TRADE
Japan exports fall 3.3%
Japanese exports fell for the fifth straight month last month as the country contends with a strong yen and the ongoing impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Exports dropped 3.3 percent from a year earlier to ¥5.78 trillion (US$75.6 billion), the finance ministry said yesterday. However, with imports last month rising 9.9 percent to ¥5.71 trillion, Japan recorded a trade surplus of ¥72.5 billion, the ministry said. Exports are a key driver of the world’s No. 3 economy, and the country is hoping that overseas demand will help it bounce back from the disaster. Data earlier this week showed that Japan’s economy is still mired in recession, shrinking for the third straight quarter in the April-June period.
MINING
Colombia mine to expand
Mining giants BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Xstrata said yesterday they planned a US$1.3 billion expansion of their joint venture Cerrejon coal mine in Colombia. Each will contribute one-third of the total cost, BHP said in a statement, adding that it would boost annual saleable thermal coal production by 8 million tonnes to about 40 million tonnes. BHP Billiton Energy Coal president Jimmy Wilson said the firm was committed to continuing to produce as much thermal coal as possible. Construction will begin this year, with completion expected in 2013. Ramp-up to expanded capacity of 40 million tonnes per year is expected by the end of 2015.
TELECOMS
Temasek sells Shin shares
A Temasek Holdings affiliate sold a stake in Shin Corp PCL, the Thai telecommunications company it bought five years ago in a deal that sparked protests and culminated in a coup that overthrew Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Cedar Holdings Ltd, partly owned by Singapore’s state-investment company, sold 7.9 percent of Shin to a group of investors for about 9.2 billion baht (US$308 million), Shin said yesterday. The shares were sold for 35.50 baht to 37.25 baht each, a discount of as much as 11 percent from Wednesday’s closing price, according to a term sheet for the sale obtained by Bloomberg.
BEVERAGES
Coke to lift PRC investment
Coca-Cola Co said it would invest US$4 billion in China in the next three years starting next year. In the first half of this year, the company’s sales in China exceeded 1 billion unit cases, the US beverage maker said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Coca-Cola is also “actively talking” to authorities in Shanghai, China, about the possibility of listing its shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, with nothing imminent, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent.
INTERNET
Amazon attracts most hits
One out of five Internet users visited online retail giant Amazon in June, tracking firm comScore said on Wednesday. Amazon sites had 282.2 million visitors during the month, or 20.4 percent of the worldwide Internet population, comScore said in a report on the top global retail and auction sites. Online auction titan eBay received 223.5 million visitors in June, or 16.2 percent of the total number of Internet users. China’s Alibaba (阿里巴巴) was next with 156.7 million visitors, or 11.3 percent of total Internet users, followed by Apple with 134.2 million visitors, or 9.7 percent of total Internet users. Japan’s Rakuten rounded out the top five with 57.7 million visitors in June, or 4.2 percent of total Internet users.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”