REAL ESTATE
HKL converts upscale office
The biggest landlord in Hong Kong’s Central business district is opening its first flexible office space in one of its premium buildings to capture the demand for agile workplace leasing. Hongkong Land Holdings Ltd (HKL, 香港置地) converted two floors in Edinburgh Tower into a 320-desk flexible workspace, which opened its doors yesterday. Leasing term in the office ranges from as short as three months to three years. HKL said the space mainly targets financial companies and professional services. An unnamed international financial institution has rented a suite, it said.
JAPAN
May exports surge 49.6%
Exports last month surged 49.6 percent from last year’s dismal level, as record jumps in shipments to the US and Europe helped boost an economy still struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic at home, data released yesterday by the Ministry of Finance showed. The figures were largely in line with the median forecast from analysts. Shipments of vehicles and auto parts more than doubled, despite a shortage of semiconductors that has crimped vehicle production in the US and other markets. Shipments to the US gained 87.9 percent, those to the EU climbed 69.6 percent and exports to China climbed 23.6 percent.
VEHICLES
UK in EV battery talks
The British government is in talks with six companies to build gigafactories to produce electric vehicle (EV) batteries, the Financial Times reported yesterday, citing people briefed on the discussions. Ford Motor Co, Nissan Motor Co, LG Corp, Samsung Electronics Co, and start-ups Britishvolt and InoBat Auto are in talks with the British government or local authorities about locations for potential factories and financial support, the report said. The government’s plan to prohibit the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2030 and hybrids by 2035 would require the nation’s vehicle plants to shift to producing electric models.
REAL ESTATE
Vacation home sales surge
US real estate became a hot commodity during the COVID-19 pandemic, but an industry survey released on Tuesday said vacation homes were even hotter, underscoring how those who could afford it sought comfort far from cities, despite the economy’s collapse. The share of vacation homes sold out of all existing home sales is usually about 5 percent annually, but last year, it rose to 5.5 percent, and was at 6.7 percent for the first four months of this year, the National Association of Realtors said, with the ratio hitting 8 percent in April alone.
TECHNOLOGY
Zuckerberg’s rating slips
Mark Zuckerberg’s approval among some Facebook Inc employees has slipped, dislodging him from Glassdoor’s ranking of the Top 100 CEOs, a list he has been on annually since 2013. Worker sentiment on Zuckerberg, as measured by Glassdoor surveys taken by more than 700 Facebook employees from May last year to last month, declined particularly in the last months of last year and early this year, when Facebook was managing the aftermath of the US presidential election and misinformation around the COVID-19 pandemic. While Zuckerberg still managed a rating of 88 percent, higher than the average 73 percent approval rating for CEOs generally, that was not enough for the top 100 list, where Microsoft Corp’s Satya Nadella scored 97 percent and Apple Inc’s Tim Cook scored 95 percent.
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