PETROLEUM
Oil prices dip after quake
Oil fell in Asian trade yesterday on concern demand from quake-hit Japan would be affected, analysts said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month dipped US$1.33 to US$99.83 per barrel in the afternoon. Brent North Sea crude for delivery next month lost US$1.81 to US$112.03. “In the short term, there might be some demand disruptions due to the Japanese earthquake, but there will be an increase in fuel oil imports due to the lost nuclear power capacity, which will be supportive of fuel oil prices in the near term,” said Chen Xinyi, commodities analyst for Barclays Capital. Traders worry the disaster will affect energy consumption in Japan, the world’s third-largest economy.
MANUFACTURING
GE to invest in India
General Electric Co (GE) plans to invest as much as US$200 million in a facility in India that will make parts for power equipment and jet engines as it expands manufacturing in the world’s faster-growing regions. “Several GE businesses will share that,” John Flannery, CEO of the company’s local unit, said at a press conference in New Delhi yesterday. GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt has said he aims to have more products “localized” in China and India to boost demand as he expects international sales to reach 60 percent of GE’s total revenue. The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company expects energy and healthcare to drive revenue in India to US$10 billion in five years, he said in November last year. GE will decide the site for the new facility in the next quarter and will start building it with an initial investment of about US$50 million, Flannery said. The project could employ 3,000 workers, he said. GE expects its India business to expand 30 percent this year, Immelt said at the same briefing in New Delhi.
INDIA
Wholesale price index rises
Inflation unexpectedly accelerated last month, increasing pressure on the central bank to raise interest rates this week for the eighth time in a year. The wholesale price index rose 8.31 percent from a year earlier after an 8.23 percent jump in January, the commerce ministry said in a statement in New Delhi yesterday. The median forecast of 20 economists in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 7.8 percent increase. The Reserve Bank of India might increase its repurchase rate by a quarter-point on Thursday, according to all 19 economists in a Bloomberg News survey, after weighing the impact of oil prices and the earthquake in Japan. The nation’s benchmark price gauge is almost double the central bank’s “tolerance” level. “By no measure is the inflation rate heading back to a comfortable level any time too soon,” Vishnu Varathan, a Singapore-based economist at Capital Economics (Asia) Pte, said before the release. He expects the central bank to raise rates by 25 basis points this week.
GREECE
Eurozone goals met: PM
Prime Minister George Papandreou said the country achieved all its objectives in the meeting of eurozone leaders and called on his ministers to show a “renewed dedication” in pursuing reforms to tackle the country’s mounting debt and improve the economy. Speaking to a Cabinet meeting on Sunday evening Papandreou said the eurozone leaders’ decision to increase the maturity of the nation’s 110 billion euro (US$153.5 billion) loan to an average seven-and-a-half years and to reduce the interest rate by 1 point would save the country more than 6 billion euros.
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],”