NEW ZEALAND
Budget surplus posted
The government yesterday delivered its first budget surplus in six years, producing a family-friendly document ahead of a general election later this year. Finance Minister Bill English announced a bigger-than-forecast surplus of NZ$372 million (US$322.5 million) and took his foot off the brakes on spending after years of austerity to get the books back in the black. The government forecast increasing surpluses in future and said it was targeting a reduction in net debt to below 20 percent of GDP by 2020. The surplus follows two years of balanced budgets and an NZ$18.4 billion deficit in 2010-2011.
BANKING
Eleven sacked over loans
Citigroup’s Mexican bank subsidiary on Wednesday said it has fired 11 employees for not following proper procedures in dealing with a Mexican oil services company that allegedly defrauded Citigroup of up to US$400 million. Grupo Financiero Banamex said in a statement that the 11 employees of various ranks “did not follow the supervisory standards expected as part of their responsibilities.” It said more employees might face sanctions, as a result of an internal company investigation. Banamex in February said that the oil services company Oceanografia had used falsified invoices as collateral to obtain US$585 million in loans. After an investigation, Citigroup could verify only US$185 million of invoices.
GREEN ENERGY
Siemens wins turbine deal
German engineering giant Siemens yesterday said it has won a 1.5 billion euro (US$2 billion) contract to supply wind turbines to a huge offshore wind park being built off the Dutch coast. Siemens said in a statement it will deliver 150 wind turbines with a capacity of 4 megawatt for a wind power plant in the North Sea, 85km from the coast of Groningen. With an installed capacity of 600 megawatt in total, the “Gemini” wind park will yield 2.6 terawatt-hours of electricity per year and supply clean energy for 1.5 million people after being fully commissioned.
SOFTWARE
Blink to disappear
Self-destructing message application Blink is vanishing into Yahoo’s growing mountain of mobile technology company take-overs. A post on Wednesday at the Blink Web site announced that the start-up is becoming part of Yahoo, but did not disclose financial terms of the deal. Blink said that in coming weeks it will shut down its applications for mobile devices powered by Apple or Android. No mention was made regarding what Yahoo planned to do with Blink technology that is competing with Snapchat by letting people send digital messages, pictures or voice files designed to erase themselves shortly after being opened.
CRIME
Mexican seeks US asylum
Fugitive Mexican businessman Gaston Azcarraga, who controlled Mexicana Airlines before it went bankrupt and was recently charged with illegal use of the airline’s funds, has asked for asylum in the US, Mexican Assistant Attorney General Mariana Benitez said on Wednesday. She said that US officials notified Mexico that Azcarraga is in their country a few days ago. Benitez added that Mexico requested that he be extradited, but US authorities must first rule on his asylum request. Mexicana declared bankruptcy last month, almost four years after it stopped flying because of financial problems.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”