■ TRADE
Exports set to soar: bureau
Taiwan's export volume is expected to post double-digit growth this year despite the slowdown in growth momentum in the first half of the year, Bureau of Foreign Trade officials said yesterday. The officials said the second half of each year is usually the brisk season for Taiwanese exports, especially consumer electronic products. Ministry of Finance tallies show the nation's exports rose 7.6 percent year-on-year to US$135.12 billion for the first seven months of this year, while imports increased 7 percent year-on-year to US$1124.13 billion. This translates into a trade surplus of US$10.99 billion, up 14.9 percent compared with the same period last year, the tallies show.
■ MACROECONOMICS
IMF reassures on turmoil
The IMF said on Friday that global financial market turmoil sparked by the troubled US mortgage sector and a related credit crunch should be "manageable." The multilateral lender said global economic growth should not be derailed by the mortgage and credit jitters. "While the situation is still evolving, we continue to believe that the systemic consequences of the reassessment of credit risk that is taking place will be manageable," IMF spokesman Masood Ahmed said. "The fundamentals supporting strong global growth remain in place, and the re-establishment of credit discipline that is occurring is a healthy development," the spokesman said.
■ INTERNET
Hackers raid Norwegian data
Hackers have stolen confidential data on 60,000 Norwegians, including the head of the agency for safeguarding them, the agency itself revealed on Friday. It said they had used a weakness on the Web site of the telephone operators Tele2 to procure the personal identity numbers and addresses of subscribers, amounting to 1.3 percent of the country's population. The information would enable the hackers to change the addresses of the people concerned so as to intercept their mail, or order goods on their account. Tele2, which had been warned several times to make its Web site more secure, has promised to do so, while police are investigating.
■ PETROLEUM
Caracas wants to keep cuts
Venezuela will urge OPEC to maintain existing oil production cuts and keep output levels unchanged, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Friday. "We believe that the oil cuts must be left in place, and we have carried them out," Ramirez told reporters at a summit of Caribbean leaders participating in a Venezuelan oil-supply pact called Petrocaribe in Caracas. Ramirez said Venezuela would make its proposal when the OPEC meets in late September.
■ ELECTRONICS
Sanyo denies sale rumor
Sanyo Electric Co, undergoing a restructuring plan led by creditors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, denied a media report that it is in talks to sell its mobile-phone business as soon as this year. Japanese state-run broadcaster NHK said yesterday that Osaka-based Sanyo Electric was negotiating the sale with other Japanese cellphone manufacturers, citing people with knowledge of the talks. The report didn't specify the potential buyers or the price. "We are currently considering measures to enhance our cellphone business and at this moment we haven't made any decision regarding such a sale," Ahikiko Oiwa, Sanyo Electric's spokesman, said yesterday by telephone.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure