INDIA
Drought brings high inflation
Inflation continues to be a cause for concern, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported yesterday, citing Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. High inflation has been caused by domestic drought and rising prices of commodities globally, Mukherjee said. Mukherjee also said investors shouldn’t panic at movements in the stock market. Foreign institutional investors usually withdraw money from the market at the end of the year to close accounts, he said. The central bank, which has raised interest rates six times this year, is scheduled to review its monetary policy on Thursday.
DIPLOMACY
Leaders pledge cooperation
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have pledged to increase cooperation in trade, security and in pushing to increase the number of permanent seats on the UN Security Council. The pair praised Saturday’s agreement in Cancun, Mexico, and urged the world use it as a starting point for further progress in combating climate change. Singh said the two nations are “hopeful of achieving bilateral trade worth 20 billion euros [US$26 billion] by 2012,” including in civilian nuclear technology. However, he called on Germany to relax its trade export laws, especially in technology.
MIDDLE EAST
Exports to Japan triple
Exports from Arab nations to Japan more than tripled last year, while Japanese investment hit US$4 billion, the head of the Arab League said at an economic forum on Saturday. Arab exports to Japan rose from US$36 billion in 2008 to US$136 billion last year, making Japan the third-largest market after the EU and the US, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said during the opening of an economic forum at Gammarth, near Tunis. Japanese investment increased from US$1.5 billion in 2005 to US$4 billion last year, the Eygptian said.
ENERGY
US$70-US$80 oil favored
Leading OPEC producer Saudi Arabia said on Saturday it still favored a US$70 to US$80 price range for oil, a restatement of a two-year-old policy that will be welcomed by consumer nations worried that rising oil prices may get out of control and hamper global economic recovery. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters at an OPEC meeting in Quito: “US$70-$80 is a good price.” The comments came as OPEC agreed, as expected, to keep production restraints unchanged, despite a recent surge in crude prices to US$90 a barrel.
REAL ESTATE
Chongqing to hike taxes
China’s Chongqing is preparing to start a property tax targeting high-end residential properties, the Chongqing Morning Post reported yesterday, citing a statement from the Chongqing municipal government. Home prices in 70 cities climbed 7.7 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.3 percent from October, China’s statistics bureau said on Friday. Sales volume increased 14.5 percent from a year earlier and transaction values surged 18.6 percent, the bureau said. Beijing’s property prices rose 0.2 percent from the previous month, Shanghai added 0.1 percent and those in Yue-yang, a medium-sized city in central China, climbed 2 percent. Only six out of the 70 major cities monitored by the government posted a drop in property prices.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is