UNITED STATES
Sandy cost runs in billions
New Jersey suffered at least US$29.4 billion in damage from Sandy, the Atlantic superstorm that left 37 people dead and washed out communities as it ravaged shore areas, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said yesterday. The figure covers property and business losses as well as mass transit system damage, Christie said in a statement. He said the estimate reflects national aid already received and may be revised upward in coming weeks. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo last week said that Sandy had cost his state about US$33 billion. Cuomo said he would seek US$30 billion in aid from the federal government to mitigate physical and economic damage.
PORTUGAL
State deficit shrinks
The Ministry of Finance said the government deficit narrowed in the first 10 months of the year after a part of banks’ pension funds were transferred to the state. Based on comparable figures, the deficit of the central administration and social security agency was 6.05 billion euros (US$7.8 billion), less than a shortfall of 6.47 billion euros in the same period of last year, the ministry’s Budget Office said in a report on its Web site. Spending rose 0.7 percent, while personnel costs declined 13.7 percent. Tax revenue dropped 4.2 percent, with revenue from indirect taxes declining 4.5 percent and revenue from direct taxes falling 3.7 percent. This year’s revenue from taxes and social security contributions would be about 3.3 billion euros lower than planned in this year’s budget, Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar said on Oct. 3.
HUNGARY
S&P downgrades rating
The nation’s credit rating was lowered to two steps below investment grade by Standard & Poor’s, which said the government’s policies are eroding medium-term economic growth prospects. The country’s long-term foreign and local currency sovereign ratings were reduced one level to “BB,” S&P said in a statement on Friday. The grade, on par with Portugal and Turkey, has a stable outlook, signaling the ratings company is more likely to keep it unchanged than to cut it or raise it. The government said the decision is “frivolous.” The country is in its second recession in four years. The government backtracked last month on a pledge to cut a special bank tax in half next year, as part of a salvo of measures to keep the budget deficit within the EU limit of 3 percent of economic outlook. S&P said it expects the government to meet its fiscal targets in the short term.
COLOMBIA
Central bank cuts rates
The central bank on Friday voted 4 to 3 to cut interest rates to the lowest level in a year after the nation’s biggest brokerage collapsed and industry contracted for a second month. Banco de la Republica, led by bank Governor Jose Dario Uribe, cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point to 4.5 percent, as forecast by only two of 33 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. In a speech in Cartagena, President Juan Manuel Santos said Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas provided the decisive vote in the decision. The move comes after the bank opened a so-called liquidity window for brokerages in an effort to avoid disruptions in financial markets following the collapse of Interbolsa SA’s brokerage this month.
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],”