MACROECONOMICS
India inflation eases
Inflation in India eased to its lowest level since 2009 last month, data showed yesterday, fanning hopes that the central bank would cut interest rates further to help spur a sharply slowing economy. The wholesale price index, India’s most closely watched cost-of-living benchmark, rose 4.89 percent last month from a year earlier, sharply lower than the previous month’s rise of 5.96 percent. It follows data on Monday that showed consumer price inflation slipped below the psychologically important 10 percent level to 9.39 percent last month.
AUTOMAKERS
VW to build Changsha plant
German auto giant Volkswagen (VW) will build a plant in central China, a spokesman said yesterday, as it battles US rival General Motors (GM) in the world’s biggest car market. The plant in the city of Changsha will start production in early 2016 with an annual output capacity of 300,000 vehicles, a Beijing-based spokesman for VW said. The German firm delivered 2.81 million vehicles in China last year, while GM sold 2.84 million vehicles in the country, making them the top two foreign automakers in China.
STEEL
Tata writes down US$1.6bn
India’s Tata Steel, one of the world’s biggest steelmakers, on Monday announced a US$1.6 billion asset writedown, blaming “weak economic and market conditions” in Europe that it forecast would continue “over the near and medium-term.” Europe accounts for about two-thirds of sales and production for the steelmaker. Tata said European steel demand fell nearly 8 percent last year.
shipbuilding
STX receives credit help
Creditors yesterday agreed on an emergency cash injection of US$271 million for the holding company of South Korea’s troubled STX shipbuilding group to avert bankruptcy, a leading creditor bank said. The state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) said STX Corp would receive a total of 300 billion won (US$271 million) from its five main creditors. The group, which has 11 subsidiaries, has been reeling under mounting debt. More than 1 trillion won in corporate debt matures this year, including 500 billion won this month alone.
AVIATION
Airbus lifts EADS profits
European aerospace firm EADS said strong deliveries by airplane maker Airbus helped drive higher earnings in the first quarter. Airbus delivered 144 aircraft in the first quarter, up from 131 in the same period last year. EADS reaffirmed its forecast of lifting commercial aircraft deliveries this year to between 600 and 610, on strong demand from Middle Eastern and Asian carriers. The company reported first-quarter net profit of 241 million euros (US$314 million), nearly double the 126 million euros it made a year earlier.
ELECTRONICS
Icahn runs for Dell board
Carl Icahn is nominating himself and 11 other candidates for spots on the Dell Inc board of directors. The billionaire investor and Southeastern Asset Management own a combined 13 percent of the computer maker’s shares. They want to keep Dell public and oppose a US$24.4 billion offer from an investment group led by company founder and chairman Michael Dell. Icahn and Southeastern say they would let shareholders keep their stake in the slumping PC maker so they could benefit from any Dell rebound.
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