ECONOMY
IMF lowers Brazil forecast
The Brazilian economy will likely shrink this year, but the South American nation could return to growth next year if it succeeds in boosting investor confidence with its austerity drive, the IMF said on Friday. The IMF lowered its forecast for Brazil’s economic performance this year to a 1 percent contraction from the 0.3 percent growth it forecast in January, due to tighter fiscal and monetary policies and a drop in investment by state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras.
ECONOMY
Argentina extends controls
Argentina’s government is extending its price control program aimed at curbing high inflation. Argentine Minister of the Economy Axel Kicillof on Friday said the program will continue for three more months, until July 7. The controls affect 476 supermarket items. They include staples like milk, bread and meat as well as other items like canned goods and cleaning products. The government says inflation ran at nearly 24 percent last year, but independent economists dispute that. They estimate the current inflation rate at nearly 39 percent.
INVESTMENT
Norway to shun polluters
Norway on Friday said it would bar its state pension fund, the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, from investing in the worst climate-polluting companies. In its annual white book on managing the fund, which is valued at 835 billion euros (US$885 billion), fueled by Norway’s state-oil revenues, the right-wing government proposed to “introduce a new criterion to exclude companies whose conduct to an unacceptable degree entail greenhouse gas emissions.”
MANUFACTURING
Caterpillar plans new unit
Caterpillar Inc, the world’s largest manufacturer of mining and construction equipment, is creating a new division to capitalize on the growing importance of data analytics. The analytics and innovation unit will draw on workers from across the company and will be led by company vice president Greg Folley, Caterpillar said in a statement on Friday. The company is set to place some employees with Uptake, a Chicago-based technology startup that provides analytics, and put resources into a Silicon Valley venture capital fund with the aim of investing in emerging technologies.
FINANCE
Gamco to split into two firms
Gamco Investors Inc, the money management firm founded by Mario Gabelli, plans to split into two separate companies that would both be publicly traded. Gabelli, aged 72, intends to continue serving as chairman and chief executive officer of the traditional asset management business, the Rye, New York-based firm said in a statement on yesterday. Gamco expects that both companies will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Gamco manages US$47.5 billion in assets.
TECHNOLOGY
Symantec shares climb
Symantec Corp shares jumped 5.6 percent after the Dow Jones Newswires reported that its storage unit might fetch more than US$8 billion in a sale. Symantec, which bought Veritas in 2005, is looking to spin off the data-storage business to focus on anti-hacking services and other security technology.
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],”
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
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