ECONOMY
China’s Q1 growth slows
China’s economic expansion slowed in the first three months of this year, according to an Agence France-Presse survey, and remains on track for its worst annual performance in almost 25 years, as reform priorities trump growth concerns. GDP in the January-to-March period expanded 7.3 percent from the same period last year, the median forecast in the agency’s survey of 13 economists said. The result would mark the fourth slowdown in the past six quarters. China’s National Bureau of Statistics is scheduled to release GDP data for the first quarter tomorrow.
HEALTHCARE
Seoul targets Big Tobacco
South Korea’s state health insurer yesterday said it was seeking an initial 53.7 billion won (US$51.9 million) from three tobacco companies, including the local units of Philip Morris and British American Tobacco, to offset treatment costs for diseases linked to smoking. The National Health Insurance Service said it was suing the two global cigarette makers, as well as local market leader KT&G Corp, in a local court. Only four tobacco lawsuits have ever been heard in South Korea, all by individuals or families, and there is no precedent of a successful action against a tobacco company.
AUTOMAKERS
Peugeot to slash lineup
PSA Peugeot Citroen, Europe’s second-largest carmaker, will cut its model lineup by almost half and turn the Citroen unit’s DS badge into a separate brand in a bid to restore the automotive division to profitability. Operating profit from carmaking is to amount to 2 percent of sales by 2018, with the figure rising to 5 percent in the period from 2019 to 2023, chief executive Carlos Tavares said yesterday in his strategic review of the Paris-based company. The company said its strategy hinges on “aggressively” reducing the number of models to 26 vehicles by 2022 from 45 now, as well as a push into markets outside Europe.
MANUFACTURING
ThyssenKrupp in unit talks
German heavy industry giant ThyssenKrupp yesterday said it is in talks with Saab of Sweden over the sale of its Swedish shipyards business. The operations, formerly known as Kockums, employ a about 900 people and the aim of the talks was to safeguard those jobs and retain activities in Sweden, ThyssenKrupp said. The German group said in a statement that the talks were respecting the Swedish government’s preference for national naval shipbuilding programs. ThyssenKrupp said it was focusing on its profitable naval shipbuilding activities in Kiel, Hamburg, and Emden.
ENERGY
Kuwait inks upgrade deals
The Kuwait National Petroleum Co (KNPC) on Sunday signed contracts worth US$12 billion with three international consortia to upgrade two refineries and invited bids to build a new multibillion-dollar refinery. KNPC chief executive Mohammed al-Mutairi signed the contracts with the groups led by Britain’s Petrofac Corp, US Fluor Corp and Japan’s JGC Corp. Most of the other companies in the consortia are South Korean. Mutairi said the project is due to be completed in early 2018. The cost of the venture — called the Clean Fuel Project — is expected to surpass US$13 billion if smaller preparatory contracts are added, lower than the previous estimated cost of US$16.4 billion, project manager Abdullah al-Ajmi said.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts