MACROECONOMICS
Japan biz confidence slips
Confidence among Japan’s biggest manufacturers has slipped for the second straight quarter, a key central bank survey showed yesterday. The Bank of Japan’s Tankan report — a quarterly survey of about 10,000 companies — showed a reading of 21 among major manufacturers in its June survey against 24 in the March report. The Tankan report, the broadest indicator of how Japan Inc is faring, marks the difference between the percentage of firms that are upbeat and those that see conditions as unfavorable.
AUTOS
Nissan drops battery sale
Nissan Motor Co abandoned a US$1 billion deal to sell its electric-battery business because the prospective buyer failed to raise the money required. The Japanese automaker canceled the sale to GSR Capital (金沙江資本), saying in a statement yesterday the Chinese private-equity firm did not have sufficient funds. Nissan and GSR were due to close the transaction by Friday last week. The deal had already been postponed three times, most recently on April 27, because certain conditions had not been met. The deal with GSR for Nissan subsidiary Automotive Energy Supply Corp and manufacturing operations in Japan, the US and the UK would have ended a long search for a buyer as the carmaker works to streamline operations.
TECHNOLOGY
Softbank invests in ‘handy’
Japanese technology conglomerate Softbank is investing in a mobile device service for hotel guests, called handy Japan, that offers information on tourist attractions and Internet access. Terms of the deal, announced yesterday, were not disclosed. Handy, developed by Hong Kong-based Tink Labs, is available in 650,000 rooms in 4,000 hotels in 82 countries. It rolled out in Japan in July last year and has been adopted by 1,700 hotels and 240,000 rooms, about a third of the nation’s hotels, both sides said. Handy works as a smartphone rental that is a complementary hotel service. The device can contact a hotel’s concierge, link to the Internet, and make local and international calls.
ENERGY
BP Azerbaijan plant running
British petroleum giant BP has started operating a US$28 billion pipeline in Azerbaijan to supply gas to Turkey and elsewhere in Europe, the company said yesterday. The “Shah Deniz 2” development is “the starting point for the Southern Gas Corridor series of pipelines that will for the first time deliver natural gas from the Caspian Sea directly to European markets,” BP said in a statement. The pipeline bypasses Russia and has been supported by the EU, which is keen to reduce Europe’s energy dependence on Moscow.
BUSINESS
Interpol hunts billionaire
Interpol yesterday issued an arrest warrant for Indian billionaire diamond merchant Nirav Modi, tightening the noose on one of the main suspects in a US$1.8 billion fraud at a major state-run bank. Modi is a jeweler to the stars whose celebrity clients have included Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet. His eponymous high-end brand has stores in several of the world’s major cities. India last month requested Interpol to issue a so-called red corner notice to help trace Modi after the fugitive diamond merchant was last spotted in Britain. A red corner notice seeks the arrest or provisional arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts