ECONOMY
Kuwaiti revenues drop 4.4%
Kuwait’s revenues dropped 4.4 percent in the first half of the fiscal year due to sliding oil prices, but the emirate still reported a healthy provisional surplus. Official figures posted yesterday on the Ministry of Finance’s Web site put April-September public income at 15.1 billion Kuwaiti dinars (US$52.1 billion) compared with 15.8 billion dinars in the same period a year ago. Oil income, which accounts for 94 percent of revenues, dropped 5.3 percent to 14.2 billion dinars in the first half from 15 billion dinars previously, the new figures show. Despite the fall, the emirate still managed to post a provisional budget surplus of 9 billion dinars. Spending was 6.1 billion dinars, up 19.6 percent on last year’s 5.1 billion dinars. The sharp dive in global oil prices did not reflect fully in the government’s figures because most of the slump took place last month and deepened this month.
BANKING
UBS may recall bonuses
UBS, one of six banks fined last week for attempting to manipulate foreign exchange markets, on Saturday said it was considering taking back bonuses from traders over the scandal. The bank confirmed a report in Financial Times stating that it was one of five fined banks looking into clawing back millions of dollars in bonuses from individual traders. A spokeswoman said the bank would especially aim to cancel the payment of deferred bonuses in cases where wrongdoing was found. Another of the fined banks, Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS), hinted it could take similar action. “We are still working our way through disciplinary and accountability processes involving over 50 employees and their managers,” RBS boss Ross McEwan said in a statement on Friday.
FRANCE
Privatization plan outlined
The government will start a privatization plan by selling stakes in regional airports and companies in which it holds double voting rights, Minister of the Economy, Industry and Employment Emmanuel Macron was quoted as saying in an interview published on Saturday in Le Monde. The government will not start by selling shares in nuclear operator Electricite de France SA or lottery company Francaise des Jeux, according to the interview. The state has “room to maneuver” on the planned stake sales which could be used to lower debt and invest in priority areas. Macron last month said the Treasury will sell between 5 billion and 10 billion euros (US$6.26 billion to US$12.5) of state assets within 18 months as a way to raise funds to cut debt and invest in sectors to develop the economy. Paris has stakes in 74 firms, of which 13 are listed entities whose state holdings were worth 76.4 billion euros as of Friday, according to the Agence des Participations de l’Etat, which manages the portfolio.
CYPRUS
Moody’s upgrade praised
The government has hailed rating agency Moody’s three-notch upgrade of the bailed-out nation’s credit grade as validation of its adherence to the terms of its rescue. Moody’s said the upgrade to “B3” from “Caa3” with a stable outlook reflects the progress so far in shoring up the island’s finances and buttressing a hobbled banking sector. Deputy government spokesman Victoras Papadopoulos on Saturday said the nation remains “firm and steady” to the terms of its 10 billion euro bailout because it is not out of the woods. Even with the upgrade, the rating is still “junk,” or non-investment grade. Moody’s said the nation still faces a weak economic outlook and a growing number of bad loans.
COMMUNICATIONS
Sercomm profit hits high
Sercomm Corp (中磊), the nation’s biggest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, reported a record-high net profit of NT$239 million (US$7.77 million) last quarter. The company attributed the strong showing to soaring demand for telecom equipment such as fiber optic and commercial networking products. With last quarter’s result, Sercomm’s combined net profit for the first three quarters of the year hit another all-time high of NT$695 million.
TECHNOLOGY
E Ink profits on tax gains
E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s top e-paper display manufacturer, posted a second profitable quarter last quarter due to tax gains. The company’s net income grew 18 percent last quarter to NT$100 million, including a tax gain of NT$393 million, compared with the NT$85 million it posted in the second quarter, a financial statement it released last week showed. However, excluding the tax gains, E Ink actually lost NT$306 million last quarter after booking an impairment loss of NT$977 million from selling assets of its South Korean flat-panel manufacturing arm, Hydis Technologies Co.
TRADE
Upgrade plan unveiled
A series of seminars will be held later this month to help local industries upgrade as part of government efforts to mitigate the potential impact of an impending free-trade agreement between China and South Korea, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. According to the ministry, a task force is to start offering upgrade services later this month and will also host five seminars — two each in central and southern Taiwan, and one in the north — early next month.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts