UNITED STATES
Rates should go up: Mester
The Federal Reserve should raise interest rates gradually, despite weak jobs data, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said, a day after the payrolls report erased the argument for a move this month. Economic growth is picking up, inflation is moving toward target and the country is at full employment, Mester told reporters in Stockholm on Saturday. “I still believe that in order to achieve our monetary policy goals, a gradual upward pace of the funds rate is appropriate,” Mester said. “When the rate hikes will occur and the slope of that gradual path is data dependent.”
PHARMACEUTICALS
Prosecutors charge Shkreli
Federal prosecutors in New York City have filed additional criminal charges against a pharmaceutical executive who separately was heavily criticized for raising the price of a lifesaving malaria medication. A new indictment filed on Friday in Brooklyn said Martin Shkreli and his former attorney Evan Greebel schemed to defraud potential investors of his former drug company Retrophin Inc, based in San Diego, California. It said the two allocated company stock to seven employees to conceal Shkreli’s ownership of the firm. Shkreli previously pleaded not guilty to charges he lost investors’ money through bad trades and looted the pharmaceutical company to pay them back.
PETROLEUM
Venezuela requests payment
Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA has given Paraguay a 10-day deadline to pay a US$287 million debt for crude oil sales dating back to 2009. Felipe Oddone, communications director for Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes, said his country would, for now, only be able to pay 50 percent of the debt. Oddone on Saturday said the president of Paraguay’s state oil company, Petroleos Paraguayos, had received a note from the Venezuelan firm “giving a deadline of 10 days to pay or else an international demand would be initiated.” He also said that, according to Petroleos Paraguayos’ figures, the debt is only US$273 million.
STOCKS
Al-Habtoor readying IPO
Al-Habtoor Group LLC, the sole dealer of Bentley Motors Ltd and Bugatti brand cars in the United Arab Emirates, is closer to an initial public offering (IPO) it has been considering since 2000, CEO Mohammed al-Habtoor said in an interview. “We have all the documents ready, all that we need to do is to update all the information” to include revenue from the recently completed al-Habtoor City project, al-Habtoor told Bloomberg TV. Al-Habtoor Group bought hotels in the UK, Austria and Hungary. The company is considering further acquisitions in large European cities, as well as developing real estate in Eastern Europe, al-Habtoor said.
HOSPITALITY
Lotte hotel unit IPO delayed
Lotte Group’s initial public offering of its hotel unit, which might be South Korea’s largest listing on record, is to be delayed after reports said a company executive is being investigated, according to people familiar with the matter. A new timetable for marketing of the sale, previously scheduled for today, has not been set yet, the people said. A Lotte Group spokesman confirmed that the road show schedule would be “adjusted,” but declined to comment on the reason. The hotel unit and a company executive are subjects of a bribery investigation, the spokesman said on Saturday.
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
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last