REAL ESTATE
Zhongkun still eying Iceland
A Chinese real estate company says it still hopes to rent land in Iceland to build a vast nature retreat after an attempt to buy the land was rejected. The Zhongkun Group (中坤集團) yesterday said that it had initial approval from Iceland to rent the 30,640-hectare property, with a contract likely to be signed in the middle of next month. The Icelandic government rejected a bid by Zhongkun founder Huang Nubo (黃怒波) to buy the land outright because of restrictions on the purchase of land by foreigners. Huang’s proposed project was seen by some as a lifeline for Iceland’s struggling economy as it battles back from the collapse of its banking industry in 2008.
INDONESIA
Q1 growth up 6.3%
The economy grew 6.3 percent from a year earlier in the first quarter of the year, withstanding headwinds from Europe and the US as industries such as agriculture and forestry expanded. The Central Statistics Agency yesterday said growth was driven by increases in the agriculture, livestock, forestry and fishing sectors. The economy grew 1.4 percent compared with the fourth quarter of last year. It grew 6.5 percent last year, the fastest rate since the 1997 to 1998 Asian financial crisis.
SPAIN
Industrial output declines
Industrial output contracted at a faster pace in March, official data showed yesterday, as the unemployment-scarred country returned to recession. Production by factories and power generators slumped 7.5 percent in March from a year earlier after smoothing out the impact of seasonal factors, the National Statistics Institute said in a report. That followed a decline in industrial output of 5.3 percent in February and a drop of 4.4 percent in January. GDP shrank by 0.3 percent in the first quarter of this year, equaling the slump in the final quarter of last year, the statistics institute said last week.
ELECTRONICS
Lenovo eyes smartphones
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想集團), the world’s second-biggest maker of personal computers, said it would invest 5 billion yuan (US$792 million) to set up a plant to research and produce mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. The plant in Wuhan, China, will open in October next year and create 10,000 jobs, Lenovo said in a statement yesterday. The plant will generate sales of 10 billion yuan by 2014, rising to 50 billion yuan within five years, it said. Lenovo, with headquarters in Beijing and North Carolina, had 13.4 percent of the global PC market in the first quarter of this year, trailing Hewlett-Packard Co’s 18 percent, according to data from researcher IDC.
FOOD
CSM to sell bakery unit
Dutch food ingredient maker CSM NV plans to sell its bakery ingredients arm, which makes items such as bagels, English muffins, pizzas, tortillas and sweet glazes and had sales of 2.4 billion euros (US$3.1 billion) last year. The company said it does not have a buyer. The activities slated for sale had an operating profit before depreciation and amortization of goodwill of 127.5 million euros, and compete against General Mills Inc. CSM is keeping its lactic acid division, which has grown by 8 percent annually for a decade, as well as food processing enzymes and emulsifiers, where it has a better market position. CSM yesterday said an internal review concluded all business lines have fair prospects, but the company should only fund the strongest.
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],”