CHINA
Industrial profit growth rises
Industrial profit growth rebounded last month, adding to signs that the world’s second-biggest economy is stabilizing after a two-quarter slowdown and an interbank lending squeeze in June. Net income rose 12 percent from a year earlier after gaining 6.3 percent in June, the statistics bureau said yesterday. Power, telecommunications, and auto manufacturing contributed to the increase, while coal miners’ profits slid.
GERMANY
Business confidence up
Business confidence rose for the fourth month in a row this monthy, data showed yesterday, slightly exceeding expectations for the economy which is the biggest in Europe. The Ifo economic institute’s closely watched business climate index rose to 107.5 points this month from 106.2 points last month. Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a slightly lower increase.
BANKING
Seoul scraps KDB plan
South Korea plans to keep a controlling stake in Korea Development Bank (KDB) to support domestic industry, scrapping a five-year-old plan to privatize the nation’s biggest policy lender. The Financial Services Commission will this year submit a revised version of the KDB Act, a mandate to break up KDB Financial Group Inc, the regulator said in a statement yesterday. Under the revision, the government would merge policy lender Korea Finance Corp with Korea Development Bank by July next year, while selling the brokerage unit and other assets. The revision is subject to parliament approval.
TURKEY
Lira hits record low
The lira fell to a record low level early yesterday on signals of a tightening of US monetary policy which have hit emerging market currencies hard. The lira plunged to 2.0095 to the US dollar in initial trading, rallying later to 2.0028 from 1.9920 at the close on Monday when the central bank sold US$350 million in defense of the lira. The main Turkish stock market fell by 1.66 percent in morning trading.
PHARMACEUTICALS
AstraZeneca buys firm
AstraZeneca yesterday said that it has agreed to buy US-based cancer drugs company Amplimmune, as the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceuticals group seeks to bolster its flagging pipeline of new products. Under the deal, MedImmune will acquire 100 percent of Amplimmune’s shares for an initial price of US$225 million, with another US$275 million deferred until it reaches key drug development milestones.
ARGENTINA
Breast implant suit filed
About 300 women with faulty PIP breast implants have filed suit seeking US$54.7 million in damages from three European companies, their attorney said on Monday. “We have filed a class-action suit against France’s Poly Implant Protheses [PIP], Germany’s TUV Rheinland [quality control] and German insurer Allianz,” Virginia Luna told reporters, warning that the total damages sought could be vastly higher since about 15,000 women are believed to have been affected in the country.
INTERNET
Yahoo buys IQ Engines
Yahoo on Monday confirmed that it has bought image search specialty startup IQ Engines to add the company’s technology to its Flickr photo service. IQ Engines is known for software that analyzes, sorts and categorizes images using techniques including facial recognition.
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
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last