MACROECONOMICS
Global output to rise 2%: UN
The world economy is still in disarray five years after the financial crash, the UN Conference on Trade and Development said in a report on Monday. Global output rose 2.2 percent last year and is forecast to grow at a similar rate this year, the report said. Developed countries are expected to show the poorest performance, with GDP expanding about 1 percent. Developing and transition economies are forecast to grow by almost 5 percent and 3 percent respectively, it said.
ACCOUNTING
UK market change ordered
Britain’s top 350 companies must put their bookkeeping work out to tender at least once a decade to increase competition in a market dominated by just four big accounting firms. The Competition Commission published its final report yesterday following a probe into the audit market and rowed back on an earlier draft recommendation that would have forced companies to retender their audit work every five years.
TIRES
Hankook to build US plant
South Korean tire maker Hankook announced on Monday that it would build its first North American plant in Tennessee, creating 1,800 jobs. Hankook, the world’s seventh-largest tire maker, said it would build the US$800 million facility in Clarksville. Construction on the 140,000m2 facility is scheduled to begin by the end of next year, and it will begin making high-end performance tires by early 2016.
PHARMACEUTICALS
AstraZeneca to buy Spirogen
British drugmaker AstraZeneca yesterday said its MedImmune unit would buy biotech company Spirogen for up to US$440 million to bolster its research and development pipeline in oncology. Privately held Spirogen focuses on antibody-drug conjugate technology, which has the potential to directly target cancer tumors while safeguarding healthy cells, AstraZeneca said. The British drugmaker said it would pay an initial US$200 million plus a further US$240 million if Spirogen meets development targets. It will also pay US$20 million to take an equity investment in Swiss-based ADC Therapeutics, which has a licensing agreement with Spirogen.
MINING
Rio Tinto posts solid output
Rio Tinto yesterday reported solid third-quarter production across its commodities, with strong growth in energy coal and copper, and record output at its flagship Australian iron ore operations. The Anglo-Australian mining titan said iron ore production rose 2 percent year-on-year, copper jumped 23 percent and energy coal to produce power expanded 14 percent. Bucking the trend was steelmaking coal output, which dropped 6 percent from the same period last year after a wall collapse at Rio’s Hail Creek mine in Queensland.
HEALTH
No known cellphone impact
France’s safety watchdog yesterday said it was standing by existing recommendations for mobile phones, WiFi and relay antennas, saying their emissions had “no demonstrated impact” on health. The National Agency for Health, Food and Environmental Safety said that in lab tests, electromagnetic emissions had had a “biological” effect on cells, but it saw no grounds for recommending any changes to existing laws as there was “no demonstrated impact” on health. However, it added that it would recommend that children and big users of mobile phones limit their exposure to the devices.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”