AUTOMOBILES
Ford to idle plant
Ford Motor Co said on Saturday it will idle an auto plant in Belgium for five days, trying to conserve supplies of Japanese parts that could run low following an earthquake and tsunami on March 11. Ford spokesman Todd Nissen said the plant in Genk will close beginning on April 4. The company had planned to idle the plant in May for another reason, but it moved up the date after auto parts suppliers in Japan were damaged by the disasters. Ford has also canceled overtime at three plants in the US and one in Thailand.
PORTUGAL
Bridging loan considered
Portugal’s caretaker government could seek a bridging loan if the country’s financial crisis escalates, the leader of opposition Social Democrats said on Saturday, adding he hoped no bailout would be needed. Pedro Passos Coelho said in an interview that his party is fully committed to meeting budget goals agreed with Brussels, saying of any bailout: “I think we must avoid a situation like that.” However, he added that if there is an “emergency situation and there is a need for an emergency loan to avoid a Portuguese default situation” until an expected snap election in June, the caretaker government has the power to seek one.
MUSIC
Mood to buy Muzak
A Canadian company plans to buy South Carolina-based Muzak, whose name has become synonymous with elevator music. Toronto-based Mood Media Corp said last week it is paying US$345 million for the privately held Muzak and will keep the combined company’s US headquarters in Fort Mill — just across the border from North Carolina — where it has been since 1999. Muzak currently delivers its product to subscribers over satellite radio. Mood Media uses an Internet-based delivery system that Muzak will begin using.
BIOFUELS
Baosteel to produce ethanol
Baosteel Metal Co (寶鋼) plans to start commercial operations for the production of fuel ethanol from steel mill off-gases next year, Sheng Zhongke (盛中克), president of the company’s industrial gases business division, told reporters yesterday at a plant’s ground-breaking ceremony. The project, a joint venture with New Zealand’s LanzaTech, will be able to produce 100,000 tonnes of ethanol per year.
INTERNET
Baidu apologizes to writers
Baidu Inc (百度) apologized to Chinese writers for any unauthorized content on its online library and said it would try to remove it “as soon as possible,” a spokesman said. Baidu would like to continue negotiations with Chinese writers and publishers for a deal that compensates everyone, spokesman Kaiser Kuo (郭怡廣) said. More than 40 Chinese writers posted a complaint in an open letter online on March 15, Xinhua news agency reported.
INVESTMENT
Investors to recover money
The receiver for structured financial notes linked to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in Hong Kong reached an agreement where some holders of these minibonds will get “significant recoveries” on their investment. Most minibond holders will get more than 80 percent of their original investment in Hong Kong, according to a statement by Pricewaterhouse-Coopers LLP. The agreement, which was reached to avoid costly litigation, will allow investors to get between 70 percent and 90 percent of the cash they invested, according to a statement from 16 banks.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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