UNITED KINGDOM
Fitch maintains UK rating
Fitch Ratings on Friday maintained Britain’s “AAA” credit rating with a negative outlook, warning that weak economic growth and a rising debt level was increasing the likelihood of a downgrade. Fitch said “weaker than expected growth and fiscal outturns this year have increased pressure on the UK’s ‘AAA’ rating.” With Fitch estimating that Britain’s debt in 2015-2016 may approach 100 percent of GDP, the limit for a top “AAA” rating, “the likelihood of a downgrade has therefore increased.” It said the negative outlook reflects Britain’s “very limited fiscal space, at the ‘AAA’ level, to absorb further adverse economic shocks in light of the UK’s elevated debt levels and uncertain growth outlook.” Fitch had put Britain’s rating on negative outlook, or subject to downgrade, in March.
INTERNET
Lawmaker urges data laws
An EU lawmaker called for tighter control of online social networks under a data protection regulation now being debated after some Facebook users said their personal messages appeared on their public profiles. EU regulators are in the midst of writing new legislation that could give Internet users greater control over how their personal data is used by big technology companies. One part of the regulation requires companies to get permission before “processing” people’s personal data, although exactly how and when such consent would be needed is still subject to debate. On Tuesday the French data protection regulator asked to meet Facebook after thousands of users complained private messages dating back to 2007 were visible on their Facebook timelines.
AID
IMF approves sales profits
The IMF on Friday approved US$2.7 billion in gold sales profits to boost financing to low-income countries. The IMF executive board earmarked the money for the global lender’s concessional lending program, the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust. The distribution of the windfall profits will occur “only when members have given satisfactory assurances that an amount equivalent to at least 90 percent of the distribution will be made available to the PRGT,” the institution said in a statement. “This is a major step toward putting our important concessional lending operations for low-income members on a sustainable footing,” IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said.
FRANCE
President unveils levies
Socialist President Francois Hollande unveiled higher levies on business and a 75 percent tax for the super-rich on Friday in a budget for next year aimed at showing France has the fiscal rigor to remain at the core of the euro zone. The package aims to recoup 30 billion euros (US$39 billion) for the public purse with a goal of narrowing the deficit to 3 percent of national output next year from 4.5 percent this year — France’s toughest single belt-tightening in 30 years. However, the budget dismayed business and pro-reform lobbyists by preferring tax hikes and a simple freeze of France’s high public spending to attacking ministerial budgets as Spain did this week in its battle to avoid an international bailout.
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained