DIPLOMACY
Turkey not seeking aid
Turkey did not seek economic aid from Germany during talks in Berlin on Friday and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will not ask for support when he meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel next week, German Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz said. “Turkey has not sought economic aid, neither during our talks today [Friday] nor will it do so in the talks that the president and the chancellor will hold,” Scholz said after meeting Turkish Minister of Finance Berat Albayrak. Turkey on Thursday sharply cut its growth forecasts for this year and next.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota to add Android
Toyota Motor Corp agreed to add Android Auto to its vehicles, according to a person familiar with the matter, ending years of resistance to the Google infotainment software due to safety and security concerns. For the first time, Toyota will allow Android Auto devices to connect directly to its cars, after announcing compatibility with Apple Inc’s CarPlay in January. The addition of Android Auto might attract customers who had stayed away from Toyota vehicles because of the lack of connectivity. An announcement could come as early as next month, a different person familiar with the plans said.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford payouts ordered
A Thai court has ordered Ford Motor Co to pay 291 customers a total of about US$720,000 in compensation for selling cars equipped with faulty transmissions. The Bangkok South Civil Court’s decision was welcomed on Friday as a victory in a country where consumers rarely win redress. Most of the plaintiffs in the class action suit are to get payments of US$800 to US$8,000 each, depending on the number of times and length of time their cars took to be repaired. However, 12 plaintiffs were denied compensation because their cars were modified before they were repaired. Ford said in a statement that it respected the court’s verdict.
BANKING
Indian firm misses payment
Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd, an Indian shadow banker that defaulted on its commercial paper obligation earlier this year, missed payments again on Friday. The company, which helped fund India’s longest tunnel, defaulted on three non-convertible notes series, it said in a filing to the stock exchange, without disclosing the value of the debt. It was also unable to meet an obligation for a letter of credit payable to IDBI Bank Ltd, the company said in a separate filing. Trouble at the company has shaken confidence in the sector and on Friday rocked India’s stock markets.
ENERGY
Fieldwood mulls IPO
Fieldwood Energy, an offshore oil and gas explorer that emerged from bankruptcy in April, is weighing an initial public offering, people familiar with the matter said. The Houston, Texas-based company is exploring filing a public offering in early next year that could value the company at more than US$5 billion, said one the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter was not public. Fieldwood is one of the largest oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico. A representative for Fieldwood declined to comment.
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