FRANCE
Report urges payroll tax cuts
A government-commissioned report will urge France to cut 30 billion euros (US$39.09 billion) in payroll taxes over two to three years to increase the country’s competitiveness, newspaper Le Figaro said on its Web site on Friday citing unnamed sources. The lost revenue would have to be covered by massive cuts in public spending — far beyond the 10 billion euro savings envisaged in next year’s budget — as well as rises in VAT and the CSG levy that helps to fund France’s social security system, the newspaper said. The cuts would only apply to wages up to 3.5 times the minimum wage, currently set at 9.4 euros an hour before tax, or 1,425.67 euros a month, the Web site said. French business leaders have long called for a decrease in payroll taxes, which rank amongst the highest in the world.
Japan
Nissan set to create US jobs
Japanese automaker Nissan announced plans on Friday to add 810 jobs to its Tennessee factory to support a third shift as it expands local production of its core models. Nissan said it aims to have 85 percent of all Nissan and Infiniti products that are sold in the US produced in North America by 2015. “The dedicated workforce in Tennessee continues to build high-quality vehicles that compete and win globally, and we’re committed to ensuring this doesn’t change,” Nissan Americas vice chairman Bill Krueger said in a statement. With Friday’s announcement, Nissan has added more than 2,000 jobs at the facility since last year, expanding the workforce to more than 6,000 people.
SPAIN
Asturias, islands seek aid
Spain’s Balearic Islands and Asturias became the latest regions to ask the central government for aid on Friday, raising concerns Spain may have to expand a 18 billion euro fund set up to help pay regional debts. Spain’s autonomous communities are struggling to cover their borrowing costs and their large debts are dragging on the country’s ability to rein in its deficit as it heads towards a European bailout. The Balearic Islands asked for 355 million euros of aid, while Asturias asked for 262 million euros, the local governments said, pushing the total number of regions that have asked for aid up to eight. The two requests mean that just over 17 billion euros of the fund has now been tapped, leaving it with scarce resources to cover other regions’ funding needs and raising the possibility the government will have to put in more money.
UNITED KINGDOM
Starbucks faces backlash
Starbucks’ reputation among consumers in Britain has been hit by wave of criticism of its tax affairs from politicians and the media, pollster YouGov said. A report showed the coffee chain paid no tax on £1.2 billion (US$1.9 million) of sales in recent years by telling the taxman it was making no profit, even as it told investors the unit was “profitable.” YouGov said its BrandIndex survey of 2,000 people showed a drop in the its reputation score to minus-26 from 3. Starbucks’ Buzz score — whether people have heard anything positive or negative about the brand in the media or through word of mouth — is now minus-9 compared to zero before the report was published.
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],”