ENERGY
Siemens exiting nuclear
German industrial giant Siemens is turning the page on nuclear energy, CEO Peter Loescher told the Der Spiegel weekly in an interview published yesterday. “We will no longer be involved in overall managing of building or financing nuclear plants. This chapter is closed for us,” he said, explaining that Siemens would restrict its activity to double-use technology. “We will from now on supply only conventional equipment such as steam turbines. This means we are restricting ourselves to technologies that are not only for nuclear purposes but can also be used in gas or coal plants.” The German government announced its decision to abandon nuclear power by 2022 in the wake of the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
AUTOMOBILES
Honda eyes Russian plant
Honda Motor has decided to build its first factory in Russia, becoming the last of the five major Japanese automakers to do so, the Nikkei Shimbun reported yesterday. Russia has an expanding car market and the Nikkei said Honda, the third-largest Japanese vehicle manufacturer, has submitted the plant plan to the Russian government. The factory will probably have a production capacity of 30,000 to 50,000 units per year, the newspaper said, adding that the initial investment was expected to total several billion yen. The company will discuss the factory’s location with the Russian government, but coastal regions in Russia’s Far East are considered potential candidates, the Nikkei said, without naming any city. Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Mazda either already have factories in Russia or are planning to build them.
EUROZONE
Transaction tax mulled
A proposed tax on financial transactions could be introduced in the eurozone alone, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview to be published yesterday. “The ban on ‘naked’ short selling was only the beginning of the measures we are taking,” Schaeuble told Bild am Sonntag. “Before the end of the autumn we are going to create a tax on financial transactions. If necessary, I’m sure, just in the eurozone.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy signaled their support for the measure during a summit last month to discuss the euro debt crisis. According to the proposals submitted to the European Commission, the two leaders want at least a Europe-wide tax, but Britain and Sweden — EU members but not part of the eurozone — have made their opposition known.
RETAIL
Myer’s online sales growing
Myer Holdings Ltd, Australia’s biggest department store chain, said online sales might reach 5 percent of the company’s revenue “very quickly” as gains in the Australian dollar spur Internet shopping. Online sales at the company are now A$5 million (US$5.2 million) and the pace has tripled from a year earlier, chief executive Bernie Brookes told Australian Broadcasting Corp television yesterday. Melbourne-based Myer last week reported revenue of A$3.2 billion for the 12 months ended July. An upgraded Web site, offering as many as 250,000 items and free delivery, aims to capture a bigger share of online sales as Myer targets Internet revenue closer to the A$30 million to A$40 million it gets from most of its stores. The company, has lost customers as gains in the Australian dollar make overseas Web sites cheaper while also battling stalling domestic consumer spending.
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