AGRICULTURE
No melon-aire this year
A pair of premium Japanese melons yesterday sold at auction for just a slice of the ¥5 million (US$46,000) reached at auction last year. The melons from Yubari on Hokkaido sold for a snip at ¥120,000 at the season’s first auction — 40 times less than last year’s record price tag. An official at the wholesale market blamed COVID-19 for keeping away rich corporate customers who usually compete to outbid each other for the most expensive fruit. The successful bidder wanted to show gratitude and support for local farmers, Kyodo news reported.
Photo: AFP
GREEN ENERGY
Undersea route survey set
Survey work is to begin soon on an ambitious plan to export power from a giant solar farm in Australia to Singapore via a 3,800km undersea cable. The Sun Cable project, backed by Atlassian cofounder Mike Cannon-Brookes and Fortescue Metals’ founder Andrew Forrest, has awarded a contract to Perth-based Guardian Geomatics to conduct a route survey. Sun Cable says the project can supply one-fifth of Singapore’s power needs.
INTERNET
Alibaba shares slump
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) shares yesterday slid 4 percent in Hong Kong, after a drop of almost 6 percent in New York City on Friday, following the company’s announcement that projected revenue growth would slow this year. It forecast sales growth this year of at least 27.5 percent to more than 650 billion yuan (US$91 billion), down from 35 percent previously. While it posted a better-than-expected 22 percent rise in March quarter revenue of 114.3 billion yuan, that marked its slowest pace of expansion on record.
CHEMICALS
Settlement talk boosts Bayer
Shares in German chemical giant Bayer AG rose sharply yesterday after reports it was close to a mass deal with US plaintiffs who say their cancers were caused by unit Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Bayer stock was up about 6.3 percent in Frankfurt in early morning trade. “We’ve made progress in the Roundup mediation discussions,” spokesman Christian Hartel said, but added that Bayer “will not speculate about settlement outcomes or timing.” Bloomberg News reported earlier that the group had struck “verbal agreements” with between 50,000 and 80,000 out of a total of 125,000 US plaintiffs, set to be formalized next month.
PUBLISHING
French sales soar 230%
Book sales in France have soared since the country began to ease its lockdown, rocketing more than 230 percent in a week, a survey showed yesterday. A study for the trade weekly Livres Hebdo found that from May 11 to 17 bookshops did a roaring trade, with readers desperate to stock up while libraries remained shut. However, sales were still down 60 percent compared with the same period last year, and publishers say revenues have dropped by 80 percent.
THAILAND
Central bank boss leaving
Bank of Thailand Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob has decided against seeking a second five-year term for family reasons, Assistant Governor Chantavarn Sucharitakul said yesterday. He would ensure a smooth transition when his term ends in September, she 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