Australian defense and intelligence officials intend to advise the national and New South Wales state governments to reject a Chinese bid to lease a power grid in the state, the Australian Financial Review reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information.
Binding bids for New South Wales state-owned TransGrid are due tomorrow and State Grid Corp of China (國家電網) is in a consortium with Macquarie Group Ltd seeking a lease for the power transmission company, people with knowledge of the matter have said previously.
Chinese investment in Australia is in focus after the government on Thursday blocked the sale of the nation’s largest private landowner to an overseas buyer, saying the location of one of the company’s 10 cattle ranches in a weapons testing area could compromise national security.
S. Kidman & Co’s properties, which were listed for sale in April, attracted bids from China’s Shanghai Pengxin Group (上海鵬欣集團) and Hong Kong-based investment firm Genius Link Asset Management Ltd (匯智資產管理), according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.
The Australian government has also responded to criticism of its sale of Port of Darwin to Chinese investors after US President Barack Obama’s administration raised concerns.
The government is consulting with states and territories on future asset sales, after the Northern Territory last month approved leasing the Darwin port to China’s privately owned Landbridge Group (嵐橋集團), Treasurer Scott Morrison said on Thursday.
On the other hand, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) is nearing an agreement to sell control of its power business to a Chinese-led bidding group, part of the state investment company’s plan to wind down its operations, people with knowledge of the matter said.
An agreement with the consortium, which includes China General Nuclear Power Corp (中國廣核集團) and Qatar’s Nebras Power QSC, might be announced this weekend, the people said on Friday.
The deal could value 1MDB’s Edra Global Energy Bhd unit at 10 billion ringgit (US$2.3 billion), trumping a rival offer from Malaysian energy producer Tenaga Nasional Bhd, the people said.
Foreign investors are normally only allowed to own as much as 49 percent of Malaysian power producers unless they obtain a waiver, as the government provides gas to electricity plants at subsidized prices.
1MDB, which almost defaulted earlier this year, expects 16 billion ringgit to 18 billion ringgit for the power plants and has received bids close to that figure, company president Arul Kanda said on Oct. 31.
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