GREECE
Finance chief sworn in
Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras was yesterday sworn into office, along with two deputy ministers. Stournaras’ televised oath-taking ceremony at the presidential mansion in Athens was the first time Prime Minister Antonis Samaras appeared in public since undergoing eye surgery nearly two weeks ago, shortly after forming a coalition government with another two parties following inconclusive national elections. Stournaras, a prominent economist, was to hold his first meeting yesterday with Greece’s international debt inspectors from the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the IMF.
TRANSPORTATION
Volvo to sell Aero to GKN
Swedish truck maker AB Volvo yesterday said it would sell its aeronautics unit Aero to British engineering group GKN for 6.9 billion kronor (US$995 million) in a move to focus more on its core heavy vehicle operations. The company said the deal would be completed this quarter and was expected to generate a capital gain of about 400 million kronor. Volvo said GKN won a bidding process to acquire the unit, adding that it offered the best conditions for Volvo Aero’s development and future.
AUTOMAKERS
GM posts record PRC sales
US auto giant General Motors (GM) yesterday said that sales in China for the first half of this year reached a record 1.42 million vehicles, despite an economic slowdown in the world’s biggest car market. GM’s sales in the country jumped 11.3 percent in the first six months from a year earlier, it said in a statement. For last month alone, its China sales rose 10.1 percent year-on-year to 213,495 vehicles, also setting a new record for the month, GM said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Cancer drug disappoints
German pharmaceuticals maker Merck KGaA yesterday said that phase III clinical trials of its gastric cancer drug Erbitux had shown no benefits for patients. The trials found that in combination with standard chemotherapy, Erbitux did not extend “the length of time that patients live without their disease getting worse,” Merck KGaA said in a statement.
PHILIPPINES
Manila lauds S&P upgrade
The Philippines said a credit rating upgrade by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) would help the country carry out reforms without weakening its financial position. The agency on Wednesday raised the Philippines’ long-term foreign currency credit rating to “BB+” from “BB,” one notch below investment grade. It kept the rating outlook at stable. Presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang said that while some other countries are being forced to tighten belts to get high debt under control, the Philippines can still afford to undertake public spending without jeopardizing its overall financial position.
INVESTMENTS
Temasek’s profit drops
Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings said growth in the value of its investments slowed in the last fiscal year as a weakening global economy undermined the value of Asian companies. Temasek said in its annual report yesterday that the value of its investments rose 2.6 percent to S$198 billion (US$157 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 31. The portfolio rose 3.8 percent in the previous year. Temasek said its net profit fell to S$11 billion from S$13 billion the previous year amid lower earnings from the companies it has stakes in.
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],”
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
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