ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Shell inks charging deal
Royal Dutch Shell PLC is linking up with some of the world’s biggest carmakers to expand its electric-vehicle charging business in Europe as it prepares for life beyond oil. The second-biggest oil company has agreed with IONITY — a Munich-based venture between BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Co and Volkswagen AG — to start charging stations in 10 European nations, Shell said in a statement yesterday. The agreement builds on Shell’s acquisition of Europe’s largest electric-vehicle charging provider NewMotion last month. Shell and IONITY are initially to have charging points at 80 of Shell’s biggest highway fuel stations, with an average of six posts in each.
SAUDI ARABIA
Arrests spark stock sell-off
Foreign investors were net sellers of Saudi Arabian equities for a third straight week after authorities launched a major crackdown on corruption, but by a smaller margin than in the previous week, exchange data showed on Sunday. The crackdown, which has involved the arrest of dozens of senior officials and businessmen and the freezing of more than 2,000 Saudi Arabian bank accounts, has alarmed investors, who fear it could damage the economy and lead to forced sales of assets. Foreign investors sold 835 million riyals (US$223 million) of Saudi Arabian stocks and bought 598 million riyals in the week through Thursday last week, resulting in net selling of 237 million riyals. That compares with net selling of 309 million riyals in the week to Nov. 16 and 1.08 billion riyals in the week to Nov. 9, immediately after the purge was announced. The latest data also showed selling by Saudi Arabian individual investors easing.
UNITED KINGDOM
State tackles weak industry
Britain pitched a new strategy for industry yesterday that sees greater state intervention to tackle weak productivity and to help the world’s sixth largest economy cope with the upheaval of leaving the EU. The government said it had secured major investments from global healthcare company MSD, known as Merck & Co in the US, and German-based diagnostics company Qiagen ahead of the publication of the strategy. While the Financial Times estimated the value of the investments at more than £1 billion (US$1.3 million), MSD said it was too early to give an investment figure and Qiagen also gave no number. Life sciences is one of four sectors being targeted by the government, which will also focus on construction, artificial intelligence and the automotive industry.
JAPAN
Firm regrets Chinese ban
A Japanese cosmetics firm has apologized for a sign banning entry for Chinese people posted in one of its outlets, highlighting lingering hostility to foreign visitors from some in Japan as it strives to extend a shopping-driven tourism boom. Pola, a unit of Pola Orbis Holdings Inc, on Saturday said that images of an “inappropriate” poster were on Friday shared on Chinese social media sites, without specifying the contents or location of the offending item. Photos of a sign handwritten in Japanese saying “Entry by Chinese people prohibited” in a shop window were trending on Chinese and Taiwanese social media on Sunday. Pola, which has about 4,600 stores across Japan, apologized for causing “unpleasant feelings and inconvenience to many people” and said it had removed the sign. Japan is weighing looser visa rules for tourists from China, sources told Reuters earlier this year.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”