SOUTH KOREA
Output up, key exports down
The country’s industrial output last month edged up from a month earlier, but falling production of key export items signalled overall weakness, government data showed yesterday. Output in manufacturing remained unchanged from the previous month, with falls in key export items such as semiconductors and autos offset by growth in machinery equipment. “As industrial output and domestic demand remain sluggish, exports are also running out of steam,” Minister of Finance Choi Kyung-hwan said yesterday.
INDIA
Bad loans hit three-year high
Soured loans in the country’s banking system are at a three-year high, global credit rating agency Moody’s said on Wednesday, as it warned that a muted economic recovery means the sector’s outlook could stay bleak. “High leverage in the corporate sector could prevent any meaningful recovery in [loan] asset quality,” even with “a moderate rebound in economic growth,” Moody’s said in a report. The economy may grow 5 percent in the financial year through March next year, Moody’s said, while retaining its negative outlook on the banking sector.
BRAZIL
Key interest rate hiked
The central bank on Wednesday raised its key interest rate by 25 basis points to 11.25 percent — the first hike since April — in the wake of President Dilma Rousseff’s re-election. Analysts had predicted the bank would leave the main Selic rate on hold at 11 percent. However, with the country fighting inflationary pressures, the rates committee elected to send out a signal given what it termed a “less favorable risk balance for inflation.
AUTOMAKERS
Fiat to spin off Ferrari
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Wednesday announced it will spin off sports car maker Ferrari into a separate company, a move to unlock the luxury brand’s value and distinguish it from its mass-market parent. The spinoff aims to raise money to support the newly merged carmaker’s plans to invest 48 billion euros (US$61 billion) over five years to compete with global giants Toyota and Volkswagen. Shares in Fiat Chrysler soared on the news.
TAXATION
Nations sign data agreement
Fifty-one countries have signed an agreement to share financial data and boost efforts to crack down on tax evasion. The standard agreed upon in Berlin on Wednesday was developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in consultation with the world’s top 20 economies. The countries that signed include most EU nations, as well as traditional tax havens like Liechtenstein, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. They will begin automatically exchanging data collected by financial institutions as early as 2017, the OECD said. The US has not signed, but says it will share information as part of bilateral deals.
BANKING
Barclays preps for probes
British bank Barclays yesterday set aside £500 million (US$800 million) linked to probes into price-rigging allegations in foreign exchange markets, and posted slumping third-quarter net profits. “A £500 million provision has been recognized relating to ongoing investigations into foreign exchange with certain regulatory authorities,” Barclays said in a results statement, adding the net profits sank 25 percent to £379 million in the third quarter from a year earlier.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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