PETROLEUM
Oil prices rise in Asia
Oil prices rose to near US$81 a barrel yesterday in Asia as traders bet improving signs from the US economy signal a growing appetite for crude after the US government on Thursday raised its second-quarter estimate of GDP growth to 1.7 percent from 1.6 percent. Benchmark oil for delivery next month was up US$0.61 to US$80.59 a barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose US$2.11 to settle at US$79.97 on Thursday. A drop in commercial crude inventories of 500,000 barrels last week, announced by the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday, also boosted investor optimism.
JAPAN
Unemployment rate falls
Japan’s jobless rate improved in August, but prices fell for the 18th straight month as a strong yen extended deflation’s hold on the economy. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent in August, the government said yesterday. The result marks the second straight month of decline and follows 5.2 percent in July. Meanwhile, the core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food, retreated 1 percent in August from a year earlier, the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. The results reflect the effects of a strong yen, which pushed import prices lower.
ENERGY
Repsol Brazil sells stake
Spanish energy giant Repsol yesterday announced the sale of 40 percent of its Brazilian affiliate to China’s Sinopec (中國石化) for US$7.1 billion, securing funding for the development of oil fields in Brazil. “Respol Brazil will make a capital increase of more than US$7.1 billion that will be fully subscribed by Sinopec, resulting in a company with a value of US$17.8 billion,” the group said in a statement. “After the operation, Repsol will hold 60 percent of the capital of the company and Sinopec, China’s largest oil group, 40 percent.”
TECHNOLOGY
Executives leave Yahoo
Yahoo announced on Thursday that three top executives are leaving the company. Yahoo said US operations chief Hilary Schneider, senior vice president for audience, mobile and local David Ko, and vice president of media Jimmy Pitaro were leaving the Sunnyvale, California-based firm. Yahoo said it was looking for a new head of the Americas region and that Schneider will stay on to help with the transition. Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz said in a memo to staff that the three executives were leaving for “different reasons that suit their life.” “So everyone stay calm — we have a good plan in place,” Bartz said. “In fact, I’m more fired up than ever and can roll with the punches. Yahoo is a great place.”
PHARMACEUTiCALS
Novartis to pay penalties
Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp will pay US$422.5 million in penalties for marketing an epilepsy medicine for unapproved uses and for paying kickbacks to doctors to prescribe it and five other drugs, federal officials announced on Thursday. The company agreed to plead guilty to distribution of a misbranded drug, a misdemeanor and pay a criminal fine and forfeiture totaling US$185 million in the case involving Trileptal, US attorney Zane Memeger said. Novartis will also pay US$237.5 million to resolve civil liabilities over the kickbacks and the off-label marketing of Trileptal, an anti-epileptic medicine, according to a settlement agreement.
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