SPAIN
S&P slashes debt rating
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) cut the nation’s sovereign debt rating on Wednesday by two notches to just above junk level, citing the deepening recession and strains from the country’s troubled banks. S&P cut the rating to “BBB-” from “BBB+” with a “negative outlook” to the rating, a warning of a possible further downgrade over the medium term. Moreover, S&P expressed doubts that all of the eurozone governments would give their backing to efforts to recapitalize Spain’s banks.
SPAIN
Inflation surges on sales tax
The nation’s inflation rate surged to a 17-month high last month, driven by an austerity-driven rise in sales tax and medicine prices, official figures showed yesterday. Consumer prices rose 3.5 percent over the year to September, the highest rate since April last year and a sharp climb from the 2.7 percent recorded in August, the National Statistics Institute said. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s administration raised the top rate of sales tax to 21 percent from 18 percent on Sept. 1.
JAPAN
Machinery orders contract
Core machinery orders turned down 3.3 percent month-on-month in August, official data showed yesterday as Europe’s debt crisis and China’s slowdown cut into the export-reliant manufacturing industry. The private-sector data, excluding volatile orders from power companies and for ships, registered its first drop in three months and reversed a 4.6 percent jump in July, according to figures from the Cabinet Office. Meanwhile, the consumer confidence index stood at 40.1 last month, down from 40.5 in August, indicating that the nation’s household spending remains stagnant, the Cabinet Office said in a monthly survey.
UNITED STATES
Property boosting growth
Stronger housing markets helped boost economic growth in 10 of 12 regional banking districts from mid-August through last month, according to a US Federal Reserve survey released on Wednesday. The report, known formally as the Beige Book, also cited an increase in auto sales in most parts of the country. Still, consumer spending was flat or up only slightly in most districts. Manufacturing activity was mixed, with half of the districts reporting a slight improvement since the previous Fed report, while hiring was unchanged in most districts.
CONGLOMERATES
Siemens likely to cut jobs
Germany’s Siemens AG was expected to outline job cuts and office closures yesterday to stop profits sliding, as chief executive Peter Loescher’s strategy of boosting growth with energy-saving and infrastructure products has not worked. Analysts expect him to announce between 2 billion euros and 4 billion euros (US$2.57 million to US$5.14 million) in savings when he spoke to 600 managers in Berlin, some of whom may lose their jobs in the program. He was also expected to shut offices in some of the 190 countries where Siemens operates.
LOGISTICS
Fedex to shed workers
Fedex Corp, the global delivery company, said on Wednesday it was planning to cut “several thousand” people from its workforce via a voluntary departure program beginning early next year. Chairman Fred Smith said at an investment conference in Memphis, Tennessee, that the cuts would come in the company’s Fedex Express global express delivery service and in the US unit Fedex Services.
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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day