BANKING
Chinese banks hike rates
Some Chinese banks have hiked lending rates by as much as 45 percent in a drastic move to rein in credit growth after a surge this month, state media reported yesterday. State-owned banks had handed out 1.2 trillion yuan (US$182.3 billion) in new loans by Monday, the China Business News reported — more than twice the amount issued last month and equal to 15 percent of last year’s total. The surge in new loans this month suggests banks are defying government efforts to stem a flood of liquidity into the economy, which has been blamed for fanning inflation and pushing up property prices.
UNITED KINGDOM
Prices could rise by 4-5%
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King warned on Tuesday inflation was likely to rise by 4 to 5 percent in the months ahead, while wage increases would lag behind. King said the squeeze in living standards was part of the price of the financial crisis. He made the remarks in a keenly awaited speech following the surprise news that the local economy contracted 0.5 percent in the last three months of last year. Inflation hit 3.7 percent last month, above the bank’s 2 percent target, but King appeared to downplay the need for an early interest rate increase, saying monetary policy could do little about the current price rises.
AUTOMOBILES
Toyota to recall 1.7m cars
Toyota Motor is to recall nearly 1.7 million vehicles worldwide — including 1.2 million in Japan and 421,000 overseas — over a fuel leak risk, the automaker and the Japanese transport ministry said yesterday. Toyota and the ministry said the recalls include about 245,000 of its luxury Lexus vehicles in the US and 74,590 Lexus, Crown and other cars in Japan over other leakage fears. In Japan 19 models produced between 2000 and 2009 will be affected by the recall, the ministry said. There have been more than 140 cases reported in Japan, with no accidents, it said.
ELECTRONICS
LG reports Q4 loss
LG Electronics Inc reported its first loss in seven quarters after the company lagged behind Apple Inc and Research In Motion Ltd in the surging smartphone market. The fourth-quarter net loss was 256.4 billion won (US$229 million), compared with profit of 361.9 billion won a year earlier, LG said in a regulatory filing yesterday. Revenue rose 1.8 percent to 14.7 trillion won. LG said it aimed to revive earnings by expanding its range of Optimus smartphones. The company plans 4.8 trillion won in capital expenditures and research spending to help boost revenue 5.8 percent to 59 trillion won this year.
SOFTWARE
Fine cuts into SAP’s profit
SAP AG, the world’s largest maker of business-management software, said fourth-quarter profit fell 36 percent as it was ordered to pay rival Oracle Corp US$1.3 billion in damages in a copyright infringement case. Net income based on international financial reporting standards was 437 million euros (US$598 million) after a profit of 682 million euros a year earlier, the company said in a statement yesterday. Oracle sued SAP in 2007, claiming its now-defunct software-maintenance unit TomorrowNow made hundreds of thousands of illegal downloads and several thousand copies of Oracle’s software to avoid paying licensing fees and steal customers. SAP said yesterday that provisions for the damages had a negative impact of 586 million euros on fourth-quarter profit.
AGENCIES
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],”