AUTOMAKERS
Seoul mulls VW recall
South Korea yesterday said that Volkswagen’s local unit informed the government it could recall about 120,000 vehicles in the country. The government is to decide by next month if it is to order a recall and/or a suspension of sales, the South Korean Ministry of Environment said. After testing the emissions of seven Volkswagen and Audi diesel models by the middle of next month, the ministry is to expand testing to other makers’ diesel models starting in December.
Energy
Shell halts leaky pipeline
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell says it has halted crude exports from a key terminal in southern Nigeria because of a leak in the Trans Forcados Pipeline. The suspension affected crude exports from one of Nigeria’s main export points, the Forcados Terminal, which has a capacity of 400,000 barrels a day, Shell said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Russia
Recession set to deepen
The World Bank on Wednesday downgraded its outlook for the nation’s economy, warning that a biting recession is deepening and is likely to persist into next year. The World Bank predicted the economy could shrink by 3.8 percent this year in its baseline scenario, far worse than its earlier forecast of a 2.7 percent contraction. The downturn this year could be as much as 4.3 percent, it said.
Venezuela
GDP worst in Latin America
The government has revised its economic data for last year, showing that GDP declined 4 percent in the worst performance around Latin America. Inflation was 68.5 percent. President Nicolas Maduro had said earlier this year that GDP shrank 3 percent last year. The government has given no GDP data for this year, to the anger of opponents and consternation of economists.
MACROECONOMICS
EU recession could return
Eurozone inflation unexpectedly fell to negative 0.1 percent last month, data showed on Wednesday, suggesting a dangerous spell of falling prices could be returning to Europe. The return to negative territory will add to pressure on the European Central Bank to increase its huge stimulus program which is meant to ward off deflation and keep the economy on track. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected a zero rate after a gain of 0.1 percent in August.
BANKING
ANZ bank CEO steps down
ANZ chief executive Mike Smith, who oversaw a big push into Asia, yesterday said he was stepping down after eight years in the top job. England-born Smith is to be replaced by chief financial officer Shayne Elliott on Jan. 1, but will serve as a non-executive adviser to the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group’s board for at least a year due to his “invaluable understanding of and connections in Asia,” the bank said.
TECHNOLOGY
Twitter board appoints CEO
Twitter Inc’s board has selected Jack Dorsey as chief executive officer, making his position permanent after the cofounder stepped in three months ago on an interim basis, Re/code reported on Wednesday. Dorsey, who had been considered a lead internal candidate, is also continue to be chief execuitve officer at mobile-payments company Square Inc, the technology news Web site reported, without citing sources.
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