BANKING
Too many banks: Alpha chair
Greece cannot afford more than two-and-a-half banks and there should be further consolidation in the sector, said the chairman of the country’s third-largest lender, Alpha, which sealed a merger with bigger rival Eurobank last week. Alpha and Eurobank last Monday rubber-stamped the deal to form the largest bank in southeast Europe, aided by a capital injection from the Qatar Investment Authority, sparking expectations more mergers were in store. “It’s true that there is no room for more than two-and-a-half banks in Greece,” said Alpha Bank’s chairman Yannis Costopoulos, who will chair the new entity’s board, in an interview with To Vima newspaper. Costopoulos dismissed concerns that debt-choked Greece would have to quit the euro.
INDIA
Oil debt to Iran repaid
India has paid off all oil debts accumulated this year because of a sanctions-related problem, central bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani told the official IRNA news agency yesterday. “Although all the US$5 billion of India’s oil debt has been cleared, because of selling oil again Iran will always be a creditor of that country,” Bahmani said, adding the payment was received in cash and not in kind through a bartering system. “So far, Iran has not had a bartering system with India for receiving oil debts but if it happens it would be for those products which are of a high quality and are needed by Iran.” India, Asia’s third-largest economy and Iran’s second oil buyer after China, racked up the debt after the Reserve Bank of India scrapped a clearing house system in December last year.
ECONOMY
IMF upbeat on Congo growth
The Democratic Republic of Congo could exceed a forecast 6.5 percent economic growth this year, but must do more to increase transparency in the mining sector, the IMF said on Saturday. Congo — which has large deposits of copper, cobalt and gold — is gearing up for general elections set for Nov. 28 assuming it surmounts major logistical and funding challenges to ensure the polls go ahead on time. The vote is seen as crucial for economic and political stability and will be the second since a five-year war ended in 2003, leaving millions dead. Despite the pressures of funding polls and higher than expected inflation, the country has maintained financial discipline, the IMF said. “Despite the difficult global economic environment, macroeconomic performance remains strong and economic growth during 2011 could be higher than the 6.5 percent previously projected,” Robert York, the IMF’s chief of mission to Congo, said in a statement.
ECONOMY
Italy denies pressuring ECB
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said yesterday Italy is not putting pressure on the European Central Bank (ECB) to continue buying Italian government bonds on the market. Frattini said both Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Economic Minister Giulio Tremonti had been in close contact with international financial institutions over the market turmoil which has hit the eurozone’s third-largest economy. “But the European Central Bank is an independent institution so there are no requests, pressures,” on bond buying, he told reporters at the margins of a conference. On Saturday, Frattini said he was confident the ECB would continue
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],”