CHINA
Fraud nets US$10bn
China uncovered almost US$10 billion in fraudulent trade nationwide as part of an investigation begun in April last year, including many irregularities in the port of Qingdao, the nation’s currency regulator said yesterday. Companies “faked, forged and illegally re-used” documents for exports and imports, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange’s (SAFE) inspection department deputy head Wu Ruilin (武瑞林) said at a briefing in Beijing. The trades have “increased pressure from hot money inflows and provided an illegal channel for criminals to move funds,” Wu said, adding that those involved in such fraud would be severely punished. SAFE identified the fake trade invoicing as part of a crackdown on the practice in 24 cities and provinces, Wu said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Treasury touts new sanctions
Britain on Thursday said new powers to punish rigging of LIBOR interest rates with criminal sanctions should be extended for seven major benchmarks, drawing in oil, gold and currency markets. “The government has today launched a consultation on extending the new legislation the government put in place to regulate LIBOR to cover further benchmarks in the foreign exchange, fixed income and commodity markets,” a statement from the Treasury said. The government, working alongside the Bank of England and Britain’s financial regulators, said it intends to have the new regime for the designated benchmarks in place by the end of the year.
FRANCE
New work model urged
Scrap two public holidays and loosen the 35-hour week: that was the controversial advice from French businesses on Wednesday, as France labors through a deep economic crisis. In a blueprint to create 1 million jobs that has already been attacked as a “provocation” by labor unions, the MEDEF business group called for a “debate without taboos” over France’s “outdated” social model. The group also called for a “revision of the principle that the 35-hour week had to be applied to all companies,” saying sectoral-wide agreements could be reached for parts of the economy that wanted to opt out.
ARGENTINA
Recession exit misleading
Argentina exited recession with 0.9 percent economic growth in the second quarter, national statistics institute INDEC said on Wednesday, a rare bit of good news amid the nation’s new debt default. However, with inflation estimated at more than 30 percent and the value of the peso tumbling, Latin America’s third-largest economy is still mired in a slowdown after averaging 7.8 percent annual growth from 2003 to 2011. Economic analysts are forecasting the economy will shrink two percent this year, though the government is forecasting a return to economic growth of 2.8 percent next year.
MINING
Billiton mulls UK listing
Global miner BHP Billiton is considering a secondary listing in London for shares in its planned new company after requests from some UK-based investors. In August, BHP said it would spin off some aluminum, coal, manganese, nickel and silver assets worth an estimated US$16 billion into a new company headquartered in Perth and listed in Australia, with a secondary listing in South Africa. Shareholders in BHP Billiton Ltd and BHP Billiton PLC would receive shares in the new company, which is yet to be named, on a pro-rata basis.
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
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