UNITED KINGDOM
Confidence growing: CBI
Companies have grown more optimistic about the economy in recent months as a recovery, increasingly aided by a central bank funding scheme, is gathering pace, a leading business lobby said yesterday. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said businesses’ view of the future had shifted slightly, although it kept its forecasts for the country’s economic growth unchanged from February at 1 percent this year and 2 percent next year. The confederation predicts that quarterly GDP growth will speed up from 0.3 percent in the first and second quarters of the year to 0.4 percent in the third and fourth and to between 0.5 percent and 0.6 percent next year.
MINING
Coal export plan scrapped
Glencore Xstrata PLC yesterday dumped plans for a new billion dollar coal export terminal in Queensland, citing poor current market conditions and concerns about the industry outlook. The decision to scrap the Balaclava Island Coal Export Terminal follows the merger of mining giant Xstrata with Swiss commodities trader Glencore. The proposed terminal would have allowed for the export of up to 35 million tonnes of coal per year from the Bowen and Surat basins to foreign markets.
CHINA
KFC sales slump on H7N9
Sales of fast food giant KFC slumped an estimated 36 percent last month, said parent Yum Brands Inc, as consumers shunned chicken due to the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in humans. For Yum overall, which includes other restaurant chains such as Pizza Hut, same-store sales — a measure of turnover in established outlets — fell an estimated 29 percent last month, according to a stock exchange filing on Friday.
CHINA
Shadow banking on the rise
The nation’s shadow banking activities have risen about 70 percent over the past two years and now total more than half the size of the world’s second-largest economy, ratings agency Moody’s said yesterday. Shadow banking includes private lending, off-balance-sheet vehicles and trusts, and allows borrowers to circumvent banks’ formal underwriting standards, as well as official regulation. Such lending has surged 67 percent since the end of 2010, Moody’s said in a report, reaching an estimated total of 29 trillion yuan (US$4.7 trillion) at the end of last year, or 55 percent of the nation’s GDP.
BANKING
Lloyds boss to step down
Lloyds Banking Group PLC said yesterday that chairman Winfried Bischoff will retire from the post by the middle of next year after overseeing a partial turnaround of the state-rescued British bank. The group said in a statement the exact date will be subject to the appointment of his successor. Lloyds received a massive bailout after the 2008 financial crisis and is currently 39 percent owned by the British government.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Firm eyes baby-food growth
Groupe Danone SA, owner of the Evian water and Activia yogurt brands, agreed to buy Happy Family, a US maker of organic baby-food, to strengthen its fast-growing infant-nutrition division. Danone will acquire more than 90 percent of the New York-based company, according to a statement yesterday. The transaction is subject to the approval of the relevant authorities and is expected to be finalized in the next few months, the Paris-based company said. The companies did not disclose a price.
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],”