ECONOMY
Chinese inflation slows
Consumer inflation fell to a five-year low of 1.4 percent last month, the government said yesterday. The rise in the consumer price index (CPI) is the lowest since November 2009, coming in short of a median forecast of 1.6 percent in a Wall Street Journal survey of 16 economists and marking a slowdown from October’s 1.6 percent. The National Bureau of Statistics also said the producer price index — a measure of costs for goods at the factory gate and a leading indicator of the trend for CPI — fell 2.7 percent year-on-year.
SOUTH KOREA
Unemployment falls
The jobless rate inched down last year from a month earlier, with new jobs being created in a number of service and manufacturing industries, government data showed yesterday. The jobless rate last month stood at 3.1 percent, down from October’s 3.2 percent, Statistics Korea said. Unemployment among those aged 15 to 29 remained substantially higher at 7.9 percent, marginally down on the previous month’s 8 percent.
ECONOMY
Russian growth view dims
The World Bank announced a gloomier economic forecast for the country on Tuesday, as the ruble fell despite the central bank saying it had spent billions last week to prop it up. The World Bank on Tuesday predicted that the economy would shrink by 0.7 percent next year and said that the contraction would be worse if oil prices keep sliding. The bank had previously predicted zero growth for Russia for next year. Its new forecast was in line with one from the Russian Ministry of Economic Development last week, which predicted a 0.8 percent contraction next year.
AUSTRALIA
Media boss tops pay list
The head of leading domestic media group Nine Entertainment, David Gyngell, was the nation’s best-paid boss this year, raking in A$19.6 million (US$16.3 million), a survey showed yesterday. Gyngell had a base salary of A$2.7 million, the Australian Financial Review said in its annual executive survey, but he pocketed millions more in short-term and long-term incentives throughout the year, including A$2.5 million for taking the company to a listing on the Australian Stock Exchange.
INTERNET
‘Make an offer’ on Amazon
Amazon said on Tuesday that it would allow online haggling between buyers and sellers for some items sold by third parties using the US online retail giant. The “make an offer” system to be implemented initially for about 150,000 items could allow Amazon to compete with retail rival eBay, but would not be an auction format. Amazon said in a statement that it would start using this model for sports and entertainment collectibles and fine art, and would “expand to hundreds of thousands of items from sellers in 2015.”
FAST FOOD
Tim Hortons sale approved
Tim Hortons Inc shareholders approved the sale of the doughnut chain to Burger King Worldwide Inc for about US$11 billion, paving the way for the creation of the world’s third-largest fast-food company. About 99 percent of votes cast by shareholders were in favor of the deal, Oakville, Ontario-based Tim Hortons said yesterday in a statement. The new combined business is to be called Restaurant Brands International, the company said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six