EUROZONE
Economy remains strong
The euro-area economy showed it is still robust as the European Central Bank prepares to wind down its bond-purchase program. IHS Markit’s composite index of manufacturing and services increased to 54.4 this month from 54.3 last month. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted a reading of 54.5. Overall, third-quarter growth could match the second quarter’s 0.4 percent, and indicators of current activity, employment and prices were all elevated, the report showed. Still, the rate of expansion is one of the weakest over the past year and a half, Markit said.
SAUDI ARABIA
Aramco IPO going ahead
The government yesterday rejected reports that Saudi Arabian Oil Co’s (Aramco) planned initial public offering (IPO) had been scrapped, saying the kingdom has stepped up preparations for the stock market debut of the state energy giant. “The government remains committed to the IPO of Saudi Aramco at a time of its own choosing when conditions are optimum,” Saudi Minister of Energy and Industry Khaled al-Falih said in a statement. Fresh speculation about the listing swirled late on Wednesday after a media report that the kingdom had halted the plan.
AUTOMAKERS
VW after self-driving tech
Volkswagen AG (VW) is on the hunt for self-driving technology and has tried to buy Aurora Innovation, an autonomous-driving start-up founded by veterans of Tesla Inc and Alphabet Inc, people familiar with the matter said. The German carmaker has been scouring Silicon Valley for targets or partnerships that can help it develop self-driving cars and other mobility technology. VW had talks to buy Aurora, which is already a partner, only to be rebuffed because the firm wanted to maintain its independence and work with multiple carmakers, the people said.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
San Miguel plans huge deal
San Miguel Corp is seeking as much as 142.8 billion pesos (US$2.67 billion) for shares of its food and beer unit, in a deal that would be the biggest Philippine stock offering on record. The country’s largest company plans to offer as many as 1.02 billion shares of San Miguel Food and Beverage Inc in the fourth quarter at an indicative price of 140 pesos each, it said in stock exchange filing yesterday.
INTERNET
Apple vetoes Facebook app
Facebook Inc is to pull its Onavo Protect virtual private network (VPN) application from Apple Inc’s App Store after getting word that it violates Apple’s data collection rules, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The free application creates an encrypted VPN connection that routes Internet activity through computer servers managed and secured by Facebook. The app also alerts users when sites they visit might be malicious. Facebook did not comment on the matter.
E-COMMERCE
Walmart offers e-books
Walmart Inc on Wednesday launched a digital book shop in collaboration with Japanese e-commerce powerhouse Rakuten Inc’s electronic book service Kobo. The Walmart eBooks Web site boasting more than 6 million titles along with audiobooks is to compete head-on with a core offering of rival Amazon.com Inc. Subscriptions to the Walmart audiobook service are US$9.99 per month, compared with US$14.95 for a comparable service at Amazon.
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],”
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
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