INTEREST RATES
Expert advises Fed to wait
The US Federal Reserve should hold off on raising interest rates until the global economy is more stable, the World Bank’s chief economist said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Tuesday. “I don’t think the Fed lift-off itself is going to create a major crisis, but it will cause some immediate turbulence,” Kaushik Basu was quoted as saying. “The world economy is looking so troubled that if the US goes in for a very quick move in the middle of this, I feel it is going to affect countries quite badly,” he said.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Mexico sees peso rebound
The Mexican government said it expects the Mexican peso to rebound to an average of 15.90 pesos to US$1, from its current level of 16.77 pesos, and that the local currency would end next year even stronger at about 15.70 pesos to US$1. The peso has lost about 28 percent of its value against the US dollar over the past year. The predictions are part of the government’s budget proposal for next year submitted to congress on Tuesday. The government expects economic growth of about 3.1 percent for next year.
BANKING
Greece to meet creditors
Greece is to set up a working group with officials from its “troika” of creditors to look at ways of supporting its fragile banking system after this month’s election, the Ministry of Economy, Infrastructure, Shipping and Tourism said on Tuesday. The group is to be composed of lawyers, experts and representatives from the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF, the ministry said in a statement. Greeks will go to the polls for the fifth time in six years on Sept. 20. Close to 25 billion euros (US$28 billion) have been set aside under the latest aid plan to recapitalize Greece’s ailing banks this year.
OIL
Indonesia rejoining OPEC
Indonesia is to reactivate its OPEC membership in December, the cartel said on Tuesday, which would add almost 3 percent to the group’s already close to record-high oil output. The Southeast Asian country would be the fourth-smallest producer in the group, ahead of Libya, Ecuador and Qatar, and bring the number of participants to 13 countries.
BREWERIES
Heineken buys craft brewer
Dutch beer giant Heineken International on Tuesday said that it bought half of Lagunitas Brewing Co, the fifth-largest craft brewer in the US, hoping to cash in on the global rocketing popularity of craft beers. The deal will give Heineken the chance to “build a strong foothold in the dynamic craft brewing category on a global scale,” while giving Lagunitas “a global opportunity to present its beers to new consumers in a category that is showing exciting international growth opportunities,” Heineken said.
INTERNET
Google widens home service
Google Inc on Tuesday expanded its shopping home delivery service into the midwestern portion of the US, covering an additional 25 million people. Google Express shopping service, which was launched two years ago, added Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin to its roster of states. Google Express retail partners include Costco, Barnes & Noble, Toys “R” Us, Walgreens and L’Occitane en Provence. The expansion comes in a budding competition to online retail titan Amazon.com, which includes free delivery as part of its Prime subscription service.
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