UNITED STATES
Jobless rate to stay high
The nation’s jobless rate is unlikely to reach more normal levels for several years, US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday as he again defended the central bank’s forceful easing of monetary policy. One lawmaker asked Bernanke when the economy might produce enough jobs to bring the unemployment rate, currently at 7.9 percent, down to 6 percent — the top of the Fed’s long-term forecast range. “A reasonable guess for 6 percent would be around 2016, about three more years,” Bernanke told the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee.
SOUTH KOREA
Industrial output shrinks
Industrial output shrank for the first time in five months in January, official figures showed yesterday, dampening hopes for a robust recovery for Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Production in the mining, manufacturing, gas and electricity industries shrank a seasonally adjusted 1.5 percent compared with December last year, marking the first monthly fall since August, state-run Statistics Korea said. Compared with a year earlier, January’s reading was up 7.3 percent, compared with a revised 0.5 percent decline in December.
JAPAN
Manufacturing picks up
The nation’s manufacturing showed signs of recovery in January, with industrial production up 1 percent from the month before, but down 5.1 percent from a year earlier. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said yesterday that the figures, the second straight monthly increase, suggested the slump in output had “bottomed out.” However January’s figure was below economists’ forecasts for a 1.5 percent month-on-month increase. Industrial output rose a seasonally adjusted 2.5 percent in December last year from November.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Mylan set to buy Agila
US generic drugs specialist Mylan Inc said yesterday it would buy a unit of Indian pharma firm Strides Arcolab for US$1.6 billion, boosting its presence in the high-growth injectable drugs market. Pennsylvania-based Mylan said the all-cash buyout of Agila Specialities, which makes injectables, is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of the year subject to regulatory approvals. The sale of Bangalore-based Agila ends months of speculation.
FINANCE
Australian dollar overvalued
The Reserve Bank of Australia said the country’s currency is held by as many as 34 central banks from Reykjavik to Santiago, and models suggested the Australian dollar was as much as 15 percent overvalued, documents showed. The central banks of Slovakia and Slovenia were recent additions to a list of 16 economies that publicly hold the Australian currency, according to papers prepared in the second half of last year and released yesterday under a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg News.
FINANCE
RBS’ losses almost tripled
British state-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) said yesterday that net losses almost tripled to £5.97 billion (US$9.05 billion) last year, when it was hit by compensation payouts and a London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) fine. The vast loss after taxation compared with a shortfall of £1.997 billion in 2011, the lender announced in a results statement, adding that last year had been a “chastening” year during which it sought to “put right past mistakes.”
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