SAUDI ARABIA
Decreed funds to aid citizens
King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud yesterday issued a decree allocating 72 billion riyals (US$19.2 billion) of stimulus funds to support the private sector. The package aims to boost the role of the private sector in light of economic reforms to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from oil following a slump in crude prices. The funds are to be used to finance 16 initiatives, the largest of which earmarks US$5.7 billion to provide subsidized housing loans to citizens, state news agency SPA said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Joblessness at 42-year low
The unemployment rate remains at a 42-year low, official data showed on Wednesday, but workers’ wages are still being eroded by inflation. The jobless rate — or the proportion of the workforce that is unemployed — stood at 4.3 percent in the three months to the end of October, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement. That was unchanged from the three months to September and the lowest rate since 1975.
EUROPEAN UNION
Monthly car sales rise 5.8%
Car sales jumped 5.8 percent last month as new SUVs from French automakers Peugeot and Citroen, as well as Asian rivals, attracted buyers amid accelerating economic growth. Registrations increased to 1.26 million vehicles from 1.19 million the previous year, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said in a statement yesterday. Eleven-month sales gained 4 percent to 14.5 million autos. The region is set for the highest annual delivery volume in a decade.
AUTOMAKERS
Renault buys media stake
Renault SA is buying a stake in a media company, stretching the automaker’s suite of products to entertaining passengers in future driverless vehicles. The French automaker is to purchase a 40 percent stake in Challenges Group, that publisher of the namesake weekly economic magazine and four monthly science and history journals, it said on Wednesday. Renault and the French media group are to work on new content specially designed for autonomous vehicles.
RETAIL
Target beefs up delivery
Target Corp on Wednesday agreed to purchase grocery-delivery start-up Shipt Inc for US$550 million, stepping up its challenge to Amazon.com Inc by speeding the rollout of same-day shipping. The all-cash deal would let Target customers order groceries and other goods online, and then have the items sent directly to their doors from nearby Target stores. Buying Shipt further beefs up Target’s logistics operations after the retailer earlier this year acquired software company Grand Junction, which also manages local and same-day deliveries.
FINANCE
Zeltner to retire from UBS
Juerg Zeltner, the head of UBS Group AG’s US$1.3 trillion wealth-management unit, is stepping down in January and is to be replaced by Switzerland chief and former Commerzbank AG head Martin Blessing. Zeltner is to retire from the firm next year, UBS said in a statement yesterday. Current chief operating officer Axel Lehmann is to succeed Blessing and human resources head Sabine Keller-Busse is to assume the role of chief operating officer. Fifty-year-old Zeltner has served at UBS for more than 30 years after joining predecessor Swiss Bank Corp as an apprentice in 1984, UBS said.
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