CHINA
Home prices keep falling
Home prices fell last month for the 11th consecutive month, underscoring how government relief efforts are failing to curb the country’s spiraling real-estate crisis. New home prices in 70 cities, excluding state-subsidized housing, declined 0.11 percent from June, when they sank 0.1 percent, National Bureau of Statistics figures showed yesterday. Existing-home prices fell 0.21 percent, the same as a month earlier. Residential prices have been declining in smaller cities, the bureau said in a separate official statement.
UNITED STATES
Fuel costs fall at pumps
The average price of regular-grade gasoline fell US$0.45 over the past three weeks to US$4.10 per gallon. Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey said on Sunday that the continued decline came as crude oil costs also remain low. Nationwide, the highest average price for regular-grade gas was in the San Francisco Bay area, at US$5.36 per gallon. The lowest average was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at US$3.38 per gallon.
UNITED KINGDOM
Labour calls for cap freeze
The main opposition Labour Party yesterday called for an energy price cap to be frozen in fall to help people deal with another expected surge in fuel bills. Labour leader Keir Starmer said his party, if in power, would cap energy costs at the current level of £1,971 (US$2,386) per year for six months from October and would pay for it by extending the windfall tax on oil and gas companies in the North Sea. Charities are warning that millions of people could be forced into poverty if the government does not soften the blow with a new support package.
AIRLINES
Malaysia Air to add A330neos
Malaysia Airlines Bhd has agreed to acquire 20 Airbus SE A330neo planes to update its fleet of widebody jets, Airbus said yesterday. Under the deal, Malaysia Airlines would buy 10 planes from Airbus and lease 10 others from Avolon Holdings Ltd, a Dublin-based aircraft leasing company. No figures were released for the transaction, but the plane was worth US$296.4 million, the most recently published catalogue prices in 2018 showed.
METALS
Tsingshan to sell assets
Tsingshan Holding Group Co (青山控股), the nickel giant owned by billionaire Xiang Guangda (項光達), is in advanced talks to sell some of its stainless-steel assets in Indonesia to China Baowu Steel Group Corp (寶武鋼鐵) as part of a strategic review, people familiar with the negotiations said. State-controlled Baowu is likely to acquire controlling stakes in some integrated production lines owned by Tsingshan at Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park in Central Sulawesi province, the people said. The talks started in April, the sources said.
CRYPTOCURRENCY
Zipmex granted protection
Asia cryptocurrency exchange Zipmex Pte Ltd was granted more than three months of protection from creditors by Singapore’s High Court, giving the troubled firm breathing room to come up with a funding plan. Justice Aedit Abdullah gave each of the five Zipmex entities a moratorium until Dec. 2. That would shield the companies from potential creditor lawsuits. The firm operates out of Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia, and was seeking a five-month protection from creditors to form a restructuring plan.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”