INDIA
IFC to boost green energy
The International Finance Corp (IFC), the World Bank’s private lending arm, is to target renewable energy for most of its about US$700 million in infrastructure funding in the country in the fiscal year ending June next year. Renewable energy is more than one-third of IFC’s infrastructure portfolio in India and is set to grow, IFC global head for infrastructure and natural resources Sujoy Bose said in an interview. “In FY15, IFC has mobilized more than US$330 million including loans and equity from other investors for renewable energy projects in India,” Bose said. The global lending agency invested between US$600 million and US$700 million in Indian infrastructure last fiscal year, Bose said. “In the power sector in India, renewables is going to be the bulk of what IFC does,” he said.
SOCIAL NETWORKS
Kakao names Rim, 34, CEO
The South Korean company behind popular mobile messenger app Kakao Talk named a 34-year-old startup investor as CEO who is to be the country’s youngest corporate boss. Rim Ji-hoon was named CEO of Daum Kakao Corp on Monday. He will turn 35 next month when the board and shareholders will vote on the decision. The appointment is a bold move in South Korea where top positions at major companies are usually filled from the ranks of family owners or long-serving employees. All three current CEOs at Samsung Electronics Co, for example, joined the company in the 1970s or the 1980s. Corporate watchdog CEOScore said Rim will be the youngest CEO among South Korea’s top 500 companies. The second-youngest CEO after Rim is 46 years old.
AUSTRALIA
Aussie hits six-year low
A 34 percent fall in the value of the Australian dollar to a six-year low of about US$0.72 has done little to revive exports, which now cost less for international buyers. The country posted its widest-ever trade deficit in April. Analysts predict four-fifths of the nation’s biggest listed exporters will report shrinking revenues this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. “To get the levels of growth Australia needs, you have to have exports,” Singapore-based TD Securities Inc head of Asia-Pacific research Annette Beacher said. “Non-mining business investment isn’t coming to the party and monetary policy isn’t really sparking. Hopefully the currency at US$0.72, US$0.73 will make a difference.” Iron ore and coal, which account for about 35 percent of the country’s exports, have seen prices decline from their peaks at the start of 2011.
PHARMACEUTICALS
AstraZeneca pays for vaccine
AstraZeneca PLC agreed to pay Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc as much as US$727.5 million for rights to an experimental cancer vaccine, its third deal in a week to secure access to new tumor-fighting drugs. AstraZeneca’s Medimmune unit will pay Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania-based Inovio US$27.5 million up front and up to US$700 million if its medicine, which targets cancers caused by the human papillomavirus, reaches certain development and commercial milestones, the London-based company said in a statement. AstraZeneca is seeking drugs it can combine with its stable of immune oncology products, designed to harness the body’s immune system to fight tumors. Chief executive officer Pascal Soriot said combination therapies will give the company an edge as it races Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co, Merck & Co and Roche Holdings AG to develop a new generation of cancer treatments.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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