GAMBLING
Macau revenues surge
Macau yesterday said gaming revenues rose more than 20 percent year-on-year last month, despite the city being hammered by severe Typhoon Hato, which ripped through the city killing at least 10 people. Gaming revenues still surged 20.4 percent to 22.68 billion patacas (US$2.81 billion) for the month, beating expectations of 18.5 percent in a Bloomberg News survey. Casinos brought in more than US$28 billion last year, representing half of the city’s gross domestic product.
NAFTA
Mexico, Canada to stay in
Mexico and Canada would remain in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) even if the Trump administration abandoned the accord, Mexican Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo said on Thursday. Guajardo spoke a day before US, Mexican and Canadian negotiators met in Mexico City yesterday to work on updating the 23-year-old trade accord. The negotiations in Mexico City are the second round on revamping NAFTA after talks in Washington two weeks ago.
INDIA
Indian economy slows down
India’s economy lost further steam in the quarter to June as growth slid to its lowest level in more than three years. GDP grew 5.7 percent in the latest quarter, its slowest pace since the January-to-March quarter in 2014, government data showed on Thursday. It was a marked slowdown from a 6.1 percent growth in the first quarter this year and was far worse than the median forecast of 6.6 percent in a Reuters poll. It was in line with the poll’s lowest estimate.
CANADA
Growth hits 4.5% in Q2
The Canadian economy grew 4.5 percent in the second quarter of this year, the government statistical agency said on Thursday, pushing beyond forecasts to the highest growth rate in 15 years. Analysts were expecting 3.1 percent growth during the quarter from April to June, but strong consumer spending and a surge in exports buoyed the results. This came after growth of 3.7 percent at the start of the year, when the economy roared back to life to jump ahead of Canada’s G7 peers after years of relative stagnation.
INSURANCE
Anbang premiums fall 99.6%
Anbang Insurance Group Co’s (安邦保險集團) life unit saw its premium income slump 99.6 percent in July, after an industrywide crackdown restricted sales of short-term investment-type products. The life unit’s premium income fell to 48.8 million yuan (US$7.4 million) in July, according to Bloomberg News calculations based on a statement posted on the China Insurance Regulatory Commission’s Web site yesterday. Sales from investment-type products fell 94.4 percent from a year earlier to 686.3 million yuan.
TECHNOLOGY
Tesla under labor inquiry
The US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) US, which is charged with enforcing labor laws, filed a complaint on Thursday against Tesla Inc, saying it found merit in worker accusations of labor rights infringement. The agency said Tesla had violated rights of workers by requiring them to sign overly broad confidentiality agreements that could bar speaking out over labor conditions and safety issues at the Fremont, California facility. The board also said it was investigating Tesla for allegedly intimidating and harassing workers, charges the car maker denies.
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