JAPAN
India signs free-trade deal
Japan and India signed a free-trade pact yesterday under which the high-tech nation and the South Asian giant pledged to scrap tariffs on 94 percent of goods within a decade. Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma signed the deal in Tokyo, hoping it will boost two-way trade which totaled ¥900 billion (US$10.7 billion) in 2009 — less than 1 percent of Japan’s total foreign trade. It will help auto makers such as Suzuki by lifting tariffs on car parts shipped to its factories in India, and ease access for Indian generic drug makers to a lucrative market in fast-graying Japan. India — which has already signed a free-trade deal with South Korea, Japan’s export rival in autos and electronics, but not with China — will become Japan’s 12th free-trade partner.
DENMARK
Moody’s cuts bank ratings
Moody’s Investors Service cut its rating for five Danish banks, including Danske Bank A/S, after Denmark’s government allowed senior creditors to take losses in this month’s failure of Amagerbanken A/S. Moody’s reduced the long-term ratings of Danske Bank, FIH Erhvervsbank A/S, BankNordik P/F, Spar Nord Bank A/S and Ringkjoebing Landbobank A/S and kept the three former on review for a further possible downgrade, according to a statement yesterday from the New York-based rating company. The Feb. 6 failure of Amagerbanken A/S, the country’s fifth-biggest listed lender, marks Denmark’s eighth bailout of a local bank since 2008 and the first since the government on Sept. 30 ended a blanket guarantee of deposits and senior debt, leaving some creditors with losses. Moody’s also placed the long-term ratings of Nordea Bank AB’s Danish unit, Sydbank A/S and Jyske Bank A/S on review for possible downgrade.
GERMANY
Weidmann wins approval
Jens Weidmann, the chief economic adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel, won coalition approval to become the youngest president of the nation’s central bank in its 53-year history, a person familiar with the discussions said. An announcement on the 42-year-old’s nomination was to be made as soon as yesterday, the person said on condition of anonymity because the decision has not yet been made public. “If Weidmann gets the Bundesbank job, then I think the odds for the ECB job move toward a non-German,” Erik Nielsen, chief European economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc, said in a note yesterday. However, current Bundesbank President Axel Weber — who will remain in office until April 30 — will attend this weekend’s G20 meeting in Paris.
SPAIN
Exports gather pace
Spanish exports accelerated in the fourth quarter, offsetting weaker demand at home as the deepest austerity measures in three decades undermined economic recovery. Exports rose 10.5 percent from a year earlier, after a 9.4 percent increase in the third quarter, the National Statistics Institute in Madrid said yesterday. Household spending grew 1.7 percent from a year earlier after a 1.5 percent in the previous three months. Spain’s economy emerged from an almost two-year recession last year, just as the Socialist government started to trim public wages and cut benefits. While the measures undermined consumption at home, exports in the first 11 months of last year grew 14 percent from a year earlier, according to Eurostat.
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],”