JAPAN
New ADB head nominated
The government has nominated Takehiko Nakao, deputy finance minister for international affairs, to become president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The Finance Ministry proposed that Nakao succeed current ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda, who has been nominated to become the next central bank governor and resigned as ADB president effective March 18. The government nominates the president of the Manila, Philippines-based regional lender due to its status as the ADB’s biggest donor. Kuroda’s planned departure has raised speculation that China might seek a chance to lead the bank.
AUTOMAKERS
GM to hire 1,000 workers
General Motors (GM) announced plans on Wednesday to hire 1,000 high-tech workers to staff a new IT innovation center in suburban Phoenix, Arizona. The largest US automaker said it expects to hire more than 4,000 new information technology workers over the next three to five years to staff centers in Arizona, Texas, Georgia and Michigan. More than 1,000 people have already been hired to staff the other three centers.
AUTOMAKERS
Continental reports profit
Continental, the German maker of automotive parts and tyres, said it achieved record results last year and expects its success to continue this year. “In 2012, Continental set new records in a market environment that was difficult in part,” the group said in a statement. “This success is set to continue in 2013.” Last year, net profit zoomed ahead by 51.6 percent to 1.884 billion euros (US$ 2.451 billion) and underlying or operating profit was up 18.3 percent at 3.073 billion euros on a 7.3 percent increase in sales to 32.736 billion euros.
INSURANCE
Aviva earnings slump
British insurer Aviva yesterday said it slumped into a net loss of £3 billion (US$4.5 billion) last year, mainly owing to a massive writedown following the sale of its US business. Aviva said last year’s earnings after tax compared with a net profit of 60 million pounds in 2011. Meanwhile, Aviva reported underlying operating profit — an indicator of its day-to-day business — of £1.78 billion, the company said in an earnings statement.
RETAIL
Carrefour profits triple
French big box retailer Carrefour’s pullout of struggling underperforming markets and asset sales more than tripled its profits last year to 1.2 billion euros, up from 371 million euros in 2011, the company reported yesterday. The huge jump in profit hides a more modest rise of 0.9 percent in revenue to 76.8 billion euros, excluding sales tax. Last year, Carrefour closed its stores in Singapore and either pulled out of or handed over its operations to partners in Greece, Colombia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
APPAREL
Adidas’ net profit declines
German sportswear and equipment maker Adidas said yesterday that one-off writedowns hit its bottom line last year, but underlying profits increased due to higher sales. Adidas said in a statement its year-end net profit declined by 14.2 percent to 526 million euros last year. However, the group said the figure included goodwill writedowns of 265 million euros largely related to “adjusted growth assumptions for the Reebok brand, especially in North America, Latin America and Brazil.” Excluding these, net profit grew by 29 percent to 791 million euros, Adidas said.
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