SWEDEN
GDP shrank in Q4
The nation’s economy unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter as weaker purchasing power erodes consumer spending in the biggest Nordic economy. GDP shrank 0.6 percent in the three months through last month from the previous quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis, preliminary data from Statistics Sweden showed. The country’s economy has been projected to enter a recession this year as higher borrowing and living costs weigh on consumer spending. The housing market is in one of the worst routs globally, reducing demand for new homes and hurting the construction industry.
SPAIN
Inflation taking off
Inflation unexpectedly quickened, snapping five months of slowdowns, prompting traders to boost bets on how high the European Central Bank would raise interest rates. Consumer prices this month advanced by 5.8 percent from a year earlier — up from the previous month’s 5.5 percent increase, the National Statistics Institute said yesterday. The acceleration was driven by a rebound in fuel costs and smaller discounts in start-of-year apparel sales. A gauge of underlying prices that excludes volatile items such as energy and food surged to a record 7.5 percent, suggesting that price pressures are still widespread.
AIRLINES
Ryanair remains confident
Ryanair Holdings PLC said it is confident it can sustain its profitable run into next year and beyond as surging travel demand drives fares and as the company operates more high-capacity, fuel-efficient aircraft. Net profit in the fiscal third quarter through last month reached 211 million euros (US$229.75 million), compared with a loss of 96 million euros a year earlier, Europe’s largest discount airline said in a statement yesterday. The company reiterated its full-year profit outlook range of 1.325 billion euros to 1.425 billion euros, which Ryanair had raised earlier this month. “We will deliver record profits in the current financial year and we would expect to continue to grow profitably into next year and beyond,” chief financial officer Neil Sorahan said.
CONSUMER GOODS
New CEO to lead Unilever
Royal FrieslandCampina boss Hein Schumacher is to succeed Unilever chief executive officer Alan Jope, the company said yesterday. The boss of the dairy and nutrition business would become CEO on July 1, after a one-month handover, it said. Schumacher, 51, is a consumer-goods veteran with experience working at H.J. Heinz and grocer Royal Ahold NV. He began his career at Unilever in finance and is leaving Unilever after 37 years. The incoming CEO has worked at FrieslandCampina since 2014.
OIL
Shell to overhaul units
Shell PLC is to overhaul business units to simplify the organization and boost performance, its new CEO said yesterday. Shell is to combine its integrated gas and upstream businesses, and merge its downstream and renewables and energy solutions units, it said. Under the changes, which are expected to take effect on July 1, the company would reduce the size of its executive committee from nine to seven members. “Fewer interfaces mean greater cooperation, discipline and speed, enabling us to focus on strengthening performance across the businesses and generating strong returns for our investors,” CEO Wael Sawan said in a statement.
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