JAPAN
Jobless rate rises slightly
Japan’s unemployment rate rose slightly last month, official data showed yesterday, with analysts highlighting the struggling electronics sector as contributing to job losses. The jobless rate edged up to 4.6 percent from 4.5 percent in March, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said. However, positive data showing household spending on the rise gave hope amid a lumbering economic recovery. Household spending last month rose an inflation-adjusted 2.6 percent from a year earlier, higher than an average 2.2 percent growth forecast by economists.
INVESTMENT
India mulls new measures
India is looking at ways to attract new capital flows from foreign investors as a way to bolster its ailing currency, a senior finance ministry official said on Monday. The Indian rupee hit an unprecedented string of all-time lows last week, falling as low as 56.38 rupees to the US dollar, but it rose on Monday to a one-week high of 55.18 rupees as investors took profits on the greenback. The government is expected to announce this week steps that could include easing rules for overseas retail investors to buy local shares or bonds, said the official, who did not wish to be named.
INVESTMENT
POSCO India mill completed
South Korea’s POSCO, the world’s third-largest steelmaker by output, yesterday said it had completed construction of its first steel mill in India. The mill in the west-central state of Maharashtra is capable of producing 450,000 tonnes of hot galvanized steel plate per year for cars and household goods for domestic and export sales. POSCO also plans to open a 300,000-tonne electric steel plate facility by October next year and a 1.8 million tonne cold-rolled mill in June 2014 in Maharashtra.
AUTOMAKERS
New York to use Nissan cabs
Nissan Motor Co is supplying New York City with fuel-efficient cabs, including six electric cars for testing, but acknowledged uncertainties about the ongoing war over charging standards for electric vehicles. Nissan yesterday said its gasoline-engine NV200 vehicles, painted yellow, will start operating as New York taxis in October next year. Six Leaf electric vehicles will be part of a pilot program this year.
TRADING
Marubeni to buy Gavilon
Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp is to buy US grains merchant Gavilon for US$3.6 billion excluding debt, the company said yesterday. Gavilon is the third-biggest US grain merchant in terms of the size of its marketing network, behind Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill, and also has large energy and fertilizer trading assets. Marubeni, Japan’s fifth-largest trading company, had been in advanced talks to buy Gavilon since early this month.
INSURANCE
Prudential names new chair
UK insurer Prudential PLC has named Paul Manduca as chairman, succeeding Harvey McGrath, who is retiring. Manduca has been an independent non-executive director of Prudential since October 2010 and became senior independent director in January last year. Prudential said on Monday that Manduca would assume his ￡600,000 (US$941,000) a year role on July 2, taking over from McGrath, who had weathered criticism over Prudential’s failed ￡22 billion bid for Asian insurer AIA in 2010.
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
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
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