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.
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