CRYPTOCURRENCIES
France urges EU rules
The EU should create a common set of rules for virtual currencies to counter risks posed by Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra, French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire said yesterday. The bloc does not have specific regulations on cryptocurrencies, which have so far been considered a marginal issue by most decisionmakers because only a tiny fraction of bitcoins or other digital coins are converted into euros. However, plans unveiled in June by Facebook to launch its own digital currency for payments among its hundreds of millions of users in Europe and around the world have triggered a rethink. Libra could cause risks to consumers, financial stability and even “the sovereignty of European states,” Le Maire told reporters at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Helsinki. He repeated his pleas for blocking Libra in Europe and called for the creation of “a common framework” on digital currencies at EU level.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Groups oppose merger
About a dozen advocacy groups and unions, including Public Citizen and the American Federation of Teachers, on Thursday wrote the US Federal Trade Commission urging it to consider blocking drugmaker AbbVie Inc’s planned US$63 billion purchase of Botox maker Allergan PLC. The combination of two of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical firms, which was announced in June, would feature a portfolio that includes the world’s top-selling medicine — AbbVie’s rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira — as well as its cancer drugs and Allergan’s blockbuster wrinkle treatment, Botox, and big-selling dry eye drug Restasis. The groups said the deal would create the fourth-largest pharmaceutical firm with strong markets for many drugs at a time when rising prices of many medicines have become a hot political issue.
DEFENSE
List of Chinese firms wanted
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers on Thursday asked the Pentagon to name companies owned by the Chinese military operating in the US, as they seek to curb what they called Beijing’s effort to “steal” technology for military purposes. Companies owned by the Chinese government “acquire American firms to transfer proprietary information,” among other tactics, according to the letter to US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. A Pentagon report last year said China dominates the global supply of rare earth minerals critical to US military operations, as well as supplies of electronics and chemicals. “China represents a significant and growing risk to the supply of materials and technologies deemed strategic and critical to US national security,” the report said.
ENERGY
EU mulls higher taxes
The EU is considering new energy taxes to meet its climate targets, top officials said yesterday, with Germany calling for “drastic steps” to reduce carbon emissions. EU nations have in the past decade led the global shift toward renewable energy and set up the world’s largest emissions trading system to price carbon and reduce reliance on more polluting fuels. However, EU rules on energy taxation have not changed for more than 15 years. They are “outdated and poorly adapted to climate change challenges and developments in energy policy at EU level,” according to a document that EU finance ministers were to discuss yesterday and today. Possible measures in a document prepared by the Finnish presidency of the EU included higher minimum tax rates on energy, fossil fuel levies, and the end of waivers for the air and sea transport sectors.
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