BANKING
EU to finalize ‘bank union’
EU finance ministers yesterday agreed to meet again next week to finalize details of a “Banking Union” meant to prevent failing banks from ever again wrecking the economy. Following more than 14 hours of talks, the ministers cited some progress, but not enough, with agreement only on the general principles on one of the bloc’s most ambitious projects. Ministers hope the Banking Union will prevent any repeat of failing banks driving governments into international bailouts.
EMPLOYMENT
S Korea jobless rate falls
The unemployment rate fell slightly to 2.9 percent last month, as healthcare and other service industries added more jobs, official data showed yesterday. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate compared with 3 percent in October and 3 percent in the same period a year earlier, Statistics Korea said. Unadjusted, the figure stood at 2.7 percent last month. The total number of employed stood at 25.53 million, up by 588,000 from a year ago.
MACROECONOMICS
Brazil to see 2.2% growth
The economy is likely to grow 2.2 percent this year and 2 percent next year, an influential industrial group said on Tuesday, calling for less red tape and more competitiveness. “This year was better than last year, but an expansion of around 2 percent is very little for Brazil,” Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo president Paulo Skaf said. “The country needs to grow more.” The group also said Brazil’s industrial sector was set to grow 1.5 percent this year and 2.5 percent next year, from a 0.8 percent contraction last year.
MACROECONOMICS
Italy contraction to end
The economy has emerged from two years of contraction, data showed on Tuesday, but economists warned that recovery would remain elusive as resistance grows to further tax hikes and reforms. The third-biggest economy in the eurozone stagnated in the third quarter, revised data showed, in an update of an earlier estimate of a 0.1 percent contraction. Tuesday’s data said the economy had contracted by 1.8 percent over 12 months, instead of the earlier 1.9 percent.
PHARMACEUTICALS
GSK to invest in UK
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to invest another £200 million (US$330 million) on advanced manufacturing in Britain, the company said yesterday, underlining the draw of a tax break designed to encourage research and development. Britain’s so-called “patent box” scheme, which offers a reduced rate of corporate tax on income derived from patents, has been hailed by GSK, its biggest drugmaker, for transforming the country as a place to invest. However, not all Britain’s European partners are as enthusiastic about such patent box arrangements. In July, Germany called for a ban on these schemes, saying they created unfair competition. Patent boxes also operate in the Netherlands and some other EU member states.
TECHNOLOGY
Twitter updates software
Updated mobile software rolled out on Tuesday by Twitter lets smartphone users send pictures in direct, personal messages seen only by recipients instead of being shared publicly on the social network. The Instagram-style feature is in the latest Twitter applications tailored for Apple or Android smartphones. Twitter users now also have the option to “swipe” from their home screen, the company said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to