CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Authorities raid Coincheck
Japanese authorities yesterday raided virtual currency exchange Coincheck Inc, a week after the Tokyo-based firm lost US$530 million in cryptocurrency to hackers. The raid comes as bitcoin dipped to less than US$9,000 for the first time since November last year after India on Thursday said it would take measures to prevent the use of cryptocurrencies. The search of Coincheck’s headquarters in Tokyo’s Shibuya District was carried out by the Japanese Financial Services Agency, which had already slapped the company with an administrative order following the hack. Government officials have suggested Coincheck lacked proper security measures, making itself vulnerable to theft.
AUTOMAKERS
SUVs, pickups pad US sales
Automakers reported mixed US car sales for last month, with strong demand for sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and pickup trucks continuing to provide a cushion in a declining overall auto market. Ford Motor Co, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Honda Motor Co all reported declines in year-on-year sales, while General Motors Co scored a modest increase and Toyota Motor Corp reported a more substantial jump. Overall new car sales totaled 1.15 million, up 1 percent compared with January last year, Autodata Ltd said, adding that last month’s figures mean the market is on track for annual sales of 17.12 million.
BANKING
Deutsche Bank reports loss
Deutsche Bank AG yesterday said that US President Donald Trump’s tax reforms pushed it into the red last year. The Frankfurt, Germany-based bank said in a statement that its net loss last year totaled 512 million euros (US$640.8 million), narrower than the loss of 1.4 billion euros in 2016. Revenue last year fell to 26.4 billion euros, compared with 30 billion euros in 2016. However, at a pretax level, Deutsche Bank was back in the black, notching up a profit of almost 1.3 billion euros, compared with a loss of 810 million euros in 2016.
MEDIA
CBS mulling Viacom merger
US TV network CBS Corp on Thursday announced that it would explore a possible merger with Viacom Inc amid accelerating consolidation in the media industry. The CBS board “has established a special committee of independent directors to evaluate a potential combination with Viacom,” CBS said in a news release after the stock market closed. The move opens the potential to rejoin two companies that were split in 2006, combining CBS with Viacom’s networks, which include Nickelodeon, MTV, Black Entertainment Television and Comedy Central.
INDIA
Budget to help farmers, poor
Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley on Thursday announced a federal budget with a string of populist giveaways, from affordable housing to a health plan for millions of the poor, in an attempt to woo voters ahead of national elections next year. Speaking in parliament, Jaitley also announced a liberalization of agricultural exports, which would increase from US$30 billion to US$100 billion per year, to help push up crop prices for farmers. The government is also to help build more than 5 million affordable houses for the poor in the next financial year, which runs from April 1 to March 31 next year.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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