GAMBLING
Crown Resorts staff freed
China yesterday released 10 employees of Australian casino operator Crown Resorts Ltd, the first of 16 who were detained in October last year and sentenced last month for illegally promoting gambling by organizing gambling tours. A court jailed the 16, including three Australians, for nine to 10 months, backdated to their October detention. Four people, including two Australians, emerged from a Shanghai detention facility accompanied by family members and security officials. They left immediately in cars without speaking to media.
Six more were released from a second facility in the city, said a man who identified himself as a lawyer for the families and who declined to give his name. Crown head of international VIP gambling Jason O’Connor is to be released on Aug. 12 along with the three remaining employees, a relative of one defendant said.
ENERGY
Adnoc planning IPO
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (Adnoc) is planning an initial public offering (IPO) of its service stations unit and might seek as much as US$14 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The company might appoint investment banks for the share sale, likely to be on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, as early as this week, the people said, asking not to be identified. The unit might ultimately fetch a value of about US$10 billion and raise up to US$3 billion from a listing, another person said. No final decisions have been made and Adnoc might also decide not to pursue an IPO, they said. IPOs in the region might be headed for a revival as countries work to make themselves less dependent on oil.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple open China datacenter
Apple Inc is to establish its first data center in China in cooperation with the Guizhou provincial government to speed up services such as iCloud for local users and abide by laws that require global companies to store information within the country. The new facility, which is to be entirely driven by renewable energy, is to be built and run on the Cloud Big Data, Apple said in a messaged statement. Apple aims to migrate Chinese users’ information, now stored elsewhere, to the new facility in coming months, it said in a messaged statement. The data center was partly driven by new measures that bolster control over the collection and movement of Chinese users’ data and can also grant the government unprecedented access to foreign companies’ technology. Forcing companies to store information within the country has already led some to tap cloud computing providers with more local server capacity.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota to fund start-ups
Toyota Motor Corp wants to smooth the oft-bumpy ride for start-up companies and maybe find a few gems to acquire by forming a new venture capital business that would invest about US$100 million. Toyota AI Ventures is to seek companies that are taking on challenging research also being pursued by Toyota Research Institute, the automaker’s artificial intelligence and robotics research and development unit. The first three companies to receive financing are a maker of cameras that monitor drivers and roads, a creator of autonomous car-mapping algorithms and a developer of robotic companions for the elderly.
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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last