FOREX
China maintains cache
China’s foreign-exchange reserves were little changed last month as the People’s Bank of China burned less of the hoard to defend its currency and a weaker dollar helped to boost valuations. The reserves edged down by US$4.105 billion to US$3.20 trillion in July, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. That is in line with the US$3.20 trillion median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The reserves’ stabilization shows capital-outflow pressures have eased because of a weaker dollar, and the central bank does not need to defend the yuan. The yen and euro strengthened last month, aiding the dollar valuation of the stockpile, on haven demand amid Britain’s vote to leave the EU. Reserves denominated in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights units stood at 2.30 trillion last month compared with 2.29 trillion in June.
AIRLINES
Southwest defends bosses
Southwest Airlines Co’s board made no bones about its response to the labor groups that called for the ouster of two top executives: CEO Gary Kelly and chief operating officer Mike Van de Ven are not going anywhere. The carrier’s four largest unions last week called for Kelly and Van de Ven to step down, but directors on Friday fired back in a letter saying that they have “no intention” of removing either executive. The work groups said that the pair should go because of flight disruptions caused by aging computer systems and a too-narrow focus on cutting costs and stock buybacks rather than upgrading the reservation system. The board said Southwest has “never been stronger” in its 45-year history, citing increases in salaries, wages and benefits, service expansion and other accomplishments.
FOREX
Nigeria offers hajj rate
Nigeria’s government will offer a concessionary exchange rate to more than 65,000 Muslim citizens intending to make the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia this year, even as the country turns to borrowing to plug a budget gap. A preferred foreign-exchange rate of 197 per US dollar will apply for pilgrims’ travel allowances of US$750 to US$1,000, the Central Bank of Nigeria said on its Web site. That compares with an interbank rate of 319.25 per dollar at the close of Friday or the black market rate, which is about 400 per dollar. Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina declined to confirm the full amount allocated by the government for the subsidy. Vanguard newspaper on Saturday said that its calculations showed the total cost would be as much as 7.9 billion naira (US$25 million), compared with 2.4 billion naira last year.
TAX COLLECTION
Sweeps in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico’s government says it has raided three more businesses with a combined tax debt of more than US$500,000, the latest of 132 firms collectively owing US$48.9 million that are being targeted in a campaign started last year. Puerto Rican Treasury Secretary Juan Zaragoza on Friday night announced the raids in a statement. He said it was unfair for businesses to collect taxes from people struggling with tax and utility rate hikes and fail to deliver the money to the government. The US territory’s government is grappling with a fiscal crisis that has made it miss multimillion-dollar bond payments three months in a row. A rescue package recently enacted by the US Congress creates an oversight board to help Puerto Rico straighten out its finances and protects it against creditor lawsuits through February next year.
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