MACROECONOMICS
France expects flat growth
French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Thursday he was concerned that growth this year of the EU’s second-biggest economy would be very weak, around the 0.1 percent level predicted by the European Commission. “The European Commission says 0.1 percent: I fear it won’t be far from that,” Moscovici told a forum in Paris. “We are fighting for it to be more,” he added. Both the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have forecast that the French economy will manage to grow by just 0.1 percent this year.
FOREIGN RESERVES
Egypt’s reserves fall further
Egypt’s foreign currency reserves dropped slightly again last month, the central bank said on Thursday. The US$13.4 billion level at the end of last month was just below the February figure of US$13.5 billion, representing a smaller drop than previous months. The nation’s reserves have fallen sharply from US$36 billion since the popular uprising in 2011 that ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian government is in talks with the IMF to secure a US$4.8 billion loan to bolster the country’s battered economy and help cover a widening budget deficit. Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation and Planning Ashraf el-Araby said on Thursday that a final agreement with the IMF could be reached in the next two weeks.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda recalls cars over leak
Japanese automaker Honda said on Thursday it was recalling 145,573 vehicles due to a fault that caused oil to leak onto some cars’ exhaust pipes. The firm said it had received 14 complaints from motorists, including nine cases where the burned oil released fumes into the affected vehicles. There were no injuries, it added. The recall covers vehicle brand models “Vamos,” the “Vamos Hobio” small van and the “Z” two-door hatchback built between October 1998 through August 2010 and sold only in Japan, the automaker said in a document filed with Japan’s transport ministry.
TELECOMS
BlackBerry turns off music
BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) says it is silencing its streaming music service barely two years after its launch. The Canadian firm e-mailed BlackBerry Messenger Music subscribers this week to notify them that the cloud-based service will stop working on June 2. RIM said on Thursday the decision follows a “strategic business review” of its offerings. BBM Music launched in August 2011 as a US$4.99 per month service that allowed BBM users to swap song recommendations and share music with friends. However, there were limitations — each user could only share up to 50 songs from a catalogue of millions of tracks for their own personal playlist.
ENERGY
Skilling’s case under review
Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron Corp chief executive serving a 24-year prison term over the energy company’s spectacular collapse, may get a chance to leave prison early. The US Department of Justice has notified victims of Enron’s fraud and 2001 bankruptcy that prosecutors may enter an agreement with Skilling that could result in a resentencing. Skilling, 59, has served about six and a quarter years in prison following his May 2006 conviction by a Houston federal jury on 19 counts of securities fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors. Once ranked seventh on the Fortune 500 list of large US companies, Enron went bankrupt on Dec. 2, 2001.
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],”