■AID
Russia offers second loan
Russia approved a second billion-dollar loan to Belarus on Friday as part of an economic aid package for the neighboring state, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. “We are to speed up the transfer of a second tranche of credit to be provided by Russia to Belarus, worth US$1 billion,” Putin said at a meeting in Moscow with Belarussian Prime Minister Sergei Sidorsky. The move came after Russia granted Belarus a US$1 billion loan in November as tougher economic conditions began to bite, tightening conditions for obtaining credit and hitting exports by Belarus’ oil refining sector.
■BANKS
Investors sue UBS
UBS AG, accused of helping thousands of wealthy US clients conceal their assets from US tax authorities, was sued by investors claiming the bank defrauded them by failing to disclose the alleged scheme. In a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in New York, said UBS boasted of its integrity and touted its risk management and internal controls at the same time it was “actively engaged in a tax evasion scheme” that it “ultimately could not abandon because it was simply too valuable” to the bank. UBS, based in Zurich, helped US clients hide as much as US$17.9 billion through offshore accounts, a July report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also examining whether UBS failed to register as a broker-dealer or investment adviser. The complaint names UBS and eight current or former officers or directors as defendants, including chairman Peter Kurer and Raoul Weil, the former head of the international wealth management division.
■ELECTRONICS
Acer to launch cellphone
Computer giant Acer Inc plans to venture into the mobile phone market with the launch of the Acer Smartphone next month, the company said yesterday. “We will unveil Acer Smartphone at the GSMA Mobile World Congress to be held from Feb. 16 to Feb. 19 in Barcelona,” Acer spokesman Wang Tao-hsiung (汪島雄) said. “The reason we are branching into cellphones is that some 300 million units of personal computers are sold in the world each year, but there are 1.5 billion cellphones sold in the world each year. Acer wants to tap the middle ground between PCs and cell phones, like mobile internet devices.” Wang said that in the short term, the cellular phone would not replace the notebook personal computer, which is Acer’s main product. Notebook PCs account for more than half of Acer’s products, while the rest are desktop PCs. Acer reported revenue of US$16.9 billion last year, up from US$14 billion the previous year.
■CHINA
Beijing to review tariffs
China will review anti-dumping tariffs it imposed in 2004 on phenol imports from the US, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, the Ministry of Commerce said yesterday. The review will begin today and take two years, the ministry said in a statement on its Web site. The four countries will be required to continue paying the tariffs during the review, it said without providing details. The ministry said in February 2004 it would impose punitive tariffs of as much as 144 percent on imports of phenol from the four countries because they were sold at below cost in China. Phenol is used to make adhesives and plastics.
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