AVIATION
ANA is back in black
All Nippon Airways Co (ANA) pivoted back into the black in the period between April and December last year, as robust travel demand and cost cuts bolstered the carrier’s bottom line. Japan’s No. 2 airline said yesterday it booked a net profit of ¥37.54 billion ($457.1 million), compared with a loss of ¥35.2 billion during the same nine months last year. Revenue rose more than 12 percent to ¥1.04 trillion. Operating profit came to ¥77.7 billion, a turnaround from a loss of ¥37.8 billion a year earlier. ANA credited a strong rebound in business travel for bolstering revenue on international routes.
STOCKS
UK, US seeking protection
Stock exchanges in Britain and the US have enlisted the help of the security services after finding out they were the victims of cyber attacks, the Times newspaper reported yesterday. The London Stock Exchange is investigating a terrorist cyber-attack on its headquarters last year, while US officials have traced an attack on one of its exchanges to Russia, according to the newspaper. Officials suspect the attacks were designed to spread panic among markets and destabilize Western financial institutions. A leading UK cyber security expert told the Times: “Make no mistake, the UK’s critical infrastructure is under attack. The threat is advanced and persistent.”
PHILIPPINES
Economy grew 7.3 percent
The economy has galloped to its highest annual growth in more than two decades, expanding 7.3 percent last year on strong foreign trade and election spending. Head of the government’s statistical board Romulo Virola said yesterday the rise surpassed official growth projections of 5 percent to 6 percent. The economy grew only 1.1 percent in 2009, hit by the global financial crisis. Virola said expansion in industry supported by growth in the services sector propelled the economy in the first half. Agriculture, which employs four in every 10 Filipinos, also recovered in the last three months after four consecutive quarters of decline due to a dry spell.
MANUFACTURING
S Korean output up 2.8%
South Korea’s industrial output grew faster than expected in December thanks to strong exports of computer chips and cars, official figures showed yesterday. Mining and manufacturing output rose 2.8 percent in December from a month earlier, Statistics Korea said, faster than the 1.6 percent increase forecast by economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires. In November, it rose month-on-month by a revised 1.5 percent. The December figure was up 9.8 percent from December 2009, compared with November’s revised 10.7 percent year-on-year increase. For the whole of last year, industrial production increased 16.7 percent. Figures released last week showed last year’s economic growth at an eight-year high of 6.1 percent, while the government expects growth of around 5 percent this year.
AVIATION
Ryanair on track to hit target
Europe’s biggest low-cost airline Ryanair reaffirmed its full-year profit target yesterday after rising passenger numbers and average fares helped offset disruption from strike action and bad weather. The Irish airline said it was on track to make a full-year net profit toward the upper end of its 380 million euro (US$517 million) to 400 million euro target range. Ryanair said it made a net loss of 10 million euros in the third quarter to the end of December, compared with an 11 million euro loss a year earlier.
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
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
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
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