OIL
Japan fuel terminal reopens
Exxon Mobil Corp says its Japanese division has reopened its Shiogama Terminal, enabling the delivery of increased fuel supplies to the Tohoku area of Japan that was devastated by an earthquake and tsunami. The oil company said on Wednesday that the terminal received its first shipment of 1 million liters of gasoline and 1 million liters of kerosene on Tuesday. Exxon Mobil affiliate refiner TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K. says the reopening restores the most critical link to the affected area. Exxon Mobil has made its terminal available for use by other companies with ready fuel supplies. The company says its four Japan Group refineries are now fully operational and running ahead of normal rates to meet increased fuel demand.
TELECOMS
CEO says prices too high
Takeover prices for some emerging-market telecom assets are too expensive to tempt UK mobile giant Vodafone, its chief executive told German financial magazine Capital. “The sums demanded are much too high. We were interested in some companies in Africa — but we left it,” CEO Vittorio Colao said in comments published on Wednesday. Colao said Vodafone would not follow Deutsche Telekom’s lead, which decided this week to sell its US mobile unit to AT&T, and dispose of its stake in Verizon Wireless. “I see no reason to part ways with this excellent company in the current situation,” he said.
VIETNAM
Inflation hits two-year high
Vietnam’s inflation rose to a two-year high this month, official estimates showed yesterday, as the government shifts from a longstanding focus on growth toward stabilizing its economy. The consumer price index (CPI) is expected to jump 13.9 percent year-on-year this month, the General Statistics Office reported. Rising inflation has become a key policy concern for Asian governments but consumer prices in Vietnam have risen faster than in neighboring countries. Average CPI in the first quarter rose by 12.79 percent against the same period last year, led by a 17 percent increase in food, the statistics office said.
RETAIL
Kingfisher profits rise
Kingfisher, Europe’s biggest home-improvements retailer, said yesterday that annual net profits rose 27.5 percent to £491 million (US$796 million) in 2010-2011. Kingfisher, which owns the B&Q chain in Britain and Castorama in France, said its profit after tax for the 12 months to Jan. 29 compared with net income of £385 million during the equivalent period in 2009-2010. “We have delivered another year of strong profit growth and cash generation in what continue to be challenging times for our customers around the world,” chief executive Ian Cheshire said in Kingfisher’s results statement.
MEMORY CHIPS
Micron sales top estimates
Micron Technology Inc, the largest US maker of computer-memory chips, posted second-quarter sales and profit that beat analysts’ estimates on increasing demand for chips used to store data on mobile phones and tablets. Revenue climbed 15 percent to US$2.26 billion in the period that ended March 3, Micron said in a statement on Wednesday. That compared with US$2.1 billion, the average of predictions compiled by Bloomberg. Micron’s net income fell 80 percent to US$72 million, or US$0.07 a share, from US$365 million, or US$0.39, a year earlier, the company said. Analysts on average projected per-share
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