INVESTMENT
S Korea FDI hits decade high
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Korea rose to a 10-year high this year, boosted by the country’s fast economic recovery and confidence about growth prospects, a government report showed yesterday. Investment pledged by foreigners this year reached US$12.9 billion, up 12.1 percent from a year earlier, the South Korean Ministry of Knowledge Economy said. In the fourth quarter, foreign investment rose 62 percent year-on-year to US$5.61 billion, it said. Next year, South Korea aims to attract US$15 billion in foreign investment, the ministry said.
COMPUTERS
RIM tablet needs new battery
Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) may need to re-engineer its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer, due next year, to improve its battery life, according to Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu. Developers who are designing applications for the PlayBook said the device has a battery life of two to four hours, compared with as long as 10 hours for Apple Inc’s iPad, Wu said on Tuesday in an interview. “One possibility we are hearing is the likelihood of a larger battery which could add to the heft and weight of PlayBook,” Wu, who is based in San Francisco, wrote on Tuesday in a note to clients. “We are not convinced that tablets outside of the iPad will see high-volume success.”
BEVERAGES
Putin greenlights PepsiCo
PepsiCo’s big venture into Russia received a major boost on Tuesday when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave his blessing to the US giant’s takeover of a major local juice and dairy firm. PepsiCo’s intended purchase of Wimm-Bill-Dann is its biggest acquisition outside the US and one of the most important deals ever struck outside the Russian energy sector. The takeover earned a nod of approval from the head of Russia’s anti-monopoly service on Monday and still further support from the country’s de facto leader Putin. “This deal’s implementation will not only help our partners establish themselves on the Russian food market, but enter the markets of the Commonwealth of Independent States,” ITAR-TASS quoted Putin as saying.
BANKING
No stress tests needed: CEO
The chief executive of French bank Societe Generale said on Tuesday further European bank stress tests are not needed, as their exposure to sovereign debt is known, in an interview with financial news channel CNBC. “The exposure to sovereign debts is public. They are well known,” Frederic Oudea said according to the channel’s Web site. Of 91 European banks tested in July, only seven — five in Spain, one in Germany and one in Greece — were found to be vulnerable to economic stress.
INTERNET
Groupon approves funding
Groupon’s board has authorized the local-coupon site to raise up to US$950 million in funding, a recent Delaware regulatory filing says. Google Inc reportedly tried to buy the Chicago company for between US$5 billion and US$6 billion but was rejected early this month. In a Dec. 17 amended certificate of incorporation, which was first reported on Tuesday by venture capital data provider VC Experts, Groupon said it may issue up to 30 million Series G Preferred Shares at a price of US$31.59 each. Groupon’s last round of funding — US$135 million — came in April from Mail.ru Group, formerly Digital Sky Technologies.
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