JAPAN
World’s top creditor nation
The country kept its position as the world’s largest creditor nation for the 22nd straight year last year, government data showed yesterday, as the US dollar’s gains helped inflate the value of overseas assets, including foreign debt and property. The nation’s net overseas assets stood at ¥296.3 trillion (US$2.9 trillion) at the end of last year, according to the finance ministry. It was followed by China, which had net overseas assets of ¥150.3 trillion last year. Germany ranked third with ¥121.9 trillion, followed by Switzerland at ¥84.7 trillion and Hong Kong with ¥63.4 trillion.
HONG KONG
Housing crisis bites
More than 170,000 people in the city are living in cramped subdivided apartments, a government-commissioned study has found, underlining the scale of the city’s housing crisis. The study was carried out from January to last month by Policy21, a survey organization comprising academics from the University of Hong Kong. The Census and Statistics Department last October estimated 64,900 people live in subdivided apartments, cubicles, caged bed spaces and cocklofts, which are usually about 3.72m2 big.
CLOTHING
Uniqlo pushes safety
The operator of Japanese cheap-chic clothing chain Uniqlo said yesterday it was pressing ahead with its own safety inspections in Bangladesh, while it considered joining a global pact on protecting workers. Fast Retailing, which operates the brand, said no decision had yet been made on the accord, which was promoted by international labor groups after a Bangladesh building collapse last month that killed 1,129 workers. The Bangladesh deal binds retailers to having independent building and fire safety inspections, and to pay for repairs.
CURRENCIES
Digital money boss nabbed
The founder of the Liberty Reserve digital currency business has been arrested in Spain on money-laundering charges, Costa Rican authorities said. Officials in the Central American nation said in a statement that Arthur Budovsky was detained as part of an investigation that also involved US authorities. Police raided three homes and five businesses linked to the Costa Rica-based Liberty Reserve, and seized papers and digital documents that will be turned over to US authorities, the statement said. A Russian citizen was also arrested in the case in Costa Rica on Friday last week and will be extradited to the US.
FRANCE
Consumers gloomy: index
French consumers are deeply pessimistic, being as gloomy as they have ever been since 1987, a monthly index compiled by the national statistics institute INSEE showed yesterday. The index, which measures household confidence, fell to 79 points this month from 83 points last month. This reading is equal to the lowest level reached since 1987, in July 2008, at the height of the financial crisis. Households also believe that the unemployment rate, now at 11 percent, will rise.
VENEZUELA
Chevron joins oil venture
Chevron Corp has agreed to lend US$2 billion to a joint venture with Venezuela’s state oil company to boost production in an oil field in Zulia state. Venezuela’s PVDSA oil company owns 60 percent of the venture, Petroboscan, and Chevron 40 percent. Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez says financing will help boost production in the Boscan field from 107,000 barrels a day to 127,000 barrels.
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