SOUTH KOREA
Economy expands 0.8%
The economy grew at its fastest pace in a year in the first quarter of this year, but marginally slower than originally estimated, the central Bank of Korea said yesterday. Asia’s fourth-largest economy expanded a revised 0.8 percent quarter-on-quarter in the January-March period, slightly down on the bank’s April estimate of 0.9 percent. It was still a marked improvement from the 0.3 percent growth recorded in the fourth quarter of last year. Year-on-year, the economy grew 1.5 percent in the first quarter, matching the central bank’s April forecast and unchanged from the previous quarter.
GERMANY
GDP expected to increase
The central bank, or Bundesbank, forecast a “brighter outlook” for the economy, Europe’s biggest, even if it pared back its growth forecasts for both this year and next year. “The outlook for the economy has become brighter again following the slowdown towards the end of 2012,” the Bundesbank wrote in its monthly report this month. The Bundesbank predicted that GDP would expand by 0.3 percent this year and 1.5 percent next year. In its previous forecasts published in December last year, the central bank had been penciling in growth of 0.4 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.
SPAIN
Factories cut production
Factories cut production for the 20th straight month in April, official data showed yesterday, sharply braking output of durable goods such as cars or washing machines in the midst of a recession. Factories and utilities lowered overall output by 1.8 percent over the year to April, after correcting for seasonal variations such as the number of working days in the month, the National Statistics Institute said in a report. Industrial production has now fallen on an annual basis every month since September 2011 as the economy struggles in a double-dip recession, still unable to recover from the implosion in 2008 of a decade-long property bubble.
AGRICULTURE
Suit filed against Monsanto
US wheat farmers and a food safety advocacy group filed a lawsuit on Thursday against biotech seed developer Monsanto Co, accusing the company of failing to protect the wheat market from contamination by its unauthorized wheat. The petition seeks class-action status to represent other farmers it says were harmed by lower wheat prices as some foreign buyers have shied away from US wheat. The suit follows a similar action filed on Monday by a Kansas farmer, alleging that growers have been hurt financially by the discovery of an unapproved biotech wheat that Monsanto said it stopped testing and shelved nine years ago.
TELECOMS
Indian brothers reach deal
India’s billionaire Ambani brothers yesterday announced a US$2.1 billion agreement to share telecoms tower infrastructure, cementing a reconciliation in the once-warring family. Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecoms unit of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, signed the agreement with Reliance Communications, the flagship firm of the Anil Ambani group, to share the latter’s telecoms tower equipment, a joint statement said. The move will help Reliance Industries to accelerate the roll-out of its high-speed fourth-generation (4G) telecoms services, the companies said. The aggregate value of the deal is more than US$2.1 billion for the duration of the agreement, which was not specified, the statement added.
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],”