POULTRY
Bird flu costs PRC US$6.5bn
China’s H7N9 avian influenza outbreak has cost its poultry industry more than 40 billion yuan (US$6.5 billion) as consumers shun chicken, the Beijing Times quoted officials as saying yesterday. The sector has been losing an average of 1 billion yuan a day since the end of March, the paper said, citing the National Animal Husbandry Service’s statistics. The outbreak has infected 130 people in China, killing 35.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Actavis buys Warner Chilcott
US-based Actavis has agreed to an all-stock takeover of Irish rival Warner Chilcott worth US$8.5 billion. The deal will create “a leading global specialty pharmaceutical company with approximately [US]$11 billion in combined annual revenue” — focused on women’s health, gastroenterology, urology and dermatology, the companies said in a joint statement yesterday. “The combination of Actavis and Warner Chilcott creates a strong specialty brand portfolio focused in therapeutic categories with strong growth potential, and is supported by a deep pipeline of development programs,” Actavis CEO Paul Bisaro said.
ELECTRONICS
Apple to face Senate hearing
Apple Inc will be the subject today of a US Senate hearing on US companies’ offshore tax practices, two people familiar with the inquiry said. CEO Tim Cook will testify at the hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of the people said. The committee has been examining firms that use various maneuvers to reduce their tax bills, including Microsoft Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co. Apple has US$40.4 billion in earnings outside the US on which it has not paid US taxes. If Apple brought that money back to the US, it would owe US$13.8 billion, according to public filings by the company.
BANKING
Loan squeeze complaints up
The number of small firms complaining about bank loans to Britain’s Financial Ombudsman Service rose sharply last year, supporting persistent claims by companies they are being denied access to finance despite a government push to boost lending. The ombudsman received 17 percent more complaints last year compared with 2011, according to figures obtained by UK finance provider Syscap. Firms were most likely to complain about banks refusing to renew loans or overdrafts or renewing them with punishing interest rates or higher fees, Syscap said.
AIRLINES
Ryanair net profit up 13%
Ryanair yesterday posted forecast-beating full-year earnings, buoyed by strong growth in fares and a sharp rise in charges for items such as baggage and in-flight refreshments. Shares in Europe’s largest budget airline jumped more than 6 percent to a record high of 6.764 euros. Net profit reached 569 million euros (US$730 million) in the 12 months to the end of March, up 13 percent and ahead of an average analyst forecast of 558 million euros in a company poll.
MACROECONOMICS
Hanoi warns of macro risks
Vietnam still faces “great risk” of macroeconomic instability, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told the National Assembly in Hanoi yesterday, as credit growth trails behind targets, while banks work to reduce elevated bad debt. The economy expanded 5.03 percent last year, the slowest pace since 1999, and the IMF last month cut this year’s forecast to 5.2 percent from 5.8 percent.
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