BANKING
BOA may boost layoffs
US banking giant Bank of America Corp (BOA) is mulling boosting its layoffs to 30,000, triple what was already in the works, the Charlotte Observer, the newspaper of the bank’s hometown, said on Friday. That would mean slashing more than 10 percent of its workforce, the Observer said, citing unnamed sources in the country’s largest bank. “The Charlotte-based bank could potentially shed 25,000 to 30,000 jobs over several years, the sources said,” according to the report. “Executives are still working on final plans.” The bank has been pummeled with losses from the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis and has recently been hit with a series of multi-billion-dollar lawsuits relating to dodgy mortgage-backed securities issued by its subsidiaries, Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch.
SYRIA
EU imposes more sanctions
The EU imposed a ban on purchases of Syrian oil yesterday and targeted three Syrian firms in an expanded sanctions list meant to intensify pressure against President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The new round of sanctions against Syria marks the first time Europe has targeted Syrian industry as it seeks to cut off Assad’s access to funds and force him to end a five-month-old crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, which the UN says has killed more than 2,000 civilians. However, analysts say the sanctions, which do not go as far as the investment ban imposed by the US last month, may have only a limited impact on Assad’s access to funds. The new sanctions target Syria’s Real Estate Bank, which provides mortgage finance, as well as Mada Transport and Cham Investment Group, two arms of a Syrian investment firm which the EU says provides funds to Assad’s government, according to the EU’s Official Journal.
SOLAR CELLS
Solarworld to close factory
Solarworld AG, Germany’s largest module maker, plans to close a factory to cut costs and compete against Chinese manufacturers that its CEO Frank Asbeck says are subsidized by the state. Solarworld will shutter a California manufacturing plant and some production lines in Germany, the Bonn-based company said on Friday in a statement. The move was needed to increase efficiency and reduce costs as Chinese rivals have helped drive down the price of solar cells by 42 percent this year, Asbeck said. Competing against Chinese producers that receive financial assistance from the government isn’t “fair,” Asbeck said, such as two loan facilities worth US$713 million that GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd received on Friday from state-run China Development Bank Corp (國家發展銀行).
ECONOMY
ECB head warns Italy
European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet warned Italy yesterday it was “essential” to promptly implement its deficit-reducing measures if it wants to preserve its credit worthiness. “It is essential that the target which was announced to diminish the deficit will be fully confirmed and implemented,” Trichet said at an economic forum at a Lake Como, Italy, resort. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government has been squabbling for weeks over proposed new taxes and spending cuts to achieve a 45.5 billion euro (US$64.86 billion) austerity package, which parliament must approve later this month. The outgoing central banker deemed as “extremely important” all measures to improve the “flexibility” of Italy’s economy.
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