HOME-SHARING
Airbnb raises over US$1bn
Airbnb Inc raised more than US$1 billion in a fresh funding round that valued the home-sharing start-up at US$31 billion, a source close to the company said on Thursday. It added US$448 million to the US$555 million in funding it took in last year, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company became profitable in the second half of last year before accounting for interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, the source said. Airbnb, one of the most prominent members of the so-called “sharing economy,” has raised more than US$3 billion since its founding in 2008.
TELECOMS
Openreach to separate
BT Group PLC agreed to legally split off its Openreach network division into a separate entity as demanded by Britain’s telecom regulator, Ofcom. Openreach will have its own staff, management, strategy and a “legal purpose to serve all of its customers equally,” Ofcom said in a statement yesterday. The agreement follows the regulator’s proposal of such a change in November last year. The move aims to improve access to the network for rivals like Sky PLC, TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC and Vodafone Group PLC, which rely on Openreach to offer broadband to consumers.
INDONESIA
No more interest cuts
Bank Indonesia Senior Deputy Governor Mirza Adityaswara gave his clearest signal yet that policymakers are done cutting interest rates to spur the economy, saying the benchmark rate is “low enough.” Boosting growth is “not about interest rates anymore,” Adityaswara, who is in charge of monetary policy, foreign-exchange reserves and currency management at Indonesia’s central bank, said in an interview on Thursday. “We monitor the external factors,” he said. “We think we’ve already cut enough.” Bank Indonesia was Asia’s biggest rate cutter last year after six reductions to spur growth.
UNIONIZATION
French cyclists form union
Cyclists in France working for online food delivery groups have organized their first trade union to fight for better pay and job security, a labor group said on Thursday. The CGT trade union said it had created a new union in the western city of Bordeaux which would seek to represent around 700 bikers working locally for meal delivery platforms such as Deliveroo, Foodora or UberEats. New union member Loic Notais said that work conditions in Bordeaux had changed with riders now often paid per delivery, instead of an hourly rate. “The number of delivery riders has doubled or tripled. There’s no longer enough work for everyone,” he said. The initiative comes as a political debate rages in France about the quality of new jobs being created by companies such as Uber Technologies Inc, whose drivers are mostly self-employed contractors with no job security.
CANADA
Potential foreign buyers’ tax
Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa is rethinking a foreign buyers’ tax as one possible option to cool Toronto’s housing market. The average price of homes sold in the greater Toronto area last month rose 27.7 percent over last year and the average price of a detached home is now more than C$1.5 million (US$1.1 million). Sousa said on Thursday he is concerned about people’s ability to enter the market and “the degree of fast appreciation.” He says he is considering a number of options and “a foreign tax is just one.”
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
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
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