■ Electronics
Sony may sell retail outfits
Sony Corp, the world's second-biggest consumer electronics maker, may sell some of its retail-related businesses as it focuses on reviving its unprofitable electronics unit, which accounts for about 70 percent of sales. "We are looking for an outside alliance to make these retail-related businesses independent and strengthen their competitiveness," Sony spokesman Kei Sakaguchi said. Sony is in the final stages of negotiations to sell more than 50 percent of four subsidiaries that sell cosmetics, household goods, and operate restaurants and a mail-order company, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said without citing anyone. Nikko Principal Investments Japan Ltd and MKS Partners Ltd are possible buyers, the paper said. Sony is reportedly looking to sell part of its import-retail shop Sony Plaza Co, cosmetics maker B&C Laboratories Inc, restaurant chain Maxim's de Paris Corp and mail-order company Sony Family Club Inc.
■ Banking
KEB joins US boycott
Korea Exchange Bank (KEB), South Korea's fifth-largest bank, said on Friday that it cut ties with Macau's Banco Delta Asia, which Washington has accused of laundering money for North Korea. The South Korean bank said in a statement that it ended foreign-exchange transactions with the Macau bank on Feb. 1 as "a pre-emptive" step to protect itself from possible US sanctions. KEB has become the first South Korean financial institution to join US financial restrictions imposed in September on Banco Delta Asia. The US Treasury Department called the Macau bank "a willing pawn for the North Korean government" and said its clients were involved in smuggling and counterfeiting.
■ Economy
Tokyo, Seoul up crisis fund
Japan and South Korea's finance ministers yesterday agreed to more than double the amount available for a currency-swap framework to US$15 billion to help each other in case of a financial crisis. Japanese Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki and Han Duck-soo, South Korea's deputy premier and finance and economy minister, reached the agreement in the first annual, bilateral finance ministers' meeting, a Japanese official said. Under the deal, Japan would extend as much as US$10 billion to South Korea, which in turn promised to release as much as US$5 billion to Japan in a case of financial emergency, such as a currency crisis, the official said. The changes would be made official possibly later this month, he said. Currently, Japan has promised to give as much as US$7 billion to South Korea when a financial crisis hits Asia, but there was no agreement for Japan to receive funds from Seoul.
■ Economy
UK insolvencies hit new high
The number of Britons becoming insolvent soared to its highest level since records began in the 1960s, according to UK government figures released on Friday. More than 20,400 people in the UK went insolvent during the final three months of last year, rising 15 percent more than the last previous three months. During the period, 13,501 people went bankrupt, nearly 11 percent more than in the previous three months and 57 percent higher than the same period in 2004, the UK Insolvency Service said. The number of people taking out Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs), a form of personal bankruptcy, more than doubled in the past year to 6,960. Under IVAs, individuals agree to repay a set amount each month in exchange for interest on their debts being frozen.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
A new worry has been rippling across the stock market lately: Entire businesses, not just their employees, might be thrown out of work. While most economists say fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) job apocalypse are overblown, seismic shifts have happened in the past after big tech breakthroughs. The IT revolution of the 1990s led to a surge in productivity that sped up the US economy for several years. It also rendered companies or even industries largely redundant — from travel agents and stockbrokers to classified advertising and newspapers, or video rental stores. Economists expect AI would deliver higher productivity,
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