman said yesterday. Production at two of its factories was halted for two days this week due to a shortage of parts from a strike-hit supplier. “Production is normal today and I expect things to run according to schedule on Sunday,” Takayuki Fujii said. The official Xinhua news agency reported yesterday that a strike at another parts supplier, a lock factory, could halt Honda’s car assembly operations. Fujii said discussions with workers at the factory were still ongoing but did not specify how the strike would affect production next week.
■BANKING
Difficulties for foreign banks
A senior Taiwanese executive at China’s First Sino Bank (華一銀行) said on Friday that despite the size of the market, it remains very difficult for foreign banks to do business in China. Steve Hsieh (謝泓源), who has served as CEO and president of the bank since 2006, said at a forum in Taipei that Taiwanese banks should not be overly optimistic about venturing into China. Noting that foreign banks hold a market share of less than 2 percent, Hsieh said that although many Taiwanese financial holding companies think China offers tremendous opportunities, having worked there for four years, he feels that doing business in China is very difficult for foreign banks.
■TELECOMS
Motorola settles claim
Handset makers Motorola Inc and Research In Motion Ltd announced on Friday that they have settled a patent complaint over mobile technology that Motorola brought to the US International Trade Commission earlier this year. The companies said RIM, the BlackBerry maker, will give Motorola an upfront payment plus continuing royalties for the use of its mobile technology. They did not disclose specific financial terms. The companies said the deal includes an agreement to cross license patents related to industry wireless standards and wireless e-mail.
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