UNITED KINGDOM
Joblessness fell last month
The labor market last month strengthened more than expected as the economy began to emerge from COVID-19 restrictions. The number of people on payrolls rose 97,000, and vacancies increased 13 percent, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday. The jobless rate in the first quarter fell unexpectedly to 4.8 percent as employment surged 84,000, the first gain since the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The jobs outlook has improved significantly in the past few months, with the government announcing plans to fully reopen the economy by June 21 and then extending wage support for furloughed workers until the end of September.
E-COMMERCE
Alibaba invests in Vietnam
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and partners are investing US$400 million in Vietnamese conglomerate Masan Group Corp’s retail arm, a deal that would expand the e-commerce giant’s online groceries business in Southeast Asia. Alibaba and Baring Private Equity Asia are leading a consortium that would take a 5.5 percent stake in The CrownX, which holds Masan’s interests in Masan Consumer Holdings and VinCommerce, while the conglomerate would own 80.2 percent of the firm following the investment, a statement said yesterday. The deal implies a pre-investment valuation of US$6.9 billion for The CrownX, it showed.
ENGINEERING
Siemens buys Supplyframe
German industrial giant Siemens AG on Monday announced the US$700 million acquisition of US firm Supplyframe, a digital platform that specializes in connecting companies along the electronics supply chain. The deal, expected to close later this year, comes as industrial firms are scrambling to cope with global semiconductor shortages spurred by increased demand for consumer electronics during the pandemic. The acquisition would combine Siemens’ offerings with Supplyframe’s marketplace intelligence to “help customers to reduce costs, increase agility and make highly informed decisions,” Siemens said in a statement.
AUTOMAKER
Tesla to help crash probe
Tesla Inc has pledged to work with Chinese authorities in the investigation of a crash involving one of its electric vehicles in which a policeman died. The California-based company said that it made a report to a government agency about the accident, which took place in the eastern city of Taizhou. One traffic policeman died after being injured in the accident, while a second officer injured in the crash is no longer in danger, the statement said. Another crash is still under investigation in China after a Tesla rear-ended a truck in Shaoguan in Guangdong Province on May 7, killing the driver of the vehicle, a Global Times report said. The cause of that accident is not yet clear.
FOOD
Danone names new CEO
French food and beverages giant Danone SA on Monday said that it had named a new CEO to replace Emmanuel Faber, who was ousted by the board in March over complaints that his focus on social responsibility was holding back the firm’s profitability. His replacement, Antoine de Saint-Affrique, who currently heads the Swiss chocolate group Barry Callebaut AG, has spent the bulk of his career at the food and consumer goods conglomerate Unilever, heading up its food division from 2011 to 2015. He would assume the position in September, Danone said.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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