CHINA
Top steel firms audited
The National Audit Office said it is auditing the country’s top three steel companies to ensure they have implemented a two-year-old steel industry plan, Xinhua news agency reported. The three are Baosteel Group Corp (寶鋼集團), Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp (武漢鋼鐵集團) and Angang Steel Co (鞍山鋼鐵集團), Xinhua said. All three rank among the world’s top 10 steel producers in terms of output, the report said. The audit office started on-site audits of the three firms in June and plans to complete them “soon,” Xinhua said.
UNITED STATES
Teva acquisition approved
Regulators said they would give Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, the world’s biggest generic drug maker, a conditional green light for its US$6.8 billion acquisition of competitor Cephalon. The Federal Trade Commission said on Friday it would allow the deal, which it had feared could reduce competition in the multi-billion-dollar market, if Teva sells the rights to two generic drugs ahead of the company’s Friday target date for the transaction. The generic treatments — a cancer pain compound and a muscle relaxant — have combined domestic sales of about US$300 million a year. Israel-based Teva first announced in May its intent to acquire Pennsylvania-based Cephalon for US$6.8 billion.
SAUDI ARABIA
Inflation ‘not worrying’
Inflation levels are not a concern and will continue to decline, central bank Governor Muhammad al-Jasser said on Saturday. “Inflation levels are not worrying. Inflation has become stable since the beginning of the year between about 4.6 and 4.9 [percent] ... I expect it to continue its decline,” al-Jasser told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Riyadh. Al-Jasser also said that lending levels had risen by more than 9 percent this year. “In reality, lending has risen by more than 9 percent this year ... an excellent level,” he said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Gibson backs conservation
Gibson Guitar chief executive Henry Juszkiewicz said he strongly backed conservation as well as US federal enforcement of laws meant to protect the tropical hardwoods the firm uses to make instruments. Gibson is facing allegations that it uses wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers — a potential violation of the Lacey Act. Juszkiewicz told reporters on Saturday, after a Tea Party-sponsored, pro-Gibson rally, that he supports the intent of the act. However, he called the requirement for Indian workers to finish the wood a “misuse of environmental law.” Federal agents raided Gibson factories in Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, in August, seizing more than 10,000 fingerboards from imported Indian rosewood.
TRADE
Georgia blocks WTO entry
Talks between Georgia and Russia over the latter’s bid to join the WTO ended without agreement on Saturday, and Georgia said it would block accession unless Moscow’s position changes. The failure to resolve a dispute rooted in a 2008 war between the two countries undermines Russia’s chances of joining the WTO this year, a target set by Moscow and the US, and could worsen relations with the West. Because the WTO, a 153-nation trade rules body, makes decisions by consensus, Georgia has an effective veto over membership for its much larger neighbor.
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