UNITED KINGDOM
Economy to slow next year
The British economy is set to slow down sharply next year due to political uncertainty and a potential referendum on membership of the EU, a leading forecaster said yesterday. In an autumn forecast released after a turbulent week on world markets, EY ITEM Club said GDP growth would slow to 2.4 percent next year, after 3.1 percent growth this year. The forecasts are below the Bank of England’s outlook of 3.5 percent growth this year and 3 percent growth next year, as well as IMF and CBI forecasts.
GERMANY
Taxes continue to rise
New data show that the government’s tax receipts are still rising as Berlin faces cooling growth prospects at home and pressure from abroad to increase spending. Yesterday’s monthly Ministry of Finance report showed the government’s tax income for last month up 4.7 percent compared with a year earlier, at 57.3 billion euros (US$73.1 billion). For the first nine months, the tax take rose 3 percent to 428.9 billion euros.
FINANCE
Greece hopes for stability
Greece needs political stability to be able to negotiate the turmoil afflicting financial markets after deciding to exit its bailout plan early, Greek Minister of Finance Gikas Hardouvelis said on Sunday. “We are at a delicate balancing point,” said Hardouvelis in an interview in weekly newspaper Realnews. “Current dynamics in the economic landscape require political stability.” Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras fueled panic in global financial markets last week when he said Greece wants to end its international bailout program by the end of December, a year ahead of schedule.
AVIATION
Lufthansa pilots to strike
Pilots for Lufthansa AG are to hold a one-day strike today which is set to hit long-haul flights operated by the German carrier, Europe’s largest, their union said. The latest action is the ninth to buffet Lufthansa in less than two months, launched by pilots in a bid to keep an early retirement scheme that the management wants to phase out in order to reduce costs. The strike on shorter flights was expected to affect 200,000 passengers taking 2,150 flights yesterday.
LIGHTING
Philips posts loss after suit
Royal Philips NV, the world’s largest lighting maker, has reported a 104 million euro (US$132 million) loss for the third quarter, mostly due to a one-off charge after losing a patent infringement lawsuit against US firm Masimo Corp. The loss compares with net profit of 282 million euros in the same period a year earlier, but includes the US$466 million award a US jury handed to Masimo. Philips is appealing.
SOFTWARE
SAP trims profit forecast
SAP AG yesterday said it was trimming its profit forecast for the whole of this year, despite a strong rise in revenues and profits in the third quarter. SAP said in a statement that it expects full-year operating profit to be in a range of 5.6 to 5.8 billion euros (US$7.1 to US$7.4 billion), lower than its previous forecast of 5.8 to 6 billion euros. In the three months to September, net profit rose by 16 percent to 881 million euros, beating analysts’ expectations, while revenues rose by 5 percent to 4.25 billion euros, SAP 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],”
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