FRANCE
GDP edges up 0.5%
The economy expanded faster than economists forecast in the first quarter, powered by increasing corporate investment and a rebound in consumer spending. GDP growth accelerated to 0.5 percent from 0.3 percent in the final quarter of last year, beating the 0.4 percent projection in a Bloomberg survey, statistics office Insee said yesterday. Consumer spending rose 1.2 in the first quarter, while business investment jumped 1.6 percent, its biggest increase in at least two years, data showed.
SPAIN
Economy expands 0.8%
The economy grew 0.8 percent in the first quarter compared with the previous three months, its 11th consecutive growth figure, the National Statistics Office said yesterday. It grew 3.4 percent from the same period last year. The country emerged from a recession in late 2013 and is now one of the EU’s fastest-growing economies, although its unemployment rate of 21 percent remains the bloc’s second highest after Greece.
UNITED STATES
Q1 growth slows to 0.5%
The economy inched forward at the weakest pace in two years from January through last month, as consumer spending slowed, business investment plunged and exports declined further. The Department of Commerce on Thursday said that GDP grew by a tiny 0.5 percent in the first quarter, down from 1.4 percent growth in the fourth quarter of last year. The January-March performance was the poorest showing since GDP contracted by 0.9 percent in the first three months of 2014.
ENERGY
PetroChina posts losses
PetroChina Co (中石油) shares plunged yesterday, after the Chinese energy giant posted its first quarterly loss since listing overseas 16 years ago, as it struggled with a weak domestic economy and lower international oil prices. PetroChina lost 13.79 billion yuan (US$2.14 billion) in the first quarter, reversing from a gain of 6.15 billion yuan for the same period a year ago, it said in a statement to the Hong Kong exchange late on Thursday. It was the first quarterly loss by PetroChina since it listed on the bourse in 2000.
BANKING
RBS loses £968 million
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) yesterday said its net loss widened in the first quarter as the taxpayer-owned bank made its final £1.2 billion (US$1.7 billion) payment to the UK Treasury as part of a deal to give the government first crack at any profits. The bank, which is 73 percent taxpayer-owned, reported a net loss of £968 million, compared with £459 million in the first quarter of last year. Excluding the payment to the government, RBS posted a profit of £225 million.
INTERNET
Amazon revenue jumps 28%
Amazon.com Inc on Thursday reported better-than-expected first-quarter results fueled by a 28 percent jump in revenue. The Seattle-based company’s net income totaled US$513 million, or US$1.07 per share, compared with a loss in the same period a year earlier. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of US$0.61 per share. Amazon’s cloud-based services, called Amazon Web Services, remained another bright spot, with revenue up 64 percent to US$2.57 billion. The online retailer’s revenue rose to US$29.13 billion in the period, also exceeding analysts’ forecasts.
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