China Southern Airlines (中國南方航空) said yesterday it has no plans to cancel or delay its Airbus orders, Dow Jones Newswires reported, despite Chinese opposition to the EU’s carbon emissions fee.
The comments by chairman Si Xianmin (司獻民) come as the carrier announced its net profit fell 12.6 percent to 5.1 billion yuan (US$806 million) last year as global economic woes and rising fuel costs took their toll.
Si said the company — the only Chinese carrier to have ordered the A380 superjumbo — remained committed to its existing Airbus orders, according to the report.
China Southern said it would take delivery of the fourth of its five A380s in September, with the last jet coming early next year, the report said.
China is among more than two dozen countries that oppose the EU tax, which is imposed on airlines taking off or landing in Europe.
Earlier this month, EADS — which owns Airbus — said the Chinese government was blocking orders by Chinese carriers of some planes made by the aviation giant due to the EU scheme, but the EU has said the carbon tax will help it achieve its goal of cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and that it will not back down, despite claims the charge violates international law.
China Southern said its operating revenue last year rose 19.2 percent to 92.7 billion yuan, according to a statement issued to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The airline — one of China’s big three along with Air China (中國國際航空) and China Eastern Airlines (中國東方航空) — said fuel costs rose nearly 40 percent last year compared with 2010.
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