INDIA
Cash injection for United Bank
United Bank of India became the first of the country’s ailing state-run banks to announce a new cash injection from the government, disclosing in a filing on Thursday that it would receive 21.6 billion rupees (US$308.46 million) to improve its capital ratios. The move is part of the government’s plans to infuse a combined 830 billion rupees into state-run banks by March, after injecting 1.06 trillion rupees so far this financial year. United Bank of India’s infusion nearly matches the 21.77 billion rupees it would need to satisfy capital requirements, ratings agency ICRA Ltd said.
BANKING
Unease grows at BOJ
Unease has increased within the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) policy board over the outlook for prices as cheaper oil and mobile phone charges threaten to drive inflation back toward zero and possibly back into negative territory. A summary of opinions from board members at last week’s meeting released yesterday shows a switch in mood from the guarded optimism over prices at the October policy meeting. The BOJ left policy unchanged at both meetings.
ITALY
Growth forecast cut further
The government might have to cut its economic growth forecast for next year further, although the 1 percent expansion it now predicts is reasonable, the Parliamentary Budget Office said on Thursday. The cut to 1 percent, from 1.5 percent, was part of a deal the country reached last week with the European Commission over its expansionary budget for next year. The coalition of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the right-wing League also lowered its deficit target to 2.04 percent of GDP from 2.4 percent.
UNITED STATES
Consumer confidence falls
US consumer confidence slumped this month to the lowest since July as a gauge of labor market expectations fell by the most in 41 years. The confidence index decreased to 128.1 from 136.4, a report from the New York-based Conference Board said on Thursday. That missed every economist estimate in Bloomberg’s survey, which called for 133.5. A measure of consumer expectations fell to a two-year low, while the share of people expecting more jobs in the next six months decreased to 16.6 percent from 22.7 percent, the biggest drop since 1977.
EGYPT
Central bank maintains rates
The central bank on Thursday left its key overnight interest rates steady, keeping the deposit rate at 16.75 percent and the lending rate at 17.75 percent. Headline inflation slowed to 15.7 percent last month from 17.7 percent in October as fruit and vegetable prices declined, while core inflation slowed to 7.94 percent, its lowest since April 2016, from 8.86 percent in October. GDP grew by 5.3 percent in the fiscal year that ended in June.
SECURITIES
UK agency investigates leak
The British National Crime Agency (NCA) is examining accusations that an employee leaked information to a suspect in exchange for money, thereby resulting in the undermining of a probe into a network of insider trading suspects in Europe, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The NCA is investigating whether a government translator with access to wiretap recordings tipped off the target of an insider-trading investigation, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
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