SOUTH AFRICA
New minister vows change
The nation’s new Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba said on Saturday he is aware of the “climate of sharp disagreement and mutual suspicion” as his predecessor’s firing deepens a split in the ruling party, and he promised to “radically transform” the economy to reach out to people long-marginalized. He briefed the media a day after South African President Jacob Zuma fired the widely respected former minister of finance Pravin Gordhan. Gigaba promised “radical economic transformation” for South Africa, but added that it means more than empowering the nation’s black majority. He also said he was aware of the lack of trust and that he would not “betray our people” by allowing special interests to hurt the public good. His role is to “restore calm,” he said.
MEXICO
Oil may dry in nine years
Mexico’s oil reserves are dwindling so fast, the nation could go dry within nine years without new discoveries, the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH) said on Friday. Reserves fell 10.6 percent to 9.16 billion barrels last year, from 10.24 billion barrels a year earlier, it said. Once the world’s third-largest crude producer, Mexico’s proven reserves have declined 34 percent since 2013. The decline in proven reserves is driven by record-low drilling activity the past three years, CNH Commissioner Hector Acosta said. State-owned producer Petroleos Mexicanos drilled a record-low 21 wells last year after averaging 31 per year since 2010.
CROATIA
Agrokor reaches debt deal
Agrokor, the Balkans’ main food producer and retailer faced with crushing debt, on Friday reached a deal with creditors to help stabilize the troubled company. The crisis within the company — which employs about 60,000 people, two-thirds of them in Croatia — has dominated the nation’s political agenda for the past few weeks. Agrokor’s representatives and a board of creditors have agreed “in principle the key elements of a standstill agreement” that freezes its repayment of debts to banks, the Croatia office of Austria’s Erste Group Bank AG said in a statement.
EGYPT
Misr Italia to sell shares
Egyptian real-estate developer Misr Italia Group is seeking to raise about 1.5 billion Egyptian pounds (US$82.5 million) from a share sale on the nation’s stock exchange that is expected to take place by next month. The Cairo-based company plans to sell between 20 percent and 25 percent of its shares, co-chief executive officer Mohamed El Assal said, adding that it has hired Beltone Financial as the initial public offering manager. The roadshow for the sale is planned to take place this month in Persian Gulf nations.
CHILE
Strike lowers mining output
The nation’s mining output plunged in February because of a strike over pay at a major copper mine, an economic blow ahead of a presidential election set for November, official data showed on Thursday. Because of the 43-day strike at Escondida, the world’s biggest copper mine, the nation’s overall mining production was down 16.7 percent year-on-year in February to just under 377,000 tonnes, the National Statistics Institute said. With mining accounting for about 10 percent of its economy, Chile risks going into recession this quarter after the government said GDP contracted 0.4 percent in the final quarter of last 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],”
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
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