GREECE
Budget deficit plan in doubt
Greece’s budget deficit will not fall below a key eurozone ceiling by 2014 as planned if the debt-laden country fails to decide additional austerity measures in June, a set of updated budget forecasts revealed on Friday. Assuming no more measures are taken, Greece’s budget deficit will shrink to just 4.2 percent of GDP in 2015 instead of the 1.1 percent assumed under a previous set of forecasts made in June, the finance ministry data showed. The government also forecast debt as a percentage of GDP would fall to 125.6 percent in 2015 from about 162 percent this year, assuming a debt reduction plan under its latest financial rescue agreed last month goes ahead. The bailout is aimed at reducing Greece’s debt to 120 percent of GDP by 2020.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota in talks with BMW
Japanese auto giant Toyota is in discussions with BMW over a partnership in eco-friendly cars, a press report said yesterday. Under the deal, the German automaker would provide diesel engines for Toyota vehicles, while Toyota would share its hybrid technology, the business daily Nikkei Shimbun said. It would mark Toyota’s second green-technology tie-up with a major foreign automaker, following its agreement in August to develop hybrid-vehicle systems with the US’ Ford. A Toyota spokesman said the report was based on “speculation” and refused to comment further. Under the proposed arrangement, BMW would provide diesel engines for Toyota’s passenger vehicles, most likely medium-sized cars of about 2,000cc to be sold in Europe, the Nikkei said.
GREECE
Coalition offers support
The leader of the Greek far-right nationalist party Laos yesterday said he will support newly appointed Prime Minister Lucas Papademos until the government’s work is completed. “It is implied that Laos will support Papdemos’s government until it completes its work,” Laos chief George Karatzaferis said in an open letter addressed. “The main goal of this government is to ratify the decisions taken at the October 26 2011 Summit, including the political and economic policies which are associated with these decisions,” Karatzaferis added in the letter published in his party’s newspaper. The EU and the IMF have made clear that they will not provide 8 billion euros (US$10.76 billion), frozen since August, in loans unless the leaders of the parties in Greece’s new coalition sign up in writing to the latest bailout package agreed in October.
UNITED STATES
Jobless rate remains high
The pace of hiring this month probably failed to reduce unemployment in the US, showing that employers remain concerned that growth will slow, economists said before several reports are due to be released. Payrolls climbed by 120,000 workers after rising 80,000 last month, according to the median forecast of 59 economists in a Bloomberg News survey before a Dec. 2 report from the US Department of Labor. The unemployment rate probably held at 9 percent. DirecTV is among companies saying they will keep a tight rein on spending and employment next year on concern Europe’s debt crisis and the election in the US will restrain the world’s largest economy. The lack of jobs will probably pressure wages, depriving consumers of the means to boost spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. The jobless rate has exceeded 8 percent since February 2009, the longest stretch of such levels of unemployment since monthly records began in 1948.
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
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
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],”
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