Hungary
Budget deficit grows
The European Commission expects Hungary’s budget deficit could be almost double the government’s target next year, a Web site reported on Friday, as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban continued to dismiss lenders’ conditions for a financing backstop. EU officials, in a letter about initial talks with Budapest last month on a financing agreement, said Budapest’s growth projections were overly optimistic and its deficit could exceed 4 percent of gross domestic product next year. The letter, dated Aug. 31, also called for Hungary to scrap a new transaction tax on its central bank as a condition of securing a backstop but did not mention proposals for pension cuts or a rise in income tax. Daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet said on Thursday that the IMF was demanding pension cuts and an income tax rise as a condition of a financing deal.
GAMING
Casino invests in Spain
Casino giant Las Vegas Sands Corp has chosen Madrid over Barcelona for a multibillion-dollar gambling resort project dubbed “EuroVegas.” The Spanish capital, the country’s largest city, emerged as the company’s best choice for the development, Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson said in a statement released on Friday in Las Vegas. Critics predict that gambling will attract criminals and say positions as hotel maids, waiters and blackjack dealers are not a recipe for success for young people badly in need of jobs. Adelson has said he wants to invest about US$22 billion in the project. The company statement made it clear Las Vegas Sands will allocate no more than 35 percent of that amount.
Myanmar
Government signs FDI law
Parliament on Friday adopted a much anticipated foreign direct investment (FDI) law that is crucial to the government’s ambitious plans for economic expansion in one of Asia’s poorest countries. The law drops several provisions in the original draft that had raised fears it could deter investors. The law was seen as one of parliament’s most urgent tasks and was passed on the last day of its current session. One proposal dropped from the law would have required a US$5 million minimum initial investment outlay. The final version also allows foreign parties to hold a 50 percent stake in joint ventures rather than limiting them to a proposed 49 percent. Another progressive aspect of the new law allows foreign investors to lease land for an initial period of 50 years with an option to renew, compared with 35 years under old rules.
smartphones
Nokia unveils smartphone
Nokia will start selling its new smartphone, potentially its last chance to break into the most profitable part of the mobile phone market and secure its future, in November, sources at European telecoms operators said on Friday. The new phone, which with its rounded edges and colorful covers looks similar to its predecessors, was unveiled on Wednesday and drew a thumbs down from many analysts, who felt it lacked the “wow” factor to make big inroads against rivals. By going on sale in November, the Lumia 920 will hit stores in time for the key holiday sales season.
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