CHINA
Factory inflation slows
The cost of producing goods in factories slowed sharply last month, a sign that demand remains weak amid the US trade dispute, while consumer inflation also flagged, official data showed yesterday. The producer price index (PPI) rose 0.9 percent year-on-year last month, compared with a 2.7 percent rise the previous month. The reading marks the lowest growth since September 2016 and fell short of forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. A slowdown in factory gate inflation reflects sluggish demand, while a turn to deflation could dent corporate profits.
AUTOMAKERS
Ghosn reported sick
The lawyer for Nissan Motor Co’s former chairman Carlos Ghosn, who is being held on charges of falsifying financial reports, yesterday said that the 64-year-old businessman had a fever. Ghosn’s lawyer, Motonari Ohtsuru, said that doctors at the Tokyo Detention Center said he should rest after running a fever of 38.8°C late on Wednesday. Visits to Ghosn by consular officials and lawyers were postponed. On Tuesday, in his first public appearance since his arrest on Nov. 19 last year, Ghosn told a Tokyo court that he was innocent.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota announces recall
Toyota Motor Corp on Wednesday announced a recall of 1.7 million vehicles in North America as part of a general effort to replace defective Takata Corp airbags tied to about 20 deaths worldwide. The sprawling recall concerned 4Runner SUVs from model years 2010 to 2016, Corolla sedans and Matrix hatchbacks from 2010 to 2013, and Sienna minivans from 2011 to 2014. The recall also involves Luxury Lexus models and Scion XB compacts, Toyota said.
WORKSPACE SHARING
WeWork receives funding
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp has invested US$2 billion in shared-office provider WeWork Cos, considerably less than the US start-up was hoping for to fund its expansion. WeWork boss Adam Neumann had earlier spoken of about US$20 billion in investment. The US$2 billion cash injection brings to a total of US$6 billion the amount invested by the Japanese firm and values WeWork at US$47 billion.
MOROCCO
Mine closures announced
Authorities last year closed 2,000 illegal mineshafts in Jerada, an impoverished former coal town that has been the site of a string of deadly mining accidents. The closure of the “abandoned and illicitly exploited shafts” was announced on Wednesday by the Ministry of Energy and Mines, which promised to shut about 1,500 shafts that remained by the end of this year. Eighty-two million euros (US$95 million) would be invested in industry and agriculture projects by 2020, the ministry said.
MEXICO
Inflation reaches 4.83%
The nation registered inflation of 4.83 percent last year, beating the central bank’s target, despite a downward trend for the year, official data released on Wednesday showed. The key interest rate in Latin America’s second-largest economy after Brazil stood at 8.25 percent, a level it also reached during the 2008 financial crisis. Analysts polled by the central bank forecast inflation of 3.89 percent for this year.
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
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