THAILAND
Economy contracted in Q2
The economy shrank in the second quarter as vehicle manufacturing slumped because of parts shortages in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster in Japan. The government said yesterday that the economy contracted 0.2 percent in the April to June quarter from the previous quarter. It cut its forecast for this year’s economic growth to a range of 3.5 percent to 4 percent from 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent. Second quarter GDP increased 2.6 percent compared with a year earlier, slowing from 3.2 percent growth in the first quarter.
GERMANY
Budget deficit slashed
The government said yesterday it would balance its public finances sooner than expected, slashing this year’s projected budget deficit to 1.5 percent from 2.5 percent. As eurozone partners work on ever tighter austerity plans to balance their books, Berlin leads the pack in the strength of its finances — it had a deficit of 3.3 percent last year, just above the EU ceiling of 3 percent despite having spent heavily on stimulus programs to offset the worst recession since 1945. “The positive development this year will continue until 2015, which will allow us to balance the accounts in 2014,” the finance ministry said in a monthly report published on its Web site.
MEXICO
FDI projections raised
The country may receive as much as US$20 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) this year, 11 percent more than a prior forecast, as the second-biggest Latin American economy’s low wages and proximity to the US draw producers. Economists have also boosted their forecast for FDI in the most recent central bank survey on Aug. 1, saying the that country may get US$19.7 billion this year compared with US$19.5 billion last month.
AUTOMAKERS
BMW plans wind plant
German auto giant BMW plans to build four wind turbines to power a factory with enough electricity to assemble hundreds of vehicles a day, auto newspaper Automobilwoche reported yesterday. The wind farm should be able to produce the necessary energy by late 2013, the company said. BMW said it wants its Leipzig factory to become an example of green energy production, one that could eventually be followed in assembly plants worldwide. The Leipzig factory is forecast to produce about 200,000 vehicles this year at a rate of 740 a day.
BANKING
Chinese bank’s profits jump
China Construction Bank (中國建設銀行) said its first-half net profits jumped 31 percent on strong growth in fee-based business, such as financial consulting and advisory services, as well as higher interest rates. The bank, in which Bank of America owns a 10 percent stake, earned 92.8 billion yuan (US$14.5 billion) in the six months to the end of June, compared with 70.7 billion yuan a year earlier, the company said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Sunday.
STEEL
Dongbu Steel eyes Thailand
South Korea’s Dongbu Steel Co bought 40 rai (6.4 hectares) of land from Hemaraj Land and Development PCL to build a plant in Thailand, Hemaraj said in an e-mailed statement. Thai Dongbu Steel Co will produce various steel products and supply home-appliance manufacturers, including the LG Group. The new plant will start production in December next year, according to the statement.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day