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.
OpenAI has warned US lawmakers that its Chinese rival DeepSeek (深度求索) is using unfair and increasingly sophisticated methods to extract results from leading US artificial intelligence (AI) models to train the next generation of its breakthrough R1 chatbot, a memo reviewed by Bloomberg News showed. In the memo, sent on Thursday to the US House of Representatives Select Committee on China, OpenAI said that DeepSeek had used so-called distillation techniques as part of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other US frontier labs.” The company said it had detected “new, obfuscated methods” designed to evade OpenAI’s defenses
NEW IMPORTS: Car dealer PG Union Corp said it would consider introducing US-made models such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Stellantis’ RAM 1500 to Taiwan Tesla Taiwan yesterday said that it does not plan to cut its car prices in the wake of Washington and Taipei signing the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade on Thursday to eliminate tariffs on US-made cars. On the other hand, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan said it is planning to lower the price of its five models imported from the US after the zero tariff comes into effect. Tesla in a statement said it has no plan to adjust the prices of the US-made Model 3, Model S and Model X as tariffs are not the only factor the automaker uses to determine pricing policies. Tesla said
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Australian singer Kylie Minogue says “nothing compares” to performing live, but becoming an international wine magnate in under six years has been quite a thrill for the Spinning Around star. Minogue launched her first own-label wine in 2020 in partnership with celebrity drinks expert Paul Schaafsma, starting with a basic rose but quickly expanding to include sparkling, no-alcohol and premium rose offerings. The actress and singer has since wracked up sales of around 25 million bottles, with her carefully branded products pitched at low-to mid-range prices in dozens of countries. Britain, Australia and the United States are the biggest markets. “Nothing compares to performing
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