CHINA
AIIB members to increase
More than 30 countries are waiting to join the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), adding to its 57 founding members, its president Jin Liqun (金立群) said on Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of the Boao Forum on China’s Hainan Island, Jin said the bank was working on accepting the new members. Jin did not identify the prospective members. The Chinese territory of Hong Kong may also be allowed to become a member, he added.
TIREMAKERS
Yokohama to buy Alliance
Yokohama Rubber Co on Friday said it is to buy KKR & Co’s Alliance Tire Group for US$1.2 billion to enter the market for agricultural and forest machinery. The Japanese maker of passenger-car tires is to purchase all shares from KKR and other parties and expects to complete the acquisition July 1, according to a statement. The deal is valued at about 2.2 times Alliance Tire’s annual sales and more than 12 times its operating profit for the last fiscal year.
CLOTHING
VF Corp seeks alternatives
VF Corp, the owner of the North Face, Lee and Wrangler clothing brands, is exploring alternatives for a business that makes licensed athletic apparel amid sluggish consumer demand in the US, the company said on Friday. The Licensed Sports Group business includes the Majestic brand and supplies apparel and fanware through licensing with professional sports teams, colleges and lifestyle brands, the company said. The business generated about US$550 million in revenue last year, it said.
VIETNAM
Economy slowed in Q1
The economy slowed in the first quarter of this year, official figures showed on Friday, hampered by low oil prices and an ongoing drought that has hit the agricultural sector hard. The dip followed last year’s record GDP growth at 6.68 percent, a boom fueled by a flurry of international interest in the nation. The first three months of the year saw GDP growth drop to 5.46 percent, down from 6.12 percent for the same period last year.
LEBANON
World Bank irked by Beirut
The head of the World Bank expressed frustration at Lebanon’s political paralysis on Friday, warning that good governance now was essential to prevent future conflict. The World Bank granted Lebanon a US$100 million loan on Thursday to support educational projects, but an agreed development package from the bank worth about US$1 billion is being held up by the political deadlock. Lebanon’s GDP grew 2 percent in 2014.
DRUGMAKERS
Gilead to pay US$200m
Gilead Sciences Inc was ordered by a jury to pay Merck & Co US$200 million for patent infringement over a drug compound that cures hepatitis C, a 10th of what Merck sought. The verdict announced on Thursday follows an earlier finding by the jury embracing Merck’s claims that its scientists were responsible for early breakthroughs that led to the development of the Sovaldi and Harvoni medicines which helped Gilead become the world’s largest biotechnology firm by market value.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of