MACROECONOMICS
UK growth indicator rises
Britain’s private sector recorded its strongest economic growth for a year in the three months to last month, according to the Confederation of British Industry, in contrast to weak official data for the first quarter of this year. The confederation yesterday said that its monthly growth indicator — based on separate surveys of manufacturers, retailers and services — rose to +33 last month from +19 in April, its highest since May last year. Services companies showed the most robust growth, with output rising at the fastest pace since early 2006. The confederation said businesses expected robust growth to continue over the next three months.
MACROECONOMICS
Sweden to fight stagnation
Sweden’s government is planning to reverse a 30-year stagnation in public and private investments to meet its main pledge of lowering unemployment. Swedish Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson yesterday said there is a big potential, since public investments as a share of the nation’s economy have been stable since the 1980s, while private investments have dropped. The Social Democratic-led government will target spending on roads and railways, including high-speed networks to connect the biggest cities, she said. It will encourage investments in projects by the state-run pension funds, and look at setting up debt-financed projects, she said.
BULGARIA
Bank governor ready to go
Bulgarian central bank Governor Ivan Iskrov on Saturday said that he was ready to step down if there was enough support in parliament for his successor. The ruling European Development of Bulgaria party has nominated Dimitar Radev, a senior IMF economist, to take over the central bank post in a bid to restore trust in the banking system following the collapse of Corporate Commercial Bank last year. Iskrov’s second six-year term ends in October.
SOFTWARE
Google buys Pulse.io
Google Inc, looking to expand its mobile capabilities, has acquired Pulse.io Inc, which specializes in making applications faster and more responsive. Google on Friday did not disclose the terms in an e-mail announcing the deal. Pulse.io, whose customers include Groupon Inc and MyFitnessPal Inc, helps clients improve the performance of an application, discovering for example what is slowing down software or why a screen freezes.
INVESTMENT
Equinix buying Telecity
The US data center provider Equinix Inc on Friday said that it had struck a deal to acquire its smaller British rival Telecity Group for about £2.35 billion pounds (US$3.6 billion) in cash and stock. Under the terms, Equinix would pay about US$17.55, a share in a combination of cash and shares, a 34.9 percent premium to Telecity’s closing price on Feb. 10, the day before its planned alliance with Interxion was announced.
AUTOMAKERS
GM, Subaru add to recall
General Motors Co (GM) and Subaru are adding vehicles to the growing list of models being recalled by 11 automakers due to potentially exploding air bags. GM is adding about 375,000 GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado heavy-duty pickup trucks from 2007 and 2008 to the recall in North America. Subaru is adding about 60,000 Impreza small cars from the 2004 and 2005 model years plus the 2005 Saab 9-2X made by Subaru. The recall also covers passenger air bags.
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