FRANCE
Jobless total rises
Unemployment in France has edged up again, reaching 10.3 percent in the third quarter. The national statistics agency Insee also said yesterday that youth unemployment jumped more than a percentage point in the quarter to 24.9 percent. The national rate was up from 10.2 percent in the second quarter. While France has avoided the worst of the debt crisis in Europe thus far, its high and rising unemployment rate indicates its economy is also in trouble. French unemployment has been climbing steadily since last year after dropping for a few quarters. It is now higher than at any time since 1999.
SOUTH KOREA
Economic growth slows
South Korea’s economy grew 0.1 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months — the slowest pace in more than three years, on shrinking investment and manufacturing, data showed yesterday. The revised figure — compared to 0.2 percent growth predicted by the Bank of Korea in October — was the same as the first quarter of 2009 when the South was hit by the global financial crisis. On a year-on-year basis, GDP for July-September was up 1.5 percent, compared to 2.3 percent on-year gain in the second quarter.
AUSTRALIA
Unemployment rate falls
Australia posted a surprise drop in unemployment to 5.2 percent yesterday, despite data showing the mining-powered economy is cooling due to China’s slowdown. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said the seasonally adjusted jobless rate fell from 5.4 percent in October to a three-month low of 5.2 percent last month, with the economy creating an unexpectedly high 13,900 jobs. Australia’s economy grew 0.5 percent in the three months to September 30 and 3.1 percent year-on-year, compared with rates of 0.6 percent and 3.7 percent three months earlier.
AUTOMAKERS
>GM sees record China sales
US auto giant General Motors (GM) said yesterday that its full-year sales in China, the world’s biggest car market, will surpass last year’s 2.55 million and set a new record. In the first 11 months, sales of GM and its ventures in China surged 10.4 percent from a year earlier to 2.59 million vehicles, more than the total for the whole of last year, GM said in a statement. Last month alone, GM sold 260,018 vehicles in China, up 9.7 percent from last year.
GREECE
S&P lowers credit rating
Standard & Poor’s has lowered Greece’s credit rating to “selective default” in light of its offer to buy back bonds at well below their face value. Greece has announced plans to spend up to US$13 billion on the buyback in a bid to bring its staggering debt load under control. S&P says it sees the buyback as essentially a distressed debt restructuring tantamount to a default. The rating agency says it may raise its long-term credit rating on Greece back to junk-grade “CCC” once the buyback is complete.
MARKETS
NASDAQ welcomes Facebook
Facebook will become part of the NASDAQ 100 index of the largest non-financial companies listed on the electronic exchange, the market operator said on Wednesday. Facebook will join the index on Wednesday, a statement from NASDAQ said. It will replace the IT firm Infosys, which is moving to the New York Stock Exchange. Being part of the index means a number of institutional and portfolio investors will purchase the stock for funds that seek to mirror the market index.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is