CHEMICALS
Akzo rejects PPG bid
Akzo Nobel NV, Europe’s largest coatings company, yesterday rejected an unsolicited 20.9 billion euro (US$22.1 billion) takeover bid from PPG Industries Inc, and said it might separate its specialty chemicals business to boost stock price. PPG’s bid, worth 83 euros a share at the end of last month, substantially undervalued the company, Amsterdam-based Akzo said in a statement. Akzo said both its management and supervisory boards, along with financial and legal advisers, reviewed the offer before coming to the conclusion that it fell short.
CHINA
Producer prices rise 7.8%
Prices for goods at the factory gate rose for the sixth straight month last month, officials said yesterday, slightly beating expectations as strong demand boosts the world’s second-largest economy. The producer price index rose 7.8 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The consumer price index, a key gauge of retail inflation, rose 0.8 percent last month, missing the 1.7 percent increase estimated by economists and marking its slowest growth in two years.
LABOR
Immigrants key to growth
The US workforce will only grow over the next two decades if new immigrants arrive to replace retiring Baby Boomers, a report from the Pew Research Center says. Pew projects that the US working-age (25-64) population would grow from 173 million in 2015 to 183 million in 2035 — but new immigrants would account for all the growth. Without them, the number of working-age Americans would drop to 166 million by 2035. As Baby Boomers retire, the number of US-born working-age adults with US-born parents would account for a smaller share of the working-age population: 66 percent in 2035, down from 74 percent in 2015, Pew said.
TAXES
Italy lures rich with flat tax
Italy on Wednesday introduced a flat tax for wealthy foreigners in a bid to compete with similar incentives offered in Britain and Spain, which have successfully attracted a slew of rich soccer players and entertainers. The new flat rate tax of 100,000 euros (US$105,000) a year would apply to all worldwide income for foreigners who declare Italy to be their primary residence. The measure, proposed in the government’s budget for this year, is expected to immediately draw at least 1,000 people, local media said.
UTILITIES
GE to sell water unit
General Electric Co (GE) agreed to sell its water unit in a 3.2 billion euro deal, putting the industrial giant a step closer to the planned merger of its oil division with Baker Hughes Inc. The all-cash sale to French utility Suez SA and a Canadian pension fund manager comes about four months after GE put the water unit on the market amid concerns of regulatory pushback against the Baker Hughes combination. Boston-based GE is overhauling its portfolio to focus on industries such as energy and aviation, while tilting away from finance and consumer operations.
ELECTRONICS
RadioShack bankrupt again
Troubled electronics retailer RadioShack has filed for bankruptcy for the second time in just more than two years. The Fort Worth, Texas-based retailer filed its petition in bankruptcy court in Delaware on Wednesday. The company said it is closing 200 stores and evaluating options on the remaining 1,300.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy