AUSTRALIA
Consumer confidence rises
Consumer confidence has jumped following the ouster of the country’s unpopular prime minister last week by a moderate rival. The optimism of Australians rose by 8.7 percent in the latest ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence survey published on Tuesday. The survey was conducted last weekend after Tony Abbot was replaced as leader of the ruling Liberal Party and prime minister by Malcolm Turnbull in a vote of government lawmakers.
BRITAIN
Budget deficit reaches high
The nation last month had the highest budget deficit in three years as the tax take from individuals and companies dropped. Spending exceeded revenue by £12.1 billion (US$18.5 billion) compared with a deficit of £10.7 billion a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics said in London on Tuesday. The statistics office cautioned against reading too much into the increase in borrowing, saying it reflected a drop in self-assessed income tax payments from the large amount paid in July. Taking the two months together, the £8.5 billion received was the highest on record.
INVESTMENT
PACL fined for fund-raising
India’s markets regulator imposed a penalty of 72.7 billion rupees (US$1.1 billion) on PACL Ltd for raising funds from the public without its approval. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) directed the New Delhi-based real-estate developer to pay the fine within 45 days of receiving the order. SEBI, which is cracking down on Ponzi-like collective investment schemes in India, told PACL in August last year to return 491 billion rupees to investors along with “due returns,” citing rule violations. The company subsequently lost an appeal with the Indian Securities Appellate Tribunal, which upheld the SEBI order last month.
AVIATION
BBA Aviation buys Landmark
BBA Aviation PLC agreed to buy Carlyle Group LP’s Landmark Aviation for US$2.07 billion to expand in flight services for business and general aviation. BBA is to sell £748 million of stock to current investors at 133 pence per share to help fund the purchase, the London-based company said in a statement yesterday. That compared with Tuesday’s closing price of 284.7 pence. The deal is to boost earnings per share by 2017, BBA said.
BEVERAGES
Currency hits Diageo profit
Diageo PLC said adverse currency shifts are to reduce full-year operating profit by £150 million, more than it had expected previously. The maker of Johnnie Walker and Guinness said it expects “modest organic” profit margin improvement as volume improves, the company said yesterday. London-based Diageo forecast in July that exchange-rate moves would strip £100 million from operating profit. The world’s biggest distiller reiterated it expects an organic net sales decline of 2 percent in the first half in North America.
BANKING
BOA CEO to keep position
Bank of America Corp (BOA) CEO Brian Moynihan survived a battle to remove him as chairman, fending off critics including the biggest US pension funds. A resolution allowing Moynihan to remain chairman and CEO passed with about 63 percent of the votes, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company said on Tuesday during a special meeting, citing a preliminary tally. JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon faced a similar vote two years ago, and also kept both jobs.
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