JAPAN
Lawyer drops Ghosn
The lawyer nicknamed the “Razor” who was spearheading Carlos Ghosn’s defense yesterday said he is quitting the case after his client skipped bail and fled the nation for Lebanon. Junichiro Hironaka’s office issued a brief statement saying it had “filed with the Tokyo District Court letters of resignation for all lawyers ... connected with all cases related to Mr Carlos Ghosn.” Hironaka, 74, has said he was “dumbfounded” by Ghosn’s escape, which he discovered through the media on the morning his client fled. Another member of Ghosn’s legal team, Takashi Takano, has also thrown in the towel on the case, a source close to his office said.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai invests in start-up
South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co and its Kia Motors Corp affiliate yesterday announced plans for a major investment in London-based start-up Arrival to produce next-generation electric vehicles that cost less than standard-engine models. The 100 million euros (US$111.6 million) bet on the five-year-old technology firm comes as some manufacturers abandon Britain, because of uncertainties about how it would trade with EU nations once it leaves the bloc this month. Arrival is focused on designing and producing so-called Generation 2 electric vehicles, which are environmentally friendly autos made from scratch rather than being retrofitted, standard-engine production models.
MALAYSIA
India trade spat a challenge
The government is talking to India and trade officials in a bid to resolve concerns over New Delhi’s new palm oil import restrictions, a minister in Kuala Lumpur said yesterday amid a trade spat between the nations. A report on Wednesday said that New Delhi could also restrict imports of gasoline, aluminum ingots, liquefied natural gas, computer parts and microprocessors from the nation. However, no action has so far been taken. “This year, we foresee more challenges in some of our major markets,” Minister of Primary Industries Teresa Kok, who is in charge of the palm oil portfolio, told an industry conference, referring to India’s new palm import rules.
CHINA
Bank ready for competition
Financial institutions are completely capable of coping with foreign competition as the US$40 trillion financial sector is freed up, the central bank said yesterday, after China and the US signed an initial deal on trade. The bank would strengthen financial supervision and prevent risks in the process of the sector’s opening, the People’s Bank of China added in a statement. Under the initial deal, China has promised improved access to its banking, insurance, asset management, payment and fund management services, and agreed to expedite by nine months a previous December deadline for removing foreign ownership caps on securities firms.
ARGENTINA
Inflation at 28-year high
Inflation ended last year at 53.8 percent, the highest figure since 1991 when the peso was pegged to the US dollar, data institute Indec said on Wednesday. Indec said the cost of living increased by 3.7 percent last month alone. The hardest hit sectors were health (72 percent), communications (64) and home maintenance equipment (64). The nation’s inflation rate is one of the highest in the world and second only in Latin America to crisis-hit Venezuela. Inflation in 2018 was 48 percent.
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