JAPAN
Bond sales top US$1 billion
Sales of Japanese government bonds for rebuilding from the March 11 disaster reached ¥100 billion (US$1.3 billion), about twice the amount of similiarly yielding bonds sold for retail investors in September, the Nikkei Shimbun said, without saying where it got the information. Japan’s three mega-banks and four smaller banks are estimated to account for about 20 percent of the total sales, the Nikkei said. The country’s top publicly traded lenders are Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc and Mizuho Financial Group Inc.
HUMAN RESOURCES
Adecco to buy VSN
Adecco SA said it has agreed to buy VSN Inc, a provider of professional staffing services in Japan, for an enterprise value of 90 million euros (US$117 million). VSN doubles Adecco’s exposure to professional staffing in Japan and reinforces its strong position in an attractive structural growth market, Adecco said yesterday.
ITALY
Public deficit drops
The government, struggling to balance its books and keep in favor with the credit markets, said on Monday that its public finances were better than expected last year. The Ministry of Finance said the country had a public deficit — the shortfall between tax income and spending — of 61.5 billion euros (US$80 billion), down from 67 billion euros in 2010. The government had expected a deficit of 64.8 billion euros for last year and the better-than-expected showing reflected improved tax revenues and lower spending, the ministry said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Business confidence plunges
Business confidence in the country’s economic outlook plunged last month to its lowest level in three years, according to Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets, which said there was a 74 percent chance of a recession. An index of British companies’ optimism about the economy compared with three months earlier dropped by three points from November to minus 23, the unit of Lloyds Banking Group PLC said in an e-mailed report released in London yesterday. Last month’s reading was the lowest since January 2009. The Lloyds unit questioned 304 companies, all with sales of more than £1 million (US$1.55 million), between Nov. 28 and Dec. 15 for the report.
AUSTRALIA
Manufacturing expands
Manufacturing in the country expanded for the first time in six months last month, driven by gains in basic metals, transport and publishing, a private survey showed. The manufacturing index was 50.2 last month compared with 47.8 in November, the Australian Industry Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers said in a survey released yesterday. It was the third reading for last year that was above 50, the dividing line between expansion and contraction.
MACAU
Gambling revenue surges
Casino gambling revenue in the territory surged by nearly half last year as the world’s biggest gambling market continued to boom. According to data posted on the gaming department’s Web site yesterday, gross revenue from Macau’s 34 casinos last year totaled 267.87 billion patacas (US$33.5 billion). That’s 42 percent higher than 188.34 billion patacas in 2010. Macau’s economic growth has rocketed since the government broke up a four-decade monopoly in 2002 and allowed foreign operators in.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
FACTORY SHIFT: While Taiwan produces most of the world’s AI servers, firms are under pressure to move manufacturing amid geopolitical tensions Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) started building artificial intelligence (AI) servers in India’s south, the latest boon for the rapidly growing country’s push to become a high-tech powerhouse. The company yesterday said it has started making the large, powerful computers in Pondicherry, southeastern India, moving beyond products such as laptops and smartphones. The Chinese company would also build out its facilities in the Bangalore region, including a research lab with a focus on AI. Lenovo’s plans mark another win for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who tries to attract more technology investment into the country. While India’s tense relationship with China has suffered setbacks