UNITED STATES
Fed revises test results
The Federal Reserve corrected errors in loan-loss estimates for banks and financial firms including Citigroup Inc in a stress test of capital under a hypothetical economic slump. The revised calculations do not affect capital ratios that determined whether the banks passed the tests, the Fed said on Friday in a statement. In Citigroup’s test, an estimate for losses on first-lien mortgages in a stressed scenario was decreased by US$400 million to US$8.9 billion, while the estimate for losses on other loans was increased by the same amount to US$4.8 billion. The Fed required financial firms with more than US$50 billion in assets to submit capital plans that would demonstrate whether the industry can withstand another crisis. Banks deemed strong enough were cleared to raise dividends and buy back shares.
SWITZERLAND
Zurich loses millionaires
The region of Zurich, the home of Swiss banking, has lost nearly half its foreign millionaires two years after scrapping special tax breaks, official figures published on Friday showed. Of the 201 foreign residents who benefited from the tax breaks that the canton scrapped in early 2009, 97 have decamped to more favorable tax regimes, the region’s tax services department said. Those departures represent a loss of 12.2 million Swiss francs (US$13 million) in tax revenues last year, but that figure is more than recouped by the higher tax bills charged to the high-earners who decided to stay on. Switzerland has come under pressure from its neighbors — many of which have depleted state coffers — as well as from some of its own citizens over its flat rate tax system, which has attracted the wealthiest to claim residency there. Among them are celebrities such as musician Phil Collins and Formula 1 ex-champion Michael Schumacher.
GERMANY
Reduced borrowing sped up
Germany will speed up its plans to reduce new borrowing as it works to balance its budget by 2016, an official said on Friday. The federal government will reduce its new borrowing between next year and 2016 by about 27 billion euros (US$35 billion), to 45.6 billion euros from the previously planned73 billion euros, the senior official said. A robust economy has helped increase Germany’s tax intake, allowing the country to run up less new debt. Germany, which has Europe’s biggest economy, plans to balance its budget in 2016, when it expects to borrow only 1.1 billion euros, the official said. Germany borrowed 17.3 billion euros last year, down from 44 billion euros in 2010, and got its budget deficit down to about 1 percent of GDP — far below the often-flouted 3 percent limit for countries that use the euro. For this year, the official said, the government expects borrowing to increase to 34.8 billion euros.
PETROLEUM
Exxon ‘freezes’ contract
US energy giant ExxonMobil has told the Iraqi oil ministry that it has “frozen” its controversial contract with the country’s autonomous Kurdish region, a government official said yesterday. On Oct. 18, Kurdish authorities inked a deal with ExxonMobil for it to explore six areas in Kurdistan, but Baghdad regards as invalid any contracts not signed with the central government. The Kurdistan contract potentially put an Exxon contract with the central government in jeopardy. In January 2010, the Iraqi oil ministry completed a deal with ExxonMobil and Anglo-Dutch giant Shell to develop production at West Qurna-1, which is the country’s second-biggest field.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”