CHINA
AIIB members to increase
More than 30 countries are waiting to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), adding to its 57 founding members, its president Jin Liqun (金立群) said on Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of the Boao Forum on China’s Hainan Island, Jin said the bank was working on accepting the new members. Jin did not identify the prospective members. The Chinese territory of Hong Kong may also be allowed to become a member, he added.
TIREMAKERS
Yokohama to buy Alliance
Yokohama Rubber Co on Friday said it is to buy KKR & Co’s Alliance Tire Group for US$1.2 billion to enter the market for agricultural and forest machinery. The Japanese maker of passenger-car tires is to purchase all shares from KKR and other parties and expects to complete the acquisition July 1, according to a statement. The deal is valued at about 2.2 times Alliance Tire’s annual sales and more than 12 times its operating profit for the last fiscal year.
CLOTHING
VF Corp seeks alternatives
VF Corp, the owner of the North Face, Lee and Wrangler clothing brands, is exploring alternatives for a business that makes licensed athletic apparel amid sluggish consumer demand in the US, the company said on Friday. The Licensed Sports Group business includes the Majestic brand and supplies apparel and fanware through licensing with professional sports teams, colleges and lifestyle brands, the company said. The business generated about US$550 million in revenue last year, it said.
VIETNAM
Economy slowed in Q1
The economy slowed in the first quarter of this year, official figures showed on Friday, hampered by low oil prices and an ongoing drought that has hit the agricultural sector hard. The dip followed last year’s record GDP growth at 6.68 percent, a boom fueled by a flurry of international interest in the nation. The first three months of the year saw GDP growth drop to 5.46 percent, down from 6.12 percent for the same period last year.
LEBANON
World Bank irked by Beirut
The head of the World Bank expressed frustration at Lebanon’s political paralysis on Friday, warning that good governance now was essential to prevent future conflict. The World Bank granted Lebanon a US$100 million loan on Thursday to support educational projects, but an agreed development package from the bank worth about US$1 billion is being held up by the political deadlock. Lebanon’s GDP grew 2 percent in 2014.
DRUGMAKERS
Gilead to pay US$200m
Gilead Sciences Inc was ordered by a jury to pay Merck & Co US$200 million for patent infringement over a drug compound that cures hepatitis C, a 10th of what Merck sought. The verdict announced on Thursday follows an earlier finding by the jury embracing Merck’s claims that its scientists were responsible for early breakthroughs that led to the development of the Sovaldi and Harvoni medicines which helped Gilead become the world’s largest biotechnology firm by market value.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured