TRADE
Next US-China visits set
A US delegation headed by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is scheduled to visit China on Thursday and Friday next week for the next round of negotiations, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said yesterday. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴) is to travel to Washington early next month for more talks, ministry spokesman Gao Feng (高峰) said. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that the US might leave tariffs on Chinese goods for a “substantial period” to ensure that Beijing complies with any trade agreement.
CRIME
Counterfeiting gang nabbed
Chinese police have arrested 32 members of a group they said made and sold up to 100 million yuan (US$15 million) of counterfeit luxury goods from brands such as Louis Vuitton and Loewe, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Police in Shanghai also closed two assembly lines used to make the counterfeits and seized more than 4,000 bags, clothes and accessories.
CRIME
Fraud suspect pleads guilty
A Lithuanian man on Wednesday pleaded guilty to US charges that he helped orchestrate a scheme to defraud Facebook Inc and Google out of more than US$100 million. Evaldas Rimasauskas, 50, entered his plea to one count of wire fraud before US District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan. He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison at his sentencing in July. He also agreed to forfeit about US$49.7 million he obtained from the scheme.
BRAZIL
Interest rates unchanged
The central bank on Wednesday on left interest rates unchanged after holding its first monetary policy meeting under new Governor Roberto Campos Neto. The bank’s unanimous decision — only the second since pro-business President Jair Bolsonaro took power in January — to keep rates at 6.5 percent was in line with market expectations.
INVESTMENT
Levi Strauss IPO a success
Levis Strauss & Co raised $623.3 million in its US initial public offering (IPO), pricing shares above the marketed range. The iconic blue jeans maker sold 36.7 million shares at US$17 apiece on Wednesday, according to a statement. It had marketed them for US$14 to US$16 apiece. The stock started trading yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. The offering valued Levi Strauss at US$6.55 billion, based on the number of shares outstanding after the IPO.
CRIME
S Korean firms plead guilty
South Korean oil refiners S-Oil Corp and Hyundai Oilbank Co have agreed to plead guilty to criminal and civil charges of rigging bids to supply fuel to the US military, the US Department of Justice said on Wednesday. Hyundai is to pay US$83.1 million in criminal and civil fines, while S-Oil would pay US$43.58 million to settle the allegations, the department said.
AVIATION
India hopes to save jobs
The Indian government is mulling options to save jobs at Jet Airways India Ltd, including asking low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd to consider taking over some of the debt-laden company’s aircraft, people with knowledge of the matter said. The proposal involves SpiceJet acquiring as many as 40 of Jet Airways’ grounded planes that are owned by lessors, one of the people said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the