CHINA
Central bank adds funds
The central bank yesterday added funds to the financial system through open-market operations, after injecting a record amount of cash last week and offering liquidity support to some lenders. The monetary authority added a net 60 billion yuan (US$8.7 billion) using 14-day and 28-day reverse-repurchase agreements. There were no contracts maturing yesterday. The bank pumped in a net 1.13 trillion yuan last week. On Friday, the authority said it provided a 28-day temporary liquidity facility to some major commercial banks.
VENEZUELA
Central bank head quits
Central Bank president Nelson Merentes resigned after being asked to do so by President Nicolas Maduro, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Merentes, one of the most long-standing public officials in the nation, presented his resignation letter to the president on Friday, said the person, who is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Merentes, a 62-year-old mathematician, has held the role off and on since 2009.
CANADA
Retail sales disappoint
Retail sales and inflation data came in weaker than expected on Friday, a reminder that the nation’s recovery still has a long way to go. The consumer price index advanced 1.5 percent last month from a year earlier, and retail sales rose 0.2 percent, Statistics Canada reported, both missing forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Three new measures of core inflation remained at or below 2 percent. Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy chief economist Randall Bartlett forecast the three core measures of inflation will remain below 2 percent through 2020.
UNITED KINGDOM
Retail sales fall 1.9 percent
Retail sales unexpectedly slumped 1.9 percent last month from the previous month, sending the pound sliding as Friday’s official data fed into fresh worries over Brexit. “The monthly picture ... shows that all main retail sectors saw a decrease in the quantity bought, with the largest downwards contribution coming from non-food stores,” the Office for National Statistics said in a statement. Analysts’ consensus forecast had been for a dip of 0.1 percent.
APPAREL
Kate Spade eyeing buyers
Luxury handbag maker Kate Spade & Co is attracting interest from high-end retailers, including Coach Inc and Michael Kors Holdings Ltd, as it pursues a sale, according to people familiar with the matter. The two companies are speaking to their boards about the feasibility of going ahead with a bid, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. Kate Spade has also drawn interest from other luxury brand companies outside of the US, one of the people said.
ENTERTAINMENT
CBS, Paramount settle suit
CBS Corp and Paramount Pictures Corp settled their copyright-infringement lawsuit against a die-hard Star Trek fan who had channeled his obsession with an obscure character from the original TV series into a professional 20-minute YouTube hit. The studios and filmmaker Alec Peters announced the agreement on Friday. The deal follows a federal judge’s ruling this month that bolstered CBS and Paramount’s claims by rejecting Peters’ argument that his Prelude to Axanar was fair use of the Star Trek material.
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],”