GERMANY
Confidence hits record high
Business confidence has soared to a fresh record high this month, a closely watched survey released on Friday showed, as companies shrugged off political uncertainty. The Ifo Institute for Economic Research’s business climate index jumped from last month’s high of 116.7 points to a historic 117.5 points, beating analysts’ expectations. Businesses were slightly more pessimistic about their current economic situation than in the past month, the survey showed, but they expressed greater optimism about the future.
INTERNET
Yandex to merge with Uber
Yandex NV, Russia’s largest technology company, received local anti-trust approval to merge its ride-hailing business with Uber Technologies Inc’s in the country, the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service said on Friday. However, the Yandex-Uber joint venture is required not to prevent its passengers, drivers and partners from working with other ride-hailing services, the service said. The merger is expected to be completed in January.
CHEMICALS
France suspends licenses
A French court on Friday suspended the license for two pesticides made by Dow Chemical Co, citing potential environmental risks, including harmful effects on bees. The summary ruling by an administrative court in the southern city of Nice overturned the decision in September by French health and environment agency ANSES to grant a permit for the Closer and Transform crop chemicals, which contain the insecticide sulfoxaflor. Dow Chemical in September completed a merger with E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co to become DowDuPont Inc.
FINANCE
WeLab eyeing IPO: sources
An online lender backed by Credit Suisse Group AG is working on a listing just weeks after closing a private funding round. WeLab Ltd has picked banks to advise on a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) that could raise about US$500 million, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The China-focused lender, whose backers also include billionaire Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), aims to list as soon as next year, the people said. No final decisions on an IPO have been made, and there was no certainty that the deliberations would result in a transaction, the people said.
BANKING
BNP to cut tobacco firm ties
BNP Paribas SA is to cease funding and advising tobacco companies, the latest financial firm to distance itself from the industry over health concerns. The French bank is to halt transactions and investments related to the sector and “progressively disengage” from relationships with tobacco clients, BNP global head of corporate social responsibility Laurence Pessez said in an interview. The decision applies to all types of products and services, although the bank would honor all contractual commitments, she said. France’s largest insurer, AXA SA, last year said that it would stop investing in tobacco and divest of its assets in the industry.
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