Visiting Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto yesterday announced his support for Japan’s plan to join talks on forging a huge Pacific-wide free-trade zone.
“We have expressed support for Japan’s participation in TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] talks,” Pena Nieto said after a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Japanese prime minister said last month he wants to take part in talks on forging the huge trade pact. However, he faces significant opposition from his own powerful farming lobby, which has long sheltered under steep tariffs.
The TPP forms a key plank in US President Barack Obama’s vaunted “pivot” to Asia, and is seen by some as part of a US attempt to contain China’s rising economic might.
Japan will need approval from the other 11 negotiating members before it can formally join the talks. Some participating states are wary of what they see as an inevitable attempt by Tokyo to exclude prized products from the agreement.
In written replies to questions submitted by Kyodo News before his visit, Pena Nieto expressed concern about any bid by Tokyo to secure tariff exemptions for rice and some other farm products.
However, Pena Nieto said the TPP talks would greatly benefit if Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, became part of the new trade framework.
Pena Nieto, who arrived in Tokyo on Sunday as part of an Asian tour aimed at deepening economic ties with Japan and China, met Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko before his summit with Abe.
Japan and Mexico already have a bilateral free-trade agreement. Japan was the largest foreign investor in Mexico in the first six months of last year, investing US$2.416 billion or 34 percent of the total.
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