Japan's financial watchdog will conduct a new round of inspections of bank assets by March, an official said yesterday, as part of government efforts to force lenders to write off more bad loans.
A report said the inspection would focus on whether restructuring plans by troubled borrowers were feasible.
"It is true that we will conduct a special inspection towards the March closing and are now preparing for it," said the Financial Services Agency (FSA) official, adding that details had yet to be decided.
The Yomiuri newspaper, however, said the FSA planned to inspect the nation's 12 major banks in February and March with a new 11-member team including corporate rehabilitation experts.
Banks are under increasing pressure to reduce massive bad loans, cited as a root cause of the nation's decade-long economic stagnation.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he wants to halve the ratio of bad loans at major banks by March 2005.
Under the latest inspection, companies with outstanding debts of Japanese Yen 10 billion (US$85 million) or more and whose stock prices or credit ratings have sharply declined recently would be scrutinised, the paper said.
Inspectors would strictly review the rehabilitation plans of problem firms, which could result in increased bankruptcies, according to the daily.
The FSA conducted its first round of special inspections from October 2001, saying it was to "ensure an appropriate classification of borrowers and sufficient level of write-offs and provisioning" of bad loans.
The investigation covered 149 borrowers with loans totalling Japanese Yen 12.9 trillion and resulted in the downgrading of 71 borrowers with loans worth Japanese Yen 7.5 trillion, the FSA said in April last year.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San