ECONOMY
China’s inflation increases
Inflation in China accelerated to 2.4 percent year-on-year last month, official data showed yesterday, above market expectations, but analysts said countermeasures were unlikely due to weak economic momentum. Month on month, the consumer price index increased by 0.2 percent last month, reversing a decrease of 0.9 percent in March, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement. The government has set its inflation target for this year at 3.5 percent.
LABOR
Australian joblessness drops
Australia’s unemployment rate eased to 5.5 percent last month, data showed yesterday, beating expectations by creating 50,100 jobs despite a slowdown in the mining-driven economy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said the jobless rate fell 0.1 percentage points from 5.6 percent in March, outdoing analyst forecasts that unemployment would hold steady. Meanwhile, New Zealand’s unemployment rate fell 0.6 points to a three-year low of 6.2 percent in the three months to March 31, official figures released yesterday showed.
ECONOMY
Greece eyes recovery
Greece’s recession-wracked economy should start recovering from next year and its sky-high unemployment rate should edge lower from the end of next year, Greek Minister of Finance Yannis Stournaras said in an interview broadcast yesterday. Speaking on state-run NET television, Stournaras said the government’s aim was to achieve a primary surplus by the end of this year. He said this would allow Athens to ask its international creditors for some further debt relief.
CRIME
Sentence cut for Enron boss
The prison sentence of disgraced former Enron Corp chief executive Jeff Skilling could be cut by as much as 10 years under a deal announced on Wednesday by US federal prosecutors. Currently in prison on a 24-year sentence for securities fraud, false statements and other charges, Skilling could see his term reduced to between 14 years and 17-and-a-half years under the agreement that will end his long battle against conviction. District Judge Sim Lake will set his new sentencing on June 21.
UNITED STATES
Offshore earnings up 15%
Large US companies boosted their offshore earnings by 15 percent last year to a record US$1.9 trillion, avoiding hefty tax bills by keeping the profits abroad, according to a new report. The overseas earnings stockpile has climbed by 70 percent over the past five years, research firm Audit Analytics said. Data in its report covers the Russell 3000 index of the largest US corporations.
AUTOMAKERS
Tesla posts quarterly profit
Tesla Motors Inc said on Wednesday that it posted its first-ever quarterly profit as the electric carmaker beat its own forecasts and surprised market analysts. The California firm said it earned a profit of US$11 million in the first quarter as revenues rose 83 percent from the prior quarter to US$562 million. It produced 400 or more Model S vehicles per week, for a total of over 5,000 during the quarter. Tesla also said it saw “significant upside potential in Europe and Asia.”
AVIATION
Dreamliner to return
All Nippon Airways confirmed yesterday that it would restart flights with Boeing Co’s Dreamliner at the start of next month.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure