INVESTMENTS
China-Japan plan advances
China and Japan made key progress on a program that would allow cross-listing of exchange-traded funds and make it easier for investors to buy shares in each other’s nations. Both sides have sped up market access and bolstered regulatory cooperation since a memorandum of understanding was signed in October last year, China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Yi Huiman (易會滿) said in a statement yesterday.
TECHNOLOGY
Dassault eyes US firms
French technology company Dassault Systemes SE is seeking US acquisitions and considering targets including Medidata Solutions Inc, a software company focused on clinical trials, according to people familiar with the matter. Dassault is discussing the potential purchase of Medidata to bolster its life science unit, the people said. Deliberations are preliminary and the French software maker might decide against proceeding with a takeover or opt for a different company, they said. Medidata could also draw interest from other suitors, one of the people said.
MEDICINE
China bolsters penalties
China is intensifying its crackdown on makers of ineffective vaccines by introducing heavier penalties and more stringent regulations. Companies guilty of making or selling counterfeit vaccines can be fined between 15 to 30 times the value of the products involved, China News Service reported, citing the second draft of a new vaccine management law. That compares with a proposed five to 10 times the value of the goods in the first draft in November last year. The penalty would be capped at 30 million yuan (US$4.5 million) for goods valued below 1 million yuan.
AIRLINES
French union mulls strike
Norwegian Air’s largest cabin crew union in France has called for a strike from Wednesday to Friday, seeking higher pay and better working conditions, a union representative said on Saturday. UNAC representative Anastasia Durand told reporters that the union represents 70 percent of the airline’s 158 cabin crew based at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, also known as Roissy, from where Norwegian has four or five flights per day. Durand said there had been no formal vote for the strike, but the union had sounded out staff and there was general support for the action.
STOCK MARKETS
Dubai debuts expected
Three companies are preparing initial public offerings on Dubai’s main stock exchange, the bourse said, potentially ending a 17-month drought as it boosts efforts to entice local firms to list domestically rather than abroad. “We are at different stages of discussions with potential issuers, including three companies from the industry, oil and gas services, as well as healthcare sectors,” exchange operator Dubai Financial Market PJSC said in an e-mailed response to questions. The timing of the deals is up to the companies, it said.
RETAIL
Deal to end strikes
Stop & Shop supermarket workers and company officials on Sunday reached a tentative three-year contract agreement that includes wage increases for all associates and maintains health coverage, according to news releases from both parties. The company said the agreement ends employee strikes that started on April 11 at 240 Stop & Shop stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
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