INDONESIA
Benchmark interest rate cut
The country’s central bank unexpectedly cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than two years to spur growth as the global recovery weakens and inflation slows. Bank Indonesia lowered the reference rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 6.5 percent, it said in a statement in Jakarta yesterday. All of the 15 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News expected no change.
JAPAN
Current account surplus dips
The country’s current account surplus shrank by 64.3 percent from a year earlier in August as it suffered a trade deficit because of growing import costs, government data showed yesterday. The surplus in the current account, the broadest measure of the country’s trade with the rest of the world, stood at ¥407.5 billion (US$5.3 billion) in August before seasonal adjustment, finance ministry data showed.
AIRLINES
New carrier reveals planes
A new long-haul budget carrier owned by Singapore Airlines plans to use four Boeing 777-200 aircraft when it begins flights next year. An invitation to bid for the supply of a wireless in-flight entertainment system posted on the company’s Web site revealed that the carrier, which may be called Scoot Airlines, expects its first plane on April 1 next year. The document shows the airline plans to expand its fleet to 14 Boeing 777-200 and 777-200ER planes by 2016. The airline said yesterday it has not yet fixed a date for the first flight, but that it is on schedule to begin sometime in the middle of next year.
INDUSTRY
US, China firms in venture
US industrial group Honeywell and China’s Sinochem (中國中化) have agreed to form a 50-50 joint venture to make and sell energy-efficient foam insulation in China, the two companies announced on Monday. The joint venture will produce HFC-245fa, a non-ozone-depleting rigid foam blowing agent used in insulation for appliances, construction, transportation and other applications “where maximum energy efficiency is required,” they said in a joint statement. The deal requires approval from Beijing. The new company would be located in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, with production expected to begin in late 2013.
UAE
Dubai Bank takeover ordered
Dubai’s ruler has ordered Emirates NBD bank to take over the struggling Dubai Bank, which the emirate’s government came to the aid of earlier this year. The city-state’s media office yesterday said that the order by Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum reflects the government’s “efforts to enhance the banking sector in the emirate.” Dubai’s government in May unexpectedly said it was taking over cash-strapped Dubai Bank and vowed to immediately pump an undisclosed amount of fresh funds into the bank.
TELECOMS
RIM says services restored
The maker of the BlackBerry smartphone said on Monday that all services had been restored to users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa after widespread service outages. Many users had reported not being able to receive or send e-mail, use instant messaging or browse the Internet, though the problems did not appear to be the same for each user, or affect all users. Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry, said in a statement late on Monday that all services had been restored.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts