■TRADE
Taiwan awards 273 deals
Taiwan’s government gave foreign companies 273 business deals worth NT$16.73 billion (US$520 million) in its first 11 months as a member of the WTO’s Agreement on Government Procurement, the Public Construction Commission reported on Friday. Among the foreign businesses, US enterprises won contracts worth NT$7.07 billion, or 42.25 percent of the total, followed by EU companies at NT$6.28 billion or 37.53 percent, and Japanese firms at NT$1.86 billion, the commission said. As of the end of last month, a total of 1,905 government procurement deals worth NT$244.57 billion were open to domestic and international bidding, the commission said.
■FINANCE
Shanghai seeks foreign firms
China’s State Council has approved setting up a so-called loan-transfer exchange in Shanghai, the city’s vice mayor, Tu Guangshao (屠光紹), said at a financial forum in Shanghai yesterday, without disclosing more details. Shanghai is seeking to attract more foreign institutions to issue yuan-denominated bonds and stocks, Tu said at the forum. Shanghai is also seeking to boost yuan investments from overseas, he said.
■AUTOMAKERS
Hybrid model sales halted
Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s largest automaker, halted sales of a new hybrid Lexus model because too much fuel spilled in government crash tests, posing a fire risk, the company said on Friday. Toyota, which paid a record US$16.4 million fine this year for not complying with auto safety regulations, said in a letter to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration yesterday that about 17,000 of the HS250h sedans for this year’s model are being recalled. Toyota has not received any reports of accidents or injuries related to the defect, it said.
■MEDIA
News Corp sells Beliefnet
News Corp sold Beliefnet, a multi-faith spirituality Web site it purchased two-and-a-half years ago, to an investment group on Friday. The sale of Beliefnet, which was acquired in December 2007 by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Entertainment Group, was announced by its new owner, BN Media. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. BN Media describes itself as a company with a mission to “serve the vast online market for spirituality and inspiration.”
■AEROSPACE
Mahindra to enter aerospace
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, India’s biggest maker of sport-utility vehicles and tractors, plans to invest 2.5 billion rupees (US$54 million) in its aerospace business, vice chairman Anand Mahindra said at a news conference in Bangalore yesterday. The company intends to bid for South Korea’s Ssangyong Motor Co by next month, Mahindra said. The company’s aerospace unit said in a statement it is in the final stages of setting up an aircraft parts plant. The company is in the process of selecting a site, it said.
■BANKING
Banco Sabadell bids on rival
Spain’s Banco Sabadell said on Friday its board had agreed to launch a takeover for smaller rival Banco Guipuzcoano in the first such operation between two listed Spanish banks since the start of the financial crisis at the end of 2008. Banco Sabadell is offering five shares and five mandatory convertible bonds for every eight ordinary shares of Guipuzcoano, it said in a statement. Banco Guipuzcoano, based in Basque region, will retain its legal identity and operate as a separate brand, it added.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained