SPAIN
Economic output accelerates
The government yesterday announced the fastest economic growth in six years in the first quarter of the year, even as it failed to dent a 26 percent unemployment rate. Economic output rose at the quickest pace since a 2008 property crash tipped the nation into a double-dip recession, the National Statistics Institute said in an initial estimate. The economy grew at a quarterly rate of 0.4 percent, it said, the latest sign of a gathering, yet modest recovery since the nation emerged from a two-year downturn last year.
PORTUGAL
Bailout exit being mulled
The nation will decide on how it will exit its 78 billion euro (US$108 billion) bailout program before a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels on Monday next week, the government said on Tuesday. Lisbon could opt for a precautionary line of credit when the bailout program, extended three years ago, ends on May 17. Alternatively, it could take the route risked by Ireland four months ago — a return to the debt market without a standby loan.
UNITED STATES
Warning sounded on loans
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Sarah Bloom Raskin sounded the alarm on Tuesday on student loans, as the number of people defaulting is on the rise. At least 40 million people have taken out a student loan, Raskin said, and by the time students graduate the average amount of loans is US$30,000 and they spend 10 years or more repaying. Many never manage to repay them at all, Raskin said in a speech at the University of Maryland.
UNITED KINGDOM
Campaign suffers setback
The government’s campaign against a proposed EU tax on financial transactions suffered a blow yesterday after a court ruled the legal action taken against the tax was premature. The European Court of Justice in Strasbourg found London’s opposition to the EU’s Financial Transactions Tax should not prevent a group of 11 EU members from proceeding with plans to implement the tax.
GERMANY
Unemployment rate falls
The unemployment rate fell to 6.8 percent last month thanks to a better-than-expected springtime boost in jobs. The drop of 0.3 percentage points compared with the previous month is equivalent to 111,000 fewer jobless. The Federal Labor Agency reported yesterday that 2.94 million people were registered as unemployed last month. Adjusted for seasonal factors, the unemployment rate remained at 6.7 percent.
ENGINEERING
Siemens eyes energy deal
German giant Siemens AG is in talks to purchase Rolls-Royce’s energy production arm, the British aircraft engine maker said yesterday. “Following media reports, Rolls-Royce confirms it is in talks with Siemens regarding the sale of its energy gas turbine and compressor business,” the London-listed group said in a statement.
WINE
NZ exports hit record levels
New Zealand’s wine exports reached record levels in the 12 months to March amid surging demand from key markets, an industry body said yesterday. Official data showed exports were up 9.2 percent to NZ$1.32 billion (US$1.13 billion), making wine the country’s eighth-most valuable goods export, New Zealand Winegrowers said. Australia and Britain remain New Zealand’s largest wine exports markets.
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