AIRLINES
AirAsia targets Myanmar
AirAsia Bhd, the region’s biggest budget airline, plans to carry as much as 30 percent of tourists visiting Myanmar as the southeast Asian economy opens up for foreign investment and leisure travel. The carrier is targeting to move 500,000 passengers this year to the country, AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes said in an interview in Naypyidaw, Myanmar. The country may welcome about 3 million tourists this year, he said.
NICARAGUA
Chinese firm to build canal
A concession to build a canal across the country linking the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea will be awarded to a Chinese company, the National Assembly president said on Wednesday. Legislative leader Rene Nunez said the company would use funds from investors around the world to build the US$40 billion project.
FACTORIES
Puma to sign safety pact
German sportswear giant Puma said on Wednesday it has decided to sign up to a new safety pact for Bangladesh’s disaster-hit garment factories amid calls for Western brands to help improve workers’ conditions. Puma said it would sign the Bangladesh safety agreement set up by global trade union IndustriALL and ensure that its six supplier factories in Bangladesh “adhere to high standards of social and working conditions, ensuring the safety and health of its workers.”
FRANCE
Unemployment still rising
French unemployment continued its nearly two-year rise yesterday, increasing to 10.8 percent in the first quarter, according to an estimate from the national statistics agency. The Insee agency said that unemployment rose from 10.5 percent at the end of last year. It had originally reported unemployment was 10.6 percent in the fourth quarter. According to Eurostat, the European statistics agency, which calculates the figure differently, unemployment is already at 11 percent.
CONSUMER GOODS
Procter & Gamble to change
Procter & Gamble is reorganizing its business into four new divisions, the first big change at the world’s largest consumer products maker since A.G. Lafley returned as CEO nearly two weeks ago. The changes are effective on July 1. Each division is to be headed by a group president, expanding the responsibilities for four current executives.
AVIATION
Google rents airport space
Google jets are getting a home in a US$82 million private terminal being built to cater to executives coming and going from Mineta San Jose International Airport in Silicon Valley. Construction was expected to begin late this year on the facility, which has been dubbed “Google Airport.” “It is a significant private development and Google is the main tenant, but it is not their airport,” Mineta spokeswoman Rosemary Barnes said on Wednesday.
TECHNOLOGY
BlackBerrys get keyboards
BlackBerrys with physical keyboards are now available in the US, months after the touch-screen versions went on sale. T-Mobile USA began selling the BlackBerry Q10 on Wednesday. It has Research In Motion Ltd’s new BlackBerry 10 operating system, which addresses shortcomings that allowed the iPhone and Android devices to surpass the once-pioneering BlackBerry in sales and prestige. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint also have plans to sell the Q10 in the US.
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