AVIATION
Vietnam mulls cargo unit
Vietnam Airlines Corp, which has been transforming its fleet with new widebody planes and expanding services, is looking to further boost growth by starting a dedicated cargo unit. The Southeast Asian nation has become a major manufacturing hub, with companies, such as Samsung Electronics Co, annually producing billions of US dollars in devices, providing an air freight opportunity for the national carrier, Vietnam Airlines chief executive officer Duong Tri Thanh told Juliette Saly in a Bloomberg Television interview. Investments by companies, such as Samsung, LG Electronics Inc and Nestle SA, have made the country a manufacturing powerhouse, fueling economic growth that has been among the fastest in the region. GDP rose 7.4 percent in the first quarter and the government forecasts growth of as much as 7.5 percent this year.
BANKING
DBS profit up on lending
DBS Group Holdings Ltd, Southeast Asia’s largest lender, posted an increase in first-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimate thanks to higher lending and wealth revenue, while provisions for soured loans dropped. Net income climbed 26 percent from a year earlier to S$1.52 billion (US$1.15 billion) in the three months that ended in March, the Singapore-based company said yesterday in an exchange filing. That compares with the S$1.4 billion average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of five analysts. Rising local interest rates are helping the lenders charge more for loans, and DBS is earning higher wealth management fees after acquisitions helped it expand services for millionaires in Asia. Net interest income rose 16 percent from a year earlier to S$2.13 billion, driven by loan growth and the increase in benchmark borrowing costs.
BANKING
Australian banks face risk
Australia’s four major banks could suffer a ratings downgrade in the event of a severe housing market downturn with second-order economic effects, a stress test published yesterday by Fitch Ratings showed. The test was undertaken as risks within the household sector continue to grow, the ratings agency said, adding that Australian banks were vulnerable due to their large mortgage books. House price growth across Australia’s major cities have already tempered since late last year, and the run of losses is generally expected to continue as banks clamp down on so called “liar loans” amid an exhaustive year-long public inquiry. Just a few weeks after it commenced, a comprehensive, year-long Royal Commission has already uncovered a series of poor lending practices and wrongdoings among banks as they compete to expand their loan books.
EUROZONE
Lending growth slips
Growth in lending to the eurozone economy slipped slightly in March, but households’ and firms’ borrowing kept gaining momentum, European Central Bank (ECB) data showed yesterday. The pace of private-sector loan growth in the 19-nation single currency zone fell to 3 percent year-on-year in March, adjusting for some purely financial transactions, down from 3.1 percent in February and 3.3 percent in January. Both households and non-financial firms’ uptake of credit both picked up slightly in March, with all of the slowdown coming from non-bank financial firms, such as insurance companies and pension funds, the ECB data show.
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