JAPAN
Unemployment rate falls
Japan’s unemployment rate last month fell to 4.6 percent, the first decline in two months, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said yesterday. It was down 0.3 percentage point from January and better than Kyodo news agency’s forecast of 4.9 percent. The number of jobless people stood at 3 million last month, down 240,000 from a year earlier, the ministry said.
SOUTH KOREA
Current account surplus up
South Korea’s current account surplus rose sharply last month from the previous month as spending on overseas travel fell while exports remained robust, the Bank of Korea said yesterday. The surplus was US$1.18 billion last month compared with a revised US$154.7 million a month earlier, the central bank said. The account — the broadest measure of cross-border trade — stayed in surplus for the 12th straight month last month thanks to strong exports.
GERMANY
Consumer confidence weak
German consumer sentiment has been hit by fears of inflation and an unsettled international environment and the GfK confidence index is set to mark its first fall in 10 months, a GfK statement said yesterday. The institute’s survey of about 2,000 households early this month resulted in an indexed 5.9 points for April, down from 6.0 points, it said. GfK uses its findings to publish an estimation for the following month. The poll was carried out before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan.
TELECOMS
Sprint opposes AT&T plans
Sprint Nextel is urging government officials to block AT&T Inc’s planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA from Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG. Sprint, the third-largest US wireless carrier, said the proposed US$39 billion cash-and-stock deal would create a duopoly market for US wireless services dominated by AT&T and Verizon Wireless. “On behalf of our customers, our industry and our country, Sprint will fight this attempt by AT&T to undo the progress of the past 25 years and create a new Ma Bell duopoly,” Sprint said in a statement on Monday. The US Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission could take a year or longer to review the proposed transaction.
CONGLOMERATES
Siemens plans Osram sale
Siemens AG plans to sell shares in its Osram lighting unit later this year and aims to remain a minority investor, it said in a release on Monday. Siemens will also create a fourth division that focuses on infrastructure and cities, bundling products such as trains, airport services, power grids and building technologies. “This step will give Osram full entrepreneurial freedom to secure and further expand its leading position in a lighting market being swept by technological change,” the statement said. The Munich-based company will remain a “long-term anchor shareholder” in the unit, it said.
INTERNET
Dorsey back in management
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced on Monday that he was returning to the high-flying company as executive chairman to head its product team. Dorsey, who founded Twitter in March 2006 with Biz Stone and Evan Williams, resigned as Twitter’s chief executive in 2008. He remained chairman of the San Francisco-based microblogging service, but did not take an active role in daily operations.
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
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