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Hong Kong marks the end of recession
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Hong Kong marked the end of recession by reporting a growth of 3.3 percent in the quarter ended June 30.
Chief economist, Paul Tang who works at Bank of East Asia said better exports and pick-up in private consumption backed GDP.
The govt. lifted its growth-forecast for the entire year after the recording better-than-expected seasonally-adjusted figures.
Hong Kong had been suffering economic contraction for four repeated quarters, starting Q2 of 2008.
Sony admits VAIOs hit by faulty Nvidia chipsets
Sony has finally confessed that Nvidia's faulty chipsets have affected a growing list of its VAIO laptops.
The Japanese company is not only going to repair the faulty laptops even in case these are out of warranty but also presenting an additional three-year warranty for the Nvidia graphics processor.
Announcement for upgrade and price cuts made by Southern Cross Cable
Recently, Southern Cross Cable declared its plans to cut prices for services on its submarine cable network linking Australia and New Zealand to the US via Hawaii.
Furthermore, it also said that the company is mulling to increase capacity by more than 50 percent early in 2010. The company aims at creating a whole new cable system.
NZ economy lost $2.8 billion due to drought
A whopping sum of $2.8 billion was lost by the New Zealand economy due to the drought in 2007 and 2008.
A report released by a Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry that the total cost to New Zealand's primary sector was $1.9 billion on-farm and $900 million off-farm.
It should be noted that drought drastically reduced the quality of stock going into the next breeding season, reduced quantity of milk from dairy farms and increased costs due to purchase of supplementary feed.
Telstra sees its profits hike due to demand for broadband
It was recently forwarded by TelstraClear chief executive Allan Freeth that though he has not yet witnessed any notable growth in the economy, the company was able to increase its revenues and profits due to strong demand for broadband.
A rise by 2.8 per cent was seen in the sales for the year to $703 million, while profit before interest and taxation more than doubled to $18m.
Year-on-year profits for Contact Energy halved to $117m
Following a bumpy year of coinciding negative factors, Contact Energy has rolled out full year profits of NZ$117.5 million, exactly half last year's NZ$237.1 million. The underlying earnings per share were dragged down to 27.35 cents - due to the weather, the electricity transmission system, inflexible gas contracts and a customer exodus - which comes as a fall of 31 percent from 39.6 cents in the previous year. The interim dividend is being held at 17 cents per share by the company, payable on 22 September.
APEC meeting in Singapore to be attended by Obama
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Thursday saw White House coming out with the announcement that the 17th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting in Singapore, scheduled later this year, will be attended by the US President Barack Obama.
It was forwarded by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, "President Obama will attend the 17th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' meeting in Singapore on November 14-15."
First dedicated wildlife rescue center announced by Singapore
With the aim of rescuing distressed animals and returning them to their native homes, Singapore is creating the first dedicated wildlife rescue center.
Singapore's 'Animal Concerns Research and Education Society' (ACRES) has initiated the Wildlife Rescue Center, which will serve protected species, nurture them back to health and return them to their native environment.
Furthermore, the ACRES also will target at educating people on protecting animals and the environment through the center.
Top rank retained by Singapore in UIA’s ‘Top International Meeting City’ category
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It has appeared that in the 'Top International Meeting City' category in the Union of International Associations (UIA) 2008 Global Rankings, top spot has been maintained by Singapore for the second consecutive year.
Furthermore, Singapore also moved up one position from the previous year, taking the third place in the 'Top International Meeting Countries' category behind USA and France, claims the UIA's International Meeting Statistics 2008 report.
Growth by 3.8% seen in Singapore July bunker sales
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The first seven months of this year saw Singapore's bunkering sector post fuel sales of more than 20 million metric tonnes (mt), after the July figures indicated an increase from the previous month.
Preliminary estimates from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) specify that July bunker sales were up 3.8% from June to 3.0726 million mt, bolstered by sales of 380 centistoke (cst) bunker grade.
The sales for July increased 1.4%, year-on-year, compared to 3.0309 million mt in the same month last year.
July retail sales remained listless despite “Cash-for-Clunkers” program
Despite the entire clamor about the Obama administration's $3 billion "Cash-for-Clunkers" effort to steer the US economy towards recovery via the auto market route, the retail sales continued to remain listless.
Swatch Group’s H1 net profit beats analysts’ estimates; optimistic about H2
Reporting its first-half results on Friday, the world's biggest watchmaker, Swatch Group, said that its net profit during the six-month period fell 28 percent, due to a marked decline in the demand for watches amid recession.
Budgetary constraints may impede NASA’s exploration plans
According to NASA's Human Space Flight Plans Committee, overseeing the review of the US space agency's exploration plans, budgetary constraints may impede NASA from sending astronauts back to the moon by 2020. Moreover, the challenges entailing the 'Mars Direct" mission may also prevent the agency from sending astronauts straight to Mars.
Sony may unveil cheaper PS3 Slim console
Stock shortages of the Sony PlayStation 3 are indicating towards a slim console, which the retailers are expecting to be launched in the near future.
Sony may unveil its plans regarding new version of the machine during subsequent week's GamesCom conference.
Palm reacts to Pre privacy breach claims
Palm has reacted to the public hullabaloo that its Pre handset was spying on its customers.
It may be noted here that Palm Pre hit the headlines this week when one of its user discovered that his Palm Pre was gathering information regarding his location, the applications he used and the like and sending that information back to Palm.
Amgen osteoporosis drug denosumab backed by FDA panel
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The drug, denosumab, for treating osteoporosis in post menopausal women and men being treated for prostrate cancer, was unanimously backed by the advisory panel of Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Autodesk comes out with mental ray standalone renderer
Autodesk has launched the new version of its 3D character animation software, MotionBuilder 2010.
The software has an enhanced shading language system, which helps user to extend the Autodesk 3D shared library. It also works independently as other Autodesk 3D programs using a command-line interface.
Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platforms also support the new standalone application. The Mac version of mental ray 7.5 is limited to Autodesk Maya 2010.
Samsung rolls out two new versions of Omnia
Samsung Electronics, the world's second largest handset maker, has launched OmniaHD, the sequel to its popular Omnia Smartphone, in India.
The company official disclosed that Samsung has no plans to sell the phone in the United States considering the consumer usage pattern and technology difference.
The new Samsung OmniaHD will cost around Rs 33, 990 in the Indian market.
Affordable housing to reach up to Rs 3 lakh crore by 2011
A study released by Knight Frank on 'Affordable Housing in India'stated that the market size for affordable housing in the country would reach up to Rs 3,00,000 crore by
2011.
It is expected that the housing requirement in the country would cross over 2 million units by 2011.
The research report added that the maximum contributors to this market size would be those who earn 3-6 lakh income annually.
Delays in infrastructure project may cost $200 bn
According to the management consultancy McKinsey & Co, delays and inefficiencies in the performance of infrastructure project during the Eleventh and Twelfth Five-year plans may lead to loss of $200 billion to gross domestic product by 2017.
This entails a loss of 1.1 % in the country's GDP growth.
The firm said that the main reason of GDP loss was spread across tendering, executing and achieving financial closure of projects.
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