FINANCE
US should lead: Zoellick
The head of the World Bank said yesterday it was right for the US to take a leading role in some global institutions and that the right US candidate for the post of the bank’s next president would be good for the US and the bank. In an interview in Singapore, World Bank President Robert Zoellick also said he did not believe Spain, Italy or Portugal needed bailouts to ease massive debt burdens, but that reforms needed the critical support of Germany and other leading European nations. The World Bank last week launched the nomination process to select a new president to succeed Zoellick when he steps down in June, inviting names from any of its 187 member countries. Some nations say it is time for a non-US candidate to take the helm of the bank, pointing to the growing economic clout of the developing world.
INTERNET
Google sells Clearwire stake
Google Inc on Friday said it would sell its stake in Clearwire Corp, the struggling operator of a wireless data network. The search company is taking a 94 percent loss on the originally US$500 million investment made in 2008. Google said in a regulatory filing that it was seeking to sell its stake starting tomorrow for US$1.60 per share, or US$47 million total. Clearwire shares fell US$0.16, or 6.8 percent, to close on Friday at US$2.11. Google was part of a consortium that included cable companies and equipment provider Intel Corp that injected US$3.2 billion into Clearwire when it merged with a Sprint Nextel Corp unit in 2008. The hope was that Clearwire would be a powerful competitor to the established cellphone companies, providing fast wireless data at low prices.
UNITED STATES
Officials oppose QE3
Two US Federal Reserve officials opposed additional mortgage-bond purchases by the Fed, saying the measure was not needed and that the US central bank should not interfere in credit markets. Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis President James Bullard said he did not favor additional debt buying as inflation risks are “to the upside” and a damaged housing market limits the effectiveness of monetary policy. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said targeting a specific industry such as housing should be left to the US Treasury. “I am worried that if you try to push so hard on monetary policy even when the mechanism isn’t really working, the whole thing blows up on you,” said Bullard, who does not vote on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this year. He also said that the FOMC would need to mark down its economic forecasts to warrant another program of large-scale asset purchases, known as quantitative easing.
SPORTING GOODS
Nike selling Lin shoes
Nike Inc will start selling Jeremy Lin (林書豪)-themed shoes this weekend, cashing in on the New York Knicks point guard’s recent rise to worldwide fame. Priced at US$130, the shoes will be available on Nike’s Web site. Nike said it would launch the Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low basketball shoes, made especially for Lin, this weekend in Orlando, Florida, where the NBA is holding its All-Star festivities. “It’s not a signature line, but a version of the shoe that he’s been wearing this season,” the company said. The world’s biggest sporting goods company, headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, signed Lin in 2010, and launched its “Linsanity” line of clothes at Foot Locker Inc stores last week.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
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