Australia yesterday approved the purchase by a Chinese-led consortium of a giant cotton farm, a decision certain to inflame the political debate over foreign ownership of farmland.
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan approved the sale, for an undisclosed price, but set several conditions, including forcing the Chinese textile firm leading the purchase, Shandong Ruyi (山東如意), to sell down its stake in the Cubbie Station property to 51 percent from 80 percent within three years.
Swan also said Ruyi’s Australian partners, the family-owned Lempriere Pty Ltd, would be responsible for operating the Cubbie Group, including the marketing and sale of its cotton, which must be sold in line with international market practices.
Cubbie Station covers about 1,000km2 of southwestern Queens-land and has been in administration for three years after racking up more than US$300 million in debt during a prolonged drought.
Cubbie can grow up to 330,000 bales of cotton in a good year, as well as some wheat, barley, sorghum and corn. The station has entitlements to a massive 537,000 megaliters of water, or enough to fill Sydney Harbour.
The water allocations have raised political concerns that the sale to a foreign investor could undermine Australia’s chances of reforming water policy, and the sale has drawn anger from lawmakers who wanted the government to block the deal.
Ahead of the announcement, independent lawmaker Nick Xenophon called on Swan to block the Cubbie sale to protect the water flows into the Murray-Darling river system, which flows through Australia’s food bowl states.
“These important environmental assets shouldn’t be flogged off to a foreign company that has no connection to Australia, and no obligation to act in our interests,” Xenophon said.
However, Swan said the sale of Cubbie would not have an impact on water management.
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