PAYMENT SERVICES
PayPal China bid approved
US digital money transfer platform PayPal Holdings Inc has obtained Beijing’s approval to buy a controlling stake in Gopay Information Technology Co (國付寶), which would make PayPal the first foreign firm to enter China’s payment services market. Gopay has received approval from the People’s Bank of China to sell a 70 percent stake to PayPal, the companies said on Monday.
SINGAPORE
Home price growth slows
Home price growth moderated last quarter amid slowing sales and a glut of apartments. Private residential prices increased 0.9 percent in the three months that ended on Monday versus a 1.5 percent rise in the second quarter, data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority released yesterday showed. Home sales, meanwhile, are also slipping, down 4.8 percent in August. That is coming off a peak in July that was the highest since November last year.
MACAU
Gaming revenue at year low
Gaming revenue last month touched the lowest level in a year as casinos continue to be slammed by economic and geopolitical troubles. Gross gaming revenue for casino operators was 22.1 billion patacas (US$2.7 billion), up 0.6 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. That is roughly in line with the median analyst estimate of a 1 percent rise.
LEBANON
Bank unveils measures
The central bank has issued guarantees to secure US dollars for local banks at the fixed official rate that would cover imports of fuel, wheat and medicine. The move yesterday aims to ease the demand for greenback at a time when many Lebanese are rushing to exchange shops to convert their local currency into US dollars. The central bank said the imports it is securing hard currency for are “only for local consumption.”
CHINA
S&P affirms credit rating
S&P Global affirmed the country’s “A+/A-1” credit ratings on Monday, saying that the country would maintain above-average GDP growth and improved fiscal performance over the next three to four years. The agency kept the country’s outlook stable and said it did not expect relations with the US to normalize in the foreseeable future, which likely means the exports and manufacturing sector investment could see little growth over the next few years.
ENERGY
Aramco underpins valuation
Saudi Aramco sought to underpin the targeted US$2 trillion valuation for its initial public offering (IPO) by increasing dividends, paying less tax and finding cornerstone investments from major Asian oil producers. The company is producing more than 9.9 million barrels a day of crude as it fully recovers from the worst-ever attacks on its energy infrastructure, Aramco energy trading unit chief executive officer Ibrahim Al-Buainain said.
MALAYSIA
E-cigarettes to be regulated
The government is planning to introduce strict regulations on the sale and use of electronic cigarettes and vaporizers, health officials said yesterday. The country wants to club e-cigarettes and vaporizers together with tobacco products under a single law that would prohibit promotions and advertising, usage in public areas and use by minors, the Ministry of Health said.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts