INDONESIA
Inflation to peak: minister
The nation’s inflation rate is poised to peak after rising “quite substantially” last month and this month, Finance Minister Chatib Basri said. “Inflation will peak in July,” Basri said in an interview in Moscow on Saturday, where he attended a meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors. Price gains quickened after fuel costs rose and the rate may be back to normal in a “couple of months,” he said. Basri, who last month oversaw the first price increase for subsidized fuel in five years as Southeast Asia’s largest economy grapples to cut energy spending, said fuel consumption fell last month. Government efforts to open the local market to imports will help curb price gains, the minister said. Consumer prices rose 5.9 percent last month from the year earlier, the fastest pace since May 2011, based on the latest data from the Central Bureau of Statistics. Price gains may accelerate to an annual rate of 6 percent this month, Basri said on July 1.
MINING
Japan wins cobalt rights
Japan on Saturday said it had won the rights to explore for cobalt-rich crusts in the Pacific, a move that could reduce its dependence on China for rare metals. A government press release said the International Seabed Authority (ISA) had approved Japan’s plan to probe a 3,000km2 area beneath international waters off the isolated Japanese coral atoll of Minamitorishima. The area is located 600km off the atoll that lies 1,850km south of Tokyo. The Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp, acting on the government’s behalf, is due to sign a formal contract with the ISA covering 15 years of exploration rights, the statement said. Cobalt-rich crusts are presumed to cover the seabed between 1,000m and 2,000m down, containing such rare metals as manganese, cobalt, nickel and platinum, the statement said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
GSK sends Hussain to China
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) PLC sent its head of emerging markets to China to oversee the drugmaker’s response to a government probe of suspected economic crimes, according to person with knowledge of the matter. Abbas Hussain, the London-based company’s president of Europe, Japan, emerging markets and Asia Pacific, was dispatched by chief executive officer Andrew Witty, said the person, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak about the matter. The global head of internal audit and deputy chief counsel for China are with Hussain, the person said. Sending a senior executive such as Hussain shows Glaxo wants to be seen as a company that is doing what is expected of it, Zurich-based Kepler Capital Markets healthcare analyst Fabian Wenner said. Four senior executives have been detained in the investigation involving 3 billion yuan (US$489 million) of spurious travel and meeting expenses, and trade in sexual favors, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security said on Monday last week.
BANKING
Swedbank AB ‘stable’: S&P
Swedbank AB’s credit-rating outlook was raised to stable at Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services, which said the lender is better prepared than rivals to handle increasing risks in the Swedish economy. S&P removed its negative outlook on both the “A+” long-term rating and the “A-1” short-term opinion, it said in a statement late on Friday. S&P also gave notice of possible downgrades for Svenska Handelsbanken AB and SBAB Bank because of concern about those banks’ use of short-term wholesale funding.
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