Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — who persuaded 40 US billionaires to donate a fortune to charity — will meet a select group of wealthy individuals in China next month, a spokesperson said yesterday.
Microsoft mogul Gates and investment guru Buffett launched a project in June called “The Giving Pledge” aimed at convincing billionaires across the US to give up most of their money — 50 percent or more — to a good cause.
FORTY FORTUNES
Just six weeks later, 40 wealthy individuals and their families — including CNN founder Ted Turner and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — pledged to hand over more than half of their fortunes.
A spokesperson for the project, who refused to be named, said yesterday that while Gates and Buffett were planning to visit China next month, the Giving Pledge effort was still focused on the US for now.
GLOBAL RESONANCE
“However, Warren, Bill and Melinda [Gates’ wife] have been talking about giving and philanthropy with groups of people around the world over the past year and are planning to do more of it this year,” the spokesperson said. “The basic idea — that those with great wealth can and should devote that wealth to efforts to leave the world a better place — has resonance around the globe.”
China has the second-highest number of US dollar billionaires in the world after the US, according to Forbes magazine, and one of them has already preceded Buffett and Gates’ project by donating his fortune to charity.
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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
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