REAL ESTATE
Prologis to buy KTR Capital
Prologis Inc, the world’s largest owner of industrial real estate, and Norway’s US$890 billion sovereign wealth fund agreed to buy KTR Capital Partners for US$5.9 billion to expand in key US markets. The purchase is to be made by Prologis US Logistics Venture, a partnership with Norges Bank Investment Management, the San Francisco-based company said on Sunday in a statement. The deal includes the assumption of about US$700 million in debt and the issuance of as much as US$230 million of common limited partnership units in Prologis LP to KTR. Prologis, with a market value of about US$22 billion, said the acquisition expands its position in southern California and Florida, New Jersey as well as Chicago, Seattle and Dallas. Warehouse properties have become attractive as global trade increases.
TRADE
China free-trade zones open
China is scheduled to launch three new free-trade zones today, state media said yesterday, building on a project that began in Shanghai to much fanfare but has so far undershot expectations. The free-trade zones are to be opened in the southern province of Guangdong, the northern port of Tianjin and the Chinese province of Fujian, the Web site of the People’s Daily reported. Each will cover about 120km2, China’s State Council said. China’s first free-trade zone, set up in Shanghai in September 2013, is also to be quadrupled in size, it said.
TRADE
Indonesia seeks trade deals
Indonesia is to aggressively pursue talks on free-trade agreements with countries such as South Korea and the three European Economic Area (EEA) nations, in its latest move to boost exports, a government official said yesterday. Exports from Southeast Asia’s largest economy have been hit by falling commodity prices. Last month, exports contracted 9.75 percent from last year, sliding for a sixth straight month. Indonesian Deputy Coordinating Minister for International Cooperation Rizal Affandi Lukman said the government was looking at ways to speed up talks on free-trade agreements with South Korea and the EEA countries: Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. “We’ve been negotiating with South Korea for two years and spending about the same time with the EEA-EFTA [European Free Trade Agreement]. Now we want to accelerate things aggressively and add more negotiations,” Lukman told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum-East Asia. Lukman said Indonesia was also going to start a joint study group with Russia.
AUTOMAKERS
Volvo to place US plant
Volvo Car Group, owned by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co (吉利控股集團), is to make a decision on a site for its US plant within a few weeks. The Swedish carmaker is evaluating factors including logistics and the availability of labor and suppliers, Volvo chief executive officer Hakan Samuelsson said in an interview in Shanghai yesterday. “We have very few candidates left on the list,” he said at the Shanghai auto show, which opens to the public this week. “Within some weeks we will make the final decision.” Volvo said last month it plans to invest US$500 million to build its first auto factory in the US as part of its plans to revive sales following a plunge in demand over the past decade. The carmaker starts deliveries of the new XC90 sport-utility vehicle this quarter and plans to replace all its models within the next four years.
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