SOUTH KOREA
Exports slip slightly
Early trade data showed exports this month falling, driven by fewer working days, while daily average shipments continued to recover on resilient tech demand. Exports fell 5.8 percent in the first 20 days of the month from a year earlier, according to Customs Service data released yesterday. The value of average daily shipments still rose 5.9 percent, as the period had 1.5 fewer business days compared with last year. Semiconductor exports increased 12 percent, while overseas shipments of vehicles fell 7.6 percent and oil products decreased 42 percent. Sales of computer devices rose 11 percent.
MALAYSIA
Price drop continues
The consumer price index fell for the seventh straight month last month, declining 1.4 percent from a year earlier, government data showed yesterday. The drop was more than the 1.3 percent decline forecast by 10 economists in a Reuters poll. In August, the index fell 1.4 percent. Last month’s decline was driven largely by the transport sector index falling 9.9 percent year-on-year, and lower housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel prices, the Statistics Department said in a statement. Meanwhile, the government would exempt as much as 10 percent of workers in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Sabah, Labuan and Putrajaya from its work-from-home order, Trade Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali said in a statement yesterday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Debt highest since 1960
Government borrowing in the first half of the year was more than six times higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, official figures showed yesterday, taking public debt to its highest since 1960. Public borrowing last month totaled £36.101 billion (US$47.16 billion), above all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists, although August’s figure was revised down by more than £5 billion to £30.113 billion. The increased borrowing took total public debt further above the £2 trillion mark to £2.060 trillion, or 103.5 percent of GDP, the Office for National Statistics said.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan raises Thai staff
Nissan Motor Co plans to hire more than 2,000 new workers in Thailand as the company seeks to shore up its last remaining large-scale production base in Southeast Asia. Its subsidiary in the country would begin taking on new employees at its plants in Samut Prakan Province, south of Bangkok, the company said yesterday. Nissan employed 4,171 workers in the country as of March 31, according to figures from the Japanese automaker, meaning that the new hires would increase the division’s workforce by about 50 percent. Earlier this year, the Yokohama-based group announced that it would end vehicle manufacturing at its plant in Indonesia.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Qualcomm eyes Indian 5G
Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms Ltd is working with Qualcomm Inc to develop 5G solutions and accelerate efforts to bring the high-speed network to the world’s No. 2 mobile market by users. Jio, which includes the tycoon’s wireless operator, and its wholly owned US-based unit Radisys Corp are partnering with Qualcomm Technologies to “fast track the development and roll out of indigenous 5G network infrastructure and services in India,” according to a joint statement on Tuesday. Jio is the nation’s biggest carrier with about 400 million users.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained