SPAIN
No need for rescue: Rajoy
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Saturday he did not believe that the country’s banks would need rescuing by Europe. “I don’t think so,” Rajoy said after arriving in Chicago to take part in a two-day NATO summit, expressing surprise after French President Francois Hollande said he was favorable to a European mechanism to support the recapitalization of Spanish banks. “I don’t really know if Mr Hollande said that, because if he said it must be because Mr Hollande has information that we don’t have,” he added. Hollande said on Friday that it would be “desirable” for there to be a recapitalization of the Spanish banks. Moody’s on Thursday cut the debt ratings of 16 the nation’s banks by one to three notches, citing the effects of the ongoing recession and the government’s own reduced creditworthiness. The leading bank, Santander, and the number two, BBVA, were both hit with three-notch downgrades from “Aa3” previously to “A3,” which for Moody’s is an upper-medium credit grade, with still low credit risk.
SOUTH KOREA
GDP growth forecast cut
The state-run think tank yesterday cut the nation’s growth forecast for this year to 3.6 percent, from 3.8 percent estimated in November last year, citing weakening demand amid a global slowdown. However, the Korea Development Institute, in its twice-yearly economic forecast report, said the global economy would likely pick up pace next year to help Asia’s fourth-largest economy to expand 4.1 percent. The export-driven economy has recently been hit by sluggish demand from debt-hit Europe and its biggest trading partner, China. Exports unexpectedly shrank year-on-year for two straight months in March and last month. The Bank of Korea last month also slashed the nation’s growth outlook for this year to 3.5 percent from 3.7 percent estimated in December last year. GDP grew 3.6 percent last year.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
No euro sell-off: Medvedev
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told leaders of the G8 on Saturday that Russia would maintain the proportion of its foreign reserves held in euros. “The Russian prime minister noted that we are not going to cut the share of euro in our reserves in order not to send wrong signals on the situation in Europe,” said Stanislav Voskresensky, Russian G20 “sherpa” and deputy economy minister. He was speaking after G8 leaders discussed the eurozone crisis at their meeting at Camp David on Saturday. The Russian central bank’s annual report issued on Wednesday showed the central bank has lowered the share of US and Canadian dollars in its foreign exchange reserve and increased its holdings in the euro.
SUDAN
Exchange rates merge
Black market currency traders put their business on hold yesterday to assess the impact of new government measures aimed at closing a wide gap between the official and unofficial exchange rates. From today, official foreign exchange bureaus will be allowed to buy and sell US dollars based on the unofficial market rate rather than the official value of 2.7 Sudanese pounds for US$1, Abdelmoneim Nour al-Din, deputy general secretary of the forex dealers’ association, said. He said his association would announce a daily price and start buying at 5.2 pounds per US$1, slightly above last week’s black market rate of 5.8 pounds to the dollar.
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],”