SLOVENIA
Public spending capped
Slovenia’s parliament on Friday imposed a cap on public spending in an attempt to convince foreign investors that the small eurozone country will not need an international bailout. The 78-8 vote in the assembly approving the new measure means Slovenia’s constitution will be changed to require that the government’s budget be balanced — that is, it will not be allowed to spend more than it earns in taxes. The budget should be balanced by 2015, as demanded by the EU. Slovenia’s public debt is set to surge to 71 percent of annual GDP next year, up from 54 percent last year.
AIRLINES
Air China orders 100 jets
Air China (中國國際航空) said on Friday it had ordered 100 Airbus A320 series medium-range single-aisle passenger jets, which carry a catalogue price of US$8.8 billion. Air China said in a statement it would acquire 60 of the aircraft for itself and 40 would be bought by its subsidiary, Shenzhen Airlines. “The transaction will expand the overall fleet capacity of the group and optimize the fleet structure,” Air China said in a notification to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, saying it would add nearly 16 percent to capacity
ENTERTAINMENT
Netflix woos new clients
Netflix is hoping this weekend’s release of the resurrected TV series Arrested Development will draw more subscribers to its Internet video service. The award-winning show about the dysfunctional Bluth family returns today, seven years after Fox canceled the series. The revival coincides with Netflix’s own resounding comeback from a customer backlash over price increases and shareholders’ worries about rising expenses. Netflix is winning back subscribers and investors with a bold attempt to establish its US$8-per-month service as a home entertainment powerhouse that rivals the broadcast TV networks and premium cable channels such as HBO.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Valeant eyes deal
Canadian pharmaceutical company Valeant is close to a deal to acquire US eye-health company Bausch & Lomb for about US$9 billion, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. A deal could come as soon as next week, the person said. Unless the deal falls apart, the transaction will replace a plan launched in March for Bausch & Lomb to undertake an initial public offering. The takeover talks were first reported on Friday by the Wall Street Journal.
BANKING
Bankia to sell City National
Spain’s bailed-out lender Bankia on Friday announced it would sell City National Bank of Florida to Chile’s BCI for about 683 million euros (US$883 million). The bank said in a statement it had “made provisions in late 2010 to cover losses” of City National, meaning it “hopes for a net capital gain of around 180 million euros” from the sale to Banco de Credito e Inversiones. The sale of Bankia’s US subsidiary, brokered by Goldman Sachs and Sullivan&Cromwell, will result in 435 job losses, the statement said. The move is part of the “commitments under the plan to restructure the BFA-Bankia group approved by the Spanish and European authorities in November 2012,” it added.
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