AVIATION
TransAsia opens Osaka post
TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空) said yesterday that it has opened a representative office in Osaka, Japan, to show its ambition to extend its reach to the Japanese market. The office is part of efforts to boost the carrier’s visibility in Japan after it raised its number of round-trip flights to Osaka in March from one per day to two, TransAsia said. The office is TransAsia’s second foothold in Japan after the carrier set up a branch in Tokyo in March 2012. In addition, TransAsia plans to boost the number of its round-trip flights to Tokyo to from one to two per day starting in July, on the back of rising demand.
FINANCE
China Development eyes HK
China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) said yesterday that it plans to acquire two Hong Kong wealth management consultancies, TG Holborn Ltd (浩邦香港有限公司) and Alpha Global Asset Management Ltd (匯智資產管理有限公司), to boost its presence and earnings overseas. The investment bank-oriented conglomerate plans to buy TG Holborn for HK$8.77 million (US$1.13 million) and Alpha Global for HK$7.59 million in cash, the filing said. The Hong Kong firms provide corporate financial advisory services, from mergers and acquisitions to company listings and employee pension schemes. China Development Financial Holding Corp announced plans to acquire Cosmos Bank (萬泰銀行) in February.
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