UNITED STATES
Stimulus needed: Roubini
The economy needs more fiscal stimulus in the short term because it remains weak, followed by measures to “deal with fiscal problems or you’re going to have a fiscal train wreck,” Nouriel Roubini said. “The right solution would be to commit to a program of trying to control spending and raise taxes gradually over the next five years,” said Roubini, co-founder of Roubini Global Economics, in an interview with Bloomberg Haberturk TV on the sidelines of the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado. “The trouble is we’re doing short-term drag rather than stimulus and we’re not committing to anything in the medium term, so the policy in the US is not optimal,” he said. The Federal Reserve may be pushed by weaker-than-expected or stalled growth to do something that’s not yet priced into the market, Roubini said. “This is QE3 after QE2. It’s not going to make a huge difference, but you need more monetary stimulus,” he said.
HONG KONG
Investors subject to tax
Individual investors in Chinese companies listed in the territory will be subject to a 10 percent witholding tax on dividends, according to a statement on the government’s Web site yesterday. China’s State Administration of Taxation clarified the issue of the dividend tax in a reply to the territory’s government, according to the statement. The tax rate avoids a double taxation in line with agreements between the administrations of China and Hong Kong, it said
ONLINE GAMING
Sony networks to be restored
Sony said yesterday it would fully restore all PlayStation Network and Qriocity online distribution services in Japan tomorrow, after shutting them down in April due to hacker attacks. In the wake of the cyber attack, Sony shut down those services on April 20 to conduct an investigation and boost the overall security of the network infrastructure, it said in a statement. Except for Japan, the Japanese electronics giant had already restored the services in all other countries and regions where they operated before the shutdown, including the Americas, Europe, Hong Kong and South Korea.
AUTOMOBILES
VW holds 56% of MAN
Volkswagen (VW), the biggest European automaker, said yesterday that it now holds 55.9 percent of the voting rights in heavy truck maker MAN, paving the way for a tie-up with Scania of Sweden. VW wants to merge the two companies along with its own heavy vehicle activities to create a rival for two other European heavyweights, Daimler Trucks and Volvo Trucks. VW had offered 95 euros for ordinary shares and 59.90 euros for preference shares in MAN, which also makes diesel engines and industrial turbines. It thus paid a little more than 3.4 billion euros (US$4.93 billion) for 35,857,607 of the former and 164,613 of the latter, according to a VW statement.
AFRICA
Northern unrest hurts growth
A top African economist says turmoil in the continent’s north has had a direct impact on growth and an indirect effect on politics across the continent. Mthuli Ncube, chief economist of the African Development Bank, was discussing the bank’s economic outlook for the continent yesterday. The bank says unrest in the north led to near stagnation, with GDP growth estimated at 0.7 percent this year, compared with 4.7 percent last year. Overall, Africa’s growth was estimated at 3.7 percent for this year, down from 4.9 percent last year.
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