AUSTRALIA
Mining boosted economy
The nation’s mining-powered economy grew 1 percent during the September quarter in a result hailed by the government yesterday as “exceptional” given the ongoing global turmoil. The Bureau of Statistics said mining and construction underpinned the robust performance, which represented year-on-year growth of 2.5 percent and followed upwardly revised growth of 1.4 percent for the three months to June. Economists had expected GDP to rise 0.8 to 1 percent quarter-on-quarter and 1.9 to 2.1 percent from a year earlier.
BANKING
UK mulls foreign disclosures
The UK is weighing plans to make overseas banks, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, disclose the earnings of their top executives, extending an accord already reached with British banks. Firms with more than £50 billion (US$77 billion) of assets would have to disclose the compensation of their eight highest-paid non-board level executives, even if their headquarters are overseas, the Treasury said in a consultation paper on Tuesday. The plan would affect the 15 largest banks operating in the UK, the government said. Domestic lenders, including RBS and Barclays, already publish it under a February agreement with the Treasury.
ENERGY
Japan firms to buy LNG
Japanese firms have taken their biggest step into Australia’s growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, with five major power companies signing a A$70 billion (US$71.8 billion) sales deal. The Japanese utilities on Tuesday committed to buying 4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG from Australia’s proposed Ichthys Project for 15 years, ahead of a final investment decision on the project, owner Inpex said. Inpex said the total volume of 8.4 MTPA of LNG from the project was now accounted for, “with approximately 70 percent of the Ichthys LNG to be delivered to Japan.”
JAPAN
Forex reserves hit US$1.3tn
Tokyo said yesterday its foreign exchange reserves hit a record high US$1.3 trillion last month after authorities intervened in currency markets to stem the yen’s rise. The level was US$94.88 billion higher than in October, the finance ministry said, and surpassed a previous record of US$1.22 trillion set in August. The reserves are composed mainly of foreign-currency denominated securities and bank deposits along with gold and other assets, according to ministry data. The latest data did not break down foreign exchange assets by currency, but Japan has bought 2.975 billion euros (US$4 billion) worth of debt issued by the eurozone bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, so far this year.
EMPLOYMENT
US workers prefer cash: poll
Companies planning to spend thousands of dollars on staff Christmas parties, even with open bars, shouldn’t bother because most US employees would prefer money. Nearly three quarters of 2,574 workers questioned in a Harris poll said they would opt for a cash bonus, followed by 62 percent who would prefer a salary increase and 32 percent who wanted more paid time off. Only 4 percent put a Christmas party on the top of their list. “Until we see the impacts of the Great Recession further recede, when it comes to what employees want it starts with cash and other financial perks to make sure that ends can be met over the holidays,” said Rusty Rueff, of Glassdoor, the jobs listing firm that commissioned the poll.
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