FINANCE
Greece could default: Knot
The president of the Dutch central bank said in a newspaper interview published yesterday that he no longer rules out the possibility that Greece may not be able to pay back its crippling government debt. A Greek default “is one of the scenarios,” Klaas Knot said in an interview published in the Dutch newspaper Het Financieel Dagblad. “I won’t say that Greece cannot default,” said Knot, who is the recently installed president of De Nederlandsche Bank and a member of the governing council of the European Central Bank. Knot’s comments are unusual because they come from a member of the European Central Bank’s 23-member governing council. The bank has insisted Greece must stick with its bailout plan and has opposed default as a solution.
ECONOMY
Singapore inflation surges
Singapore’s inflation jumped to a three-year high last month as housing and transportation costs rose despite an economic slowdown. The Statistics Department said yesterday that the consumer price index rose 5.7 percent last month from a year earlier, the most since October 2008. That compares with a year-on-year rise of 5.4 percent in July. The department said housing prices climbed 9.9 percent last month from a year earlier, while transport costs surged 12.5 percent. The city-state’s economy grew 0.9 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier. The government expects GDP to expand as little as 5 percent this year, compared with 15 percent growth last year.
AUTOMAKERS
Isuzu to make trucks in PRC
Isuzu Motors will develop large trucks with its Chinese partner, as Japanese truckmakers shift their focus toward growing markets in the rest of Asia, a report said yesterday. The new project will involve Qingling Motors (Group) Co (慶鈴汽車集團), the Chinese firm that Isuzu works with to produce light and midsize trucks, the Nikkei Shimbun daily said. The new trucks, which will evolve from Isuzu’s heavy-duty Giga series, are expected to go on sale in China and Japan around 2015, it added. It said the Chinese market for large trucks stands at more than 1 million units a year, compared with roughly 30,000 in Japan.
SPORTSWEAR
Nike profits rise 15 percent
Nike Inc reported its fiscal first-quarter profit rose 15 percent as demand grew for its sneakers and athletic apparel in nearly every market worldwide despite an uncertain global economy. Nike said sales improved in nearly all markets, including strong gains in the US and emerging markets like India and China. Overall, its revenue rose 18 percent to US$6.08 billion, with particularly strong performance in its running, basketball and women’s training business. As a result, Nike earned US$645 million, or US$1.36 per share, for the quarter that ended Aug. 31, up from US$559 million, or US$1.17 per share, in the same quarter last year.
INTERNET
Alibaba attracts investors
DST Global and Temasek Holdings Pte are among investors that agreed to buy shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) in a transaction valuing China’s largest e-commerce company at US$32 billion, two people familiar with the deal said. Silver Lake and Alibaba chairman Jack Ma’s (馬雲) Yunfeng Capital are also part of the group buying as much as US$1.6 billion stock from Alibaba employees, said the people, who asked not to be named because terms of the agreement were private.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six