UNITED KINGDOM
Manufacturing rebounding
The country’s manufacturing output rebounded with a bang in June, official data showed yesterday, providing further evidence of a broad-based economic recovery. Output jumped 1.9 percent in June from May, when it had fallen by 0.7 percent, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement. Manufacturing output grew by 2 percent in June compared with the same month last year. Industrial production — a wider measure that also includes mining, quarrying, electricity, gas and water supply — increased by 1.1 percent over the same period, the office added.
ITALY
GDP drop beats estimates
The economy shrank by less than expected in the second quarter, adding to recent signs that the county’s longest post-war recession is bottoming out, but still marking the eighth consecutive quarter of contraction. GDP fell 0.2 percent, following a 0.6 contraction in the first three months, and dropped 2 percent on an annual basis, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported yesterday. A Reuters survey of analysts had expected a second-quarter fall of 0.4 percent, a 2.2 percent annual decline. Leading indicators over the past few weeks have suggested the recession is easing and many analysts are predicting a return to very modest growth in the fourth or possibly third quarter. The indicators fit with a general easing of decline seen across much of the eurozone.
BANKING
UKAR repays £1.9 billion
Britain’s “bad bank” that is running down the loans of two bailed-out lenders yesterday said it repaid £1.9 billion (US$2.9 billion) to the British government in the first six months of the year. UK Asset Resolution (UKAR), a state-run “zombie bank” that does not take on new business, said it has now returned £6.6 billion to the government. It owed £48.7 billion when it was created in October 2010. UKAR, Britain’s seventh-largest mortgage lender, is winding down the loans of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, two of the UK’s customer-owned building societies, which were nationalized in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. UKAR chief executive Richard Banks said he still expects the process of repayment to take a decade, but that the bank will continue to make regular repayments to the British Treasury and taxpayers should get all their money back.
EGYPT
Foreign reserves up 26%
The central bank reported on Monday that foreign reserves reached US$18.8 billion, their highest level in almost two years, but economists said the jump was a reflection of aid from oil-rich Arab Gulf nations and not the result of an improved economy. Last month’s reserve figures, which were released on the central bank’s Web site, represent a nearly US$4 billion increase — or about 26 percent — from US$14.9 billion at the end of June.
MOBILE DEVICES
Surface Pro price tag cut
Microsoft Corp on Monday knocked US$100 off the price of high-end versions of its Surface tablet, which is competing against Apple Inc’s iPad and devices running Google Inc’s Android system. The software giant’s online store is offering US consumers the Surface Pro for US$799 or US$899, depending on memory capacity, down from US$899 and US$999 respectively. Surface Pro tablet prices are also being discounted in Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Canada through Aug. 29, Microsoft said.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts