SINGAPORE
Inflation at two-year low
Inflation slowed to a two-year low last month as gains in costs of housing and transportation eased. The consumer price index rose 3.6 percent from a year earlier, after climbing 4 percent in October, the Department of Statistics said yesterday. Consumer prices rose 0.1 percent last month from October, the report showed. Last month’s core inflation rate was 2 percent. The Monetary Authority of Singapore predicts inflation will average more than 4.5 percent this year and will be in a 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent range next year. “Given continued weakness in the global economy, imported inflation will be generally benign,” the Trade Ministry and the central bank said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the persistent tightness in the labor market will support wage increases in 2013,” they said.
VIETNAM
Central bank cuts rates
The central bank cut its key interest rates yesterday, the sixth time this year, in an attempt to boost an economy growing at the weakest pace in more than a decade. The State Bank of Vietnam cut the refinancing rate — charged on loans to commercial banks — to 9 percent from 10 percent. The discount rate was lowered to 7 percent from 8 percent. The country expects economic growth of just 5.2 percent for this year — the slowest rate in 13 years. At the same time inflation hit a six-month high of 7.08 percent last month year-on-year.
GREECE
Firm plans oil exploration
Petroceltic International PLC, an oil and gas company with operations in Egypt and eastern Europe, plans to explore for oil in the country. The company has made an application in the country for onshore and offshore blocks with Hellenic Petroleum SA and Edison SpA, Brian O’Cathain, chief executive officer of Petroceltic, said in a telephone interview from Dublin on Friday. “We made the application as a consortium,” Vasilis Tsaitas, an Athens-based spokesman for Hellenic, said by phone. Each partner has equal shares, he said, adding the government is reviewing the bids. The onshore block is in Ipiros in the northwest of the mainland and the offshore field will be in Patraikos in the west, Tsaitas said. If the bid is successful, Hellenic will become the operator, he said.
BRAZIL
President urges investment
President Dilma Rousseff urged businesses on Sunday to expand their investments as the nation cuts energy costs in a bid to curb poverty and improve flagging industrial competitiveness. “Our recipe for a stronger Brazil is to invest in overcoming poverty, guaranteeing home ownership, expanding employment, increasing education opportunities and improving our infrastructure and the competitiveness of our companies,” Rousseff said in a Christmas broadcast. Earlier this month, the government said electricity rates would be slashed 16.7 percent next year, in line with a long-standing demand by domestic industrialists who complain that the country’s energy costs are among the highest in the world.
MEDIA
ITV to buy Gurney stake
Britain’s ITV PLC said it will buy a 61.5 percent stake in US-based Gurney Productions, which makes reality programs, for US$40 million to boost its production business in the US. Britain’s largest free-to-air commercial broadcaster would have the option to buy the remaining 38.5 percent stake in Gurney three years after the deal through the fifth year.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last