AUTOMAKERS
India orders Toyota restart
The Karnataka state government in India has ordered Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp and its union to restore operations at its two factories there after a protracted pay dispute halted work, the company said. The demand comes after unionized employees refused to return to work at two factories near the state’s southern city of Bangalore, despite an end to an eight-day company lockout last month. Workers have been at odds with the company’s management over pay issues that they have been negotiating for 10 months. The Bangalore complex normally produces about 310,000 cars annually, including Toyota’s flagship Camry sedan, the Corolla and its Prius hybrid, mostly for the Indian market.
ENERGY
Gazprom ties fine: EU official
EU Commissioner for Energy Guenther Oettinger yesterday said that he sees no danger of the bloc’s access to Russian gas falling victim to possible economic sanctions in the standoff over Ukraine. “From my many talks with Gazprom, my impression is that our Russian partners will fulfill their contractual obligations and want to supply the gas,” Oettinger told the German paper Welt am Sonntag. “We are agreed that, in the case of possible economic sanctions — whether from the European or Russian side — the gas sector should not have any priority.” The Russian gas giant accounts for about 25 percent of the European gas market, Oettinger said. “I am against scaling back or even cutting our gas links with Russia in the coming years, but we must pursue our strategy of diversification,” he added. Norway and Algeria are also important gas suppliers, Oettinger said, adding that 30 percent of supplies come from Europe itself, namely from Britain and the Netherlands.
FASHION
Armani settles tax dispute
Giorgio Armani SpA settled a tax dispute in Italy by paying 270 million euros (US$373 million) last week, Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported on Friday. The payment is linked to taxes owed by three foreign subsidiaries of the luxury company, which is wholly owned by Giorgio Armani, it said. The period covered is between 2002 and 2009, when the company decided to bring back to Italy subsidiaries that were based abroad. The report said there were no more tax claims against the company, whose overall tax burden went up from 28.5 percent in 2010 to 44.8 percent in 2012, it said. Armani, now 79, founded in 1974 the company that Forbes magazine said had an annual turnover of US$1.6 billion last year. It estimated the fashion designer’s personal fortune at US$8.5 billion.
MINING
Conakry to axe mining rights
Guinea says it plans to revoke the mining rights to one of the largest untapped iron ore deposits in the world, following a watchdog’s recommendation. A committee reviewing mining deals has said it has evidence that the rights to the mine were obtained through corrupt practices and recommended they be canceled. The deal is also under US investigation. Government spokesman Damantang Camara said late on Friday that Conakry would follow the recommendation. The rights are held by a joint venture owned by Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s BSG Resources Ltd and Brazilian mining firm Vale SA, but the report focused its allegations on BSG Resources. BSG Resources has said it will fight the allegations, while Vale has said it does not believe it has been accused of wrongdoing.
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