SOUTH KOREA
Producer prices up 5.3%
Producer-price inflation has accelerated to a two-year high, adding to the case for the central bank to raise borrowing costs again. Producer prices increased 5.3 percent last month from a year earlier, the biggest gain since December 2008, the Bank of Korea said in a statement in Seoul yesterday. Prices advanced 0.9 percent from November.Consumer-price growth quickened to 3.5 percent last month, heading toward the central bank’s 4 percent ceiling. The monetary authority has limited benchmark interest rate increases to two since the end of the global financial crisis, raising borrowing costs by a combined 0.5 percentage points in July and November from a record-low 2 percent.
INTERNET
Baidu starts English blog
Baidu Inc (百度), owner of China’s biggest search engine, has started an English--language blog site aimed at overseas users as it expands globally. Baidu plans to post articles on prevailing trends and topics of interest among China’s Internet users on the site, said Kaiser Kuo (郭怡廣), a spokesman for the Beijing- based company. The service, called Baidu Beat, started yesterday and is intended for “China watchers,” he said. Baidu, which started a -Japanese-language search-engine service in 2008, accounted for 72.9 percent of China’s online search market in the third quarter of last year, according to iResearch, which studies Internet traffic.
EUROPE
Investor confidence rises
European investor confidence rose this month after the economic recovery gained momentum, the Sentix research institute said. An index measuring sentiment in the euro region increased from 9.7 last month to 10.6, Germany-based Sentix said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. A gauge of current business conditions climbed from 12.75 in the previous month to 14, while a sub-indicator of expectations increased from 6.75 to 7.25. “The euro region’s economy is in robust shape at the start of this year,” Sentix said in the statement. Still, “the ongoing euro crisis and the debate about European debt problems prevented a stronger recovery” in the index.
AGRICULTURE
Corn futures rise
Corn futures advanced on speculation that dry weather in Argentina will keep hurting crops in the world’s second-largest shipper, depleting stockpiles. Corn for March delivery gained as much as 1.3 percent to US$6.0275 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, before trading at US$6.0025 at 3:51pm Singapore time. A storm system, forecast to slowly drift across Argentina today, was not expected to bring significant rainfall to the driest areas, T-Storm Weather LLC said in a report e- mailed yesterday. Several days of heat will follow in the driest areas of the Argentine corn and soybean belt, it said. The corn harvest in Argentina will decline from 22.5 million tonnes last year to 20.4 million tonnes this year, the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange said on Thursday.
PORTUGAL
EU aid not needed: minister
Portugal does not need to apply for EU aid, Spain’s economics minister said yesterday, as pressure mounted on Lisbon to seek outside help in managing its finances and risk premiums as both countries’ debt widened. “Portugal doesn’t have to seek any type of rescue plan because it is meeting its commitments. From the point of view of the Spanish government, we’re sure the meeting of commitments will be recognized,” Elena Salgado said during a radio interview.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”