VIETNAM
New airport planned
Lawmakers yesterday voted to build a controversial new US$16 billion airport near Ho Chi Minh City, as the country vies to become one of the world’s busiest aviation hubs. The project aims to ease airport congestion in the business hub and cater to an ambitious 100 million passengers and 5 million tonnes of cargo a year by 2050. If all goes to plan, the proposed airport in neighboring Dong Nai Province would turn the nation into a regional aviation hub.
? SMARTPHONES
Bacteria-free handset touted
BlackBerry might design a bacteria-free smartphone as it bids to become the secure mobile choice for the healthcare industry, chief executive John Chen (程守宗) said. “Healthcare workers have to be worried about one less thing to wipe down [with a bacteria-free handset],” Chen told reporters on Wednesday at a hospital north of Toronto where BlackBerry unveiled a clinical alerts pilot project. The Canadian mobile manufacturer is partnering with ThoughtWire and Cisco Systems Inc to provide nurses and doctors in a Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital unit with a portable messaging and alert system. BlackBerry is to provide the software and devices. A study published in the Journal of Applied Microbiology found that about 20 percent to 30 percent of germs transfer between a phone and a fingertip.
TEXTILES
Garment workers on strike
More than 300 Chinese workers at a garment factory that supplies international brands such as Uniqlo have been protesting for about two weeks what they say is a unilateral decision by the management to close down. The strike is one of more than 1,000 collective actions since January by Chinese workers, who are increasingly turning to group actions in fighting for their rights. Workers at Shenzhen Artigas Clothing & Leatherware said the management is forcing them to move to another factory and they demand a proper negotiation for the relocation. Officials at Lever Style Ltd, which manages Artigas, have refused to comment, while Uniqlo Co has issued a statement urging for a peaceful resolution. The Japanese retailer said it could terminate its contract with the supplier if the matter is unresolved. Workers said they would like to receive proper payouts, including back payments for social security, overtime work and unused holidays.
RETAIL
H&M shares fall
Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) said that the rising US dollar would have a “very negative” effect on garment costs in the second half, after the greenback drove second-quarter profitability to the lowest level in nine years. Gross margin narrowed to 59.4 percent in the three months through last month, Stockholm-based H&M said yesterday, missing the 59.8 percent estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg. The shares fell the most in more than a month in early Stockholm trading and were down 2.2 percent to 332.50 krona at 9:03am. The vendor of US$9.95 beach dresses and US$12.95 espadrille sandals said that its purchasing costs would be “substantially increased” because of the US dollar in the second half, as Asian garment costs are often linked to the greenback. That trend has hurt other apparel retailers like Associated British Foods PLC’s Primark chain. The currency has strengthened 7.9 percent against the euro and 5.5 percent against the krona this year.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
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