ECONOMY
Good news for eurozone
Growth in Germany, France and the Netherlands beat economists’ estimates in the fourth quarter of last year in a sign the fragile euro-area recovery is gaining traction. German GDP rose 0.4 percent from the third quarter, when it increased by 0.3 percent, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said yesterday. It predicted an expansion of a quarter of a percent on Jan. 15, while economists forecast growth of 0.3 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey. French GDP rose 0.3 percent after stagnating in the third quarter, more than the 0.2 percent economists predicted, while the Dutch economy grew 0.7 percent, compared with estimates for a 0.3 percent expansion. The data bode well for the euro area, which has struggled to sustain its recovery.
INTERNET
Facebook offer rejected
Children’s advocacy groups fired at Facebook on Thursday, rejecting a US$20 million deal made to settle charges that the social network violated privacy by using “likes” as endorsements for ads. US-based consumers’ rights group Public Citizen led organizations backing a legal brief urging a US federal appeals court in San Francisco to toss the deal inked last year. The filing said the settlement fails to compel the social network to change its ways when it comes to using profile images of teenage members in ads without the consent of parents or guardians. The practice is specifically banned by laws in California and six other US states, Public Citizen attorney Scott Michelman said. A US judge in August last year approved the deal to make Facebook pay for using members “likes” as endorsements for ads.
TELECOMS
India holds wireless auction
India raised almost US$10 billion from an auction of wireless spectrum that saw billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd emerge as a potential competitor to Vodafone Group PLC and Bharti Airtel Ltd. The government received 375.7 billion rupees (US$6 billion) in bids for the 1,800 megahertz band in 22 regional zones and 235.9 billion rupees for 900MHz in Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata, Suraj Radhakrishnan, vice president at auction facilitator e-Procurement Technologies Ltd, said on Thursday. The government valued the spectrum on sale at a minimum of 490 billion rupees. “This was an expensive auction which is going to take its toll on balance sheets of the companies that are already deep in debt, like Bharti,” said Harit Shah, a Mumbai-based analyst with Nirmal Bang Equities Ltd. Some of the spectrum acquired in the 1,800MHz band will be used for a fourth-generation mobile service, the company said.
INSURANCE
AIG boosts dividend
American International Group Inc (AIG) chief executive officer Robert Benmosche is increasing returns for shareholders as he targets job cuts to simplify the firm. AIG boosted its quarterly dividend by 25 percent to US$0.125 a share and authorized another US$1 billion in stock buybacks on Thursday as it posted fourth-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates. The New York-based insurer said it would eliminate about 3 percent of its workforce, primarily at the property-casualty business. Benmosche, 69, has been working to simplify AIG and reduce expenses after divesting units to help repay a US bailout in 2012. He has been shifting some employees to lower-cost locations in the US and abroad, and said on Thursday that those changes created duplicate roles that had to be cut.
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