UTILITIES
Tanzania to boost production
Tanzania’s government plans to sell shares in the state-owned power utility to the public this year and split it into separate generation, transmission and distribution units, Minister of Energy and Mining Sospeter Muhongo said. The state is to offer as much as 49 percent of Tanzania Electric Supply Co, or Tanesco, while the government is to retain a controlling stake, Muhongo said. The government is also to invest US$1.2 billion in the company over 10 years, boosting efforts to increase electricity production to 10,000 megawatts by 2025 from 1,400 megawatts, Muhongo said.
INVESTMENT
Treasuries fall amid tension
Treasury investors in benchmark 10-year notes are to lose 1.7 percent this year as the US Federal Reserve raises interest rates, economists project. The yield is expected to climb to 2.80 percent from 2.29 percent yesterday, based on a Bloomberg survey of banks and securities companies with the most recent forecasts given the heaviest weightings. The estimated loss takes into account expected interest payments. US Treasuries fell yesterday as tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia sent crude oil higher, raising speculation increasing fuel costs might cause inflation to accelerate.
REAL ESTATE
Singapore properties drop
Singapore home prices dropped for a ninth quarter, posting the longest losing streak in 17 years, as tighter mortgage curbs cooled demand in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market. An index tracking private residential prices fell 0.5 percent in the three months ending Thursday last week from the previous quarter, preliminary data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority show. That took the annual decline to 3.7 percent, almost matching the 4 percent drop in 2014, which was the first year-on-year slide since 2008. Developers sold 5,599 new units in the nine months to September, on course for the lowest annual sales since 2008.
COMMODITIES
Haven assets return
Gold climbed with silver on the first trading day this year as rising tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran spurred a return to haven assets. Bullion for immediate delivery climbed as much as 0.5 percent to US$1,066.04 an ounce and traded at US$1,064.04 at 12:29pm in Singapore, Bloomberg generic pricing showed. The metal lost 10 percent last year for a third annual drop, the longest slump since 2000. Gold, traditionally seen as a store of value during political turmoil, climbed after Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran, a day after its embassy in Tehran was attacked to protest the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. While unexpected incidents last year such, lifted prices briefly, gold still fell last year.
AVIATION
Soul probes budget airlines
South Korea is to review safety at six low-cost airlines after a Jin Air flight made an emergency return to the Philippines. The Ministry of Transport yesterday said that the safety investigation comes as the ministry is looking into the Jin Air incident. Jin Air Co said a Boeing 737-800 jet bound for Busan, South Korea, returned to Cebu, the Philippines, 40 minutes after takeoff on Sunday when one of the plane’s doors was found to be leaking air. The company said its initial investigation found no defect in the jet. No injuries were reported, but local media reports said passengers complained of a loud noise and suffered from headaches during the return trip.
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