CHINA
Wen calls for export stability
Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said on Saturday that more policies to stabilize the country’s exports are needed, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Wen, speaking during an inspection tour in the southern export center of Guangdong Province, also said the government should utilize tools, including tax rebates, to help exporters, Dow Jones said, citing state radio. The report said that Wen called for speeding up the transformation of the country’s foreign trade development model and putting more weight on cultivating national brands as well as intellectual property rights. Wen also reiterated the government’s stance to further boost imports to help international trade become more balanced, proactively deal with trade frictions and make more improvements to the national investment climate. Economic growth has slowed for six straight quarters, managing a 7.6 percent expansion in the three months ended June 30 for the worst performance in three years.
TECHNOLOGY
Suit was last resort: Apple
Apple Inc decided to take its patent infringement battle to the courts only after “repeatedly” asking close component partner and arch-rival Samsung Electronics Co to stop mimicking the company’s designs, chief executive Tim Cook told employees. “We chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work,” Cook said in an internal memo obtained by media. Cook’s message sent to Apple employees late on Friday after a nine-member US jury found that Samsung had copied key features of the iPhone and iPad, and awarded Apple US$1.05 billion in damages. The ruling is a big blow to Google Inc, whose Android software powers the Samsung products. The verdict also empowers Apple in filing infringement cases against other Android manufacturers.
OIL INDUSTRY
Karl Thomson sells big stake
Neil Bush, son of one former US president and brother of another, is a partner in a venture seeking control of Karl Thomson Holdings Ltd, a financial services oil and gas company listed in Hong Kong. Triumph Energy Group Ltd, owned by Bush and Hui Chi Ming (許智明), conditionally agreed to pay HK$359.5 million (US$46.3 million) in cash for new shares equivalent to a 56 percent stake in Karl Thomson, according to a statement made on Thursday to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Bush, 57, is president of ATX Oil LLC and chairman of the Points of Light Institute, a charitable organization formed in 1989 by his father, then-US president George H.W. Bush, the statement said. Hui, 48, was chairman of Sino Union Energy Investment Group Ltd (中聯能源投資集團), an oil and gas business listed in Hong Kong, according to the statement.
SERVICES
UK’s Mouchel sells assets
The assets of British public services contractor Mouchel have been sold to a new firm owned by its lender banks and its management, after shareholders rejected an alternative restructuring plan, its administrator said on Saturday. The deal to sell the business to MRBL Limited means that all of Mouchel’s subsidiaries will continue to trade as usual, administrator KPMG said. Mouchel helps build and maintain Britain’s motorways, roads and schools, but struggled to recover from last year’s contract blunders, management resignations, failed takeover bids and tough trading. Shareholders on Friday rejected a plan that would have seen its lenders swap £87 million (US$138 million) of existing debt for a majority stake in the company.
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],”