Australia yesterday announced it was forcing the Chinese owner of a A$39 million (US$30.53 million) Sydney mansion to sell up within 90 days, the first such crackdown on foreign investment in residential real estate since 2006.
The mansion was bought “illegally” in November last year by Golden Fast Foods Pty, owned by Hong Kong-listed Evergrande Real Estate Group (恆大地產集團) through a string of shell companies in Australia, Hong Kong and the British Virgin Islands, Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey said in a statement.
Evergrande, the fourth-biggest property developer in China by sales, is owned by Hui Ka Yan (許家印), China’s 15th-richest man with a net wealth of about US$6.4 billion, according to Forbes.
The company was not immediately available for comment.
Foreigners in Australia are restricted to buying new properties only, and the vast mansion, Villa del Mare, is not new.
A parliamentary committee inquiry last year found widespread abuse of the system in a nation which is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the world.
“Under Australia’s foreign investment policy, foreign investment should increase Australia’s housing stock. Non-resident foreign nationals cannot buy established dwellings as homes or investments,” Hockey’s statement said.
Last month, Australia announced plans to charge foreign nationals buying residential property fees and fine those who break foreign investment laws in an attempt to cool one of the world’s hottest property markets.
Australia’s foreign investment review board says China, which is trying to crack down on capital flight, was the No. 1 source of foreign capital investment in real estate in 2013, approving nearly A$6 billion (US$4.69 billion) of investment, an increase of 41 percent from a year earlier.
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