PANAMA
Canal expansion complete
The nation is to inaugurate its newly expanded canal on June 26, nearly two years behind schedule, the head of the state canal authority said on Wednesday. The massive, US multibillion-dollar project had originally been scheduled to end in October 2014, but has been successively pushed back. The project’s cost is estimated to have ballooned from an initially budgeted US$5.3 billion to about US$7 billion. About 5 percent of the world’s commercial shipping passes through the Panama Canal.
BEVERAGES
Starbucks to offer rewards
Starbucks Corp on Wednesday said it would introduce a prepaid card by the end of the year that lets people earn points for its rewards program. The Seattle-based company plans to offer the card through Chase and says people would be able to use it wherever Visa is accepted. Chase declined to disclose the terms of its financial arrangement with Starbucks for the prepaid card, but said it has a “large strategic partnership” with the coffee chain.
BANKING
Merrill Lynch down sizing
Bank of America Corp’s Japanese brokerage unit plans to reduce office space in Tokyo to cut expenses, people with knowledge of the matter said. Merrill Lynch Japan Securities Co, which rents six floors of the Nihonbashi 1-chome Mitsui Building, is to vacate one level later this year, the people said. Merrill Lynch Japan is to vacate the 12th floor, which houses its investment-banking division, and transfer employees to other levels, the people said. The company currently occupies the sixth and eighth to 12th floors.
MINING
US$15m diamond mined
Petra Diamonds Ltd yesterday said it had recovered and sold an exceptional 32.33 carat pink diamond from the Williamson mine in Tanzania for US$15 million. The company, which owns the historic Finsch and Cullinan mines, said it would retain a 10 percent interest in the polished proceeds. The diamond was bought by Golden Yellow Diamonds on behalf of diamond manufacturer M.A. Anavi Diamond Group, Petra said.
ENERGY
PetroChina profits dive
Chinese oil giant PetroChina Co (中石油) has posted its lowest profit since 1999 with the company citing a struggling world economy and slump in international oil prices last year. State-owned PetroChina’s net profit tumbled 66.7 percent year-on-year to 35.65 billion yuan (US$5.47 billion) last year, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. The profit figure was the weakest since 1999, Bloomberg News said. Annual revenue dropped 24.4 percent on the year to 1.73 trillion yuan, the statement said, as benchmark crude oil prices slumped by nearly a half.
GERMANY
Consumer confidence fading
Consumer confidence is beginning to feel the heat from international economic risks, a poll found yesterday. “Optimism among German consumers faded somewhat in March,” market research company GfK said in a statement. “It is unlikely that weak demand for German goods in a number of key countries will not have any effect on German economic growth,” the statement said. Looking to next month, GfK’s headline household confidence index was forecast to ease fractionally to 9.4 points from 9.5 points, the institute said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”