TOURISM
Wanda opens Yunnan resort
Dalian Wanda Group Co (大連萬達集團), controlled by Asia’s richest man, Wang Jianlin (王健林), said it opened a US$2.5 billion resort in southeast China’s Yunnan Province yesterday, with the target of earning 100 billion yuan (US$15.7 billion) revenue in the next five years. The Xishuangbanna resort, spanning 5.3km2, includes a theme park, theater, retail street, Wanda shopping mall and a hospital, in addition to high-end hotel chains with 1,050 rooms. Wanda aims to attract 200 million tourist visits in the next five years, it said.
CASINOS
Sheraton casino to close
Another casino is closing in Puerto Rico as the US territory struggles through nine years of economic stagnation. A spokeswoman for Starwood Hotels & Resorts on Friday said that the Sheraton Old San Juan Hotel & Casino will be sold to an affiliate of Tishman Hotel Corp. The hotel is located in the historic district of Puerto Rico’s capital. Officials said the casino will be turned into retail space. They said leases are being negotiated.
AVIATION
Lufthansa complaint filed
The Swiss Travel Federation filed a complaint on Friday against German airline Lufthansa for breaching anti-cartel laws, the Swiss competition authority confirmed. The organization, which represents Swiss travel agencies and tour operators, said that a new tax introduced by Lufthansa earlier this month violates Switzerland’s anti-cartel legislation. The problem, according to the report, is that the 16 Swiss franc (US$16.30) tax is not imposed on reservations made directly with Lufthansa, leaving travel agents and their clients at a disadvantage.
AUTOMAKERS
Volvo starts work on US plant
Volvo has broken ground on its first auto manufacturing plant in North America, and says workers at the US$500 million plant will build a car still being designed in Sweden. Volvo North America CEO Lex Kerssemakers said on Friday that the plant in Ridgeville, South Carolina, is to build the company’s new S-60 sedan, as well as another model to be announced later. The plant is expected to employ about 2,000 workers during the next decade. Company officials said foundation work will begin early next year and the first vehicles are expected to roll off the plant’s production line in 2018.
COLOMBIA
Central bank raises rate
The central bank unexpectedly raised borrowing costs for the first time in more than a year as the decline in the Colombian peso pushed the inflation rate to its highest level since 2009. The seven-member board voted unanimously to increase the benchmark rate 25 basis points to 4.75 percent, the central bank said on Friday in Bogota. The decision was forecast by 12 of 38 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
CYPRUS
S&P upgrades rating
Standard & Poor’s has upgraded Cyprus’ government debt rating by one notch to “BB-” after the country eliminated limits on money transfers and following improvements in the economy and budget. The ratings agency on Friday also gave the country a positive outlook, meaning it could raise its rating again in the next year if the economy continues to perform well.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts