CHINA
Manufacturing picks up
Manufacturing activity accelerated for a second straight month last month, official figures showed yesterday, although an independent indicator was less positive about the world’s second-largest economy. The expansion was mainly due to improving demand at home and overseas and a booming high-tech industry, as well as higher consumption ahead of a national holiday, National Bureau of Statistics official Zhao Qinghe (趙清河) said. The manufacturing purchasing managers’ index stood at 52.4 compared to 51.7 percent in August, but financial magazine Caixin had a lower reading of 51, down from 51.6 in August.
UNITED STATES
Case won on timeline
A former Barclays PLC trader who bragged about disrupting the western US power market more than a decade ago dodged a US$1 million fine by a regulator for alleged manipulation. Ryan Smith convinced a federal judge in Sacramento, California, that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission waited too long to bring its case against him for allegedly scheming with three Barclays traders starting in 2006 to use money-losing physical power trades at four hubs in California and the northwest to reap profits in financial positions. Smith’s victory on Friday signals that the regulator needs to pursue enforcement actions on a faster timeline.
UNITED STATES
Tax action ruled unlawful
A federal court in Texas on Friday ruled that the administration of former president Barack Obama acted unlawfully last year when its Department of the Treasury cracked down on US companies that tried to reduce their taxes by rebasing abroad, in a process known as inversion. The Chamber of Commerce and the Texas Association of Business had filed a lawsuit in Texas federal court that said a regulation from the treasury in April last year exceeded what the law allows the department to do. The US District Court for Western Texas in Austin agreed, saying the Internal Revenue Service rule was a substantive or legislative regulation that required a notice and comment period before it was instated.
ELECTRONICS
BlackBerry reports profit
BlackBerry Ltd on Thursday reported fiscal second-quarter net income of US$19 million, after reporting a loss during the same period last year. The company said it had net income of US$0.04 per basic share. On a diluted basis — assuming conversion of its convertible debentures — the loss was US$0.07 per share. Adjusted for one-time gains and costs, income was US$0.05 per share. The results beat Wall Street expectations. BlackBerry expects full-year adjusted revenue in the range of US$920 million to US$950 million.
RETAIL
Former Tesco execs in court
Three former executives of Britain’s biggest retailer Tesco PLC abused their positions of trust to encourage the manipulation of profit figures, lied to auditors and misled the stock market, prosecutors told a London court on Friday. The senior executives were “cooking the books” to support Tesco’s share price and secure huge compensation packages, and “bullied and coerced” subordinates into compliance, lead prosecutor Sasha Wass told London’s Southwark Crown Court.
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained