JAPAN
Trade surplus increases
The nation posted its biggest trade surplus in more than four years last month, thanks to a strengthening in the yen and weak oil prices, though both imports and exports fell, suggesting persisting slack demand both in Japan and overseas. Preliminary data reported yesterday showed exports fell 4 percent from a year earlier to ¥5.7 trillion (US$50.5 billion) last month and imports dropped 14 percent to ¥5.46 trillion. The resulting ¥242.8 billion surplus compares with a deficit of ¥426 billion a year earlier and a deficit of ¥648.8 billion in January.
NEW ZEALAND
Growth beats expectations
Economic growth exceeded expectations in the fourth quarter of last year despite a downturn in the nation’s multibillion-dollar dairy industry, official figures released yesterday showed. Statistics New Zealand said the economy expanded 0.9 percent in the September to December quarter, beating analyst predictions of a 0.7 percent rise. The data took New Zealand’s increase in GDP for last year to 2.3 percent, down from 4.1 percent in 2014.
AUSTRALIA
Jobless rate declines
The jobless rate unexpectedly declined last month as fewer people searched for work, government data showed yesterday. Unemployment fell to 5.8 percent from 6 percent, while employment rose 300 from January, data showed. However, participation rate, a measure of labor force as a share of population, fell to 64.9 percent from a revised 65.1 percent. Australia recorded a surge in jobs in October last year and November last year, though the scale of the increases brought renewed skepticism about the accuracy of the labor force data
AVIATION
Lufthansa to pay dividends
Deutsche Lufthansa AG yesterday said that it is to resume dividend payments to shareholders after profits soared last year, helped by low oil prices, and are set to increase again this year. Net profit soared to 1.7 billion euros (US$1.9 billion), from 55 million euros a year earlier. Underlying or operating profit grew by 55.2 percent to 1.8 billion euros and revenues were up 6.8 percent at 32.1 billion euros. The management board is to propose a dividend payment of 0.5 euros per share for last year after no dividend was paid for 2014.
FINLAND
Public debt exceeds limit
Public debt climbed to 63.1 percent of GDP last year, exceeding for the first time the eurozone limit of 60 percent, Statistics Finland said on Wednesday. From the end of 2014 until the end of last year, public debt swelled by 9 billion euros to 130.7 billion. Ratings agency Fitch on Friday last week stripped the nation of its “AAA” credit rating, predicting its public debt would reach 67.5 percent of GDP in 2020.
ENERGY
Abengoa musters investors
Abengoa SA lined up international investors including Elliott Management Corp, KKR Co LP and Oak Hill Advisors LP to inject as much as 1.8 billion euros of new liquidity to help the renewable energy producer avoid insolvency. The investing companies together with Attestor Capital LLP, Centerbridge Partners LP, D.E. Shaw & Co and Varde Partners LP have been working with Abengoa “with a view to acting as anchor investors for the new money facility,” Abengoa said on Wednesday in a regulatory filing.
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