MALAYSIA
Economy beats predictions
The economy expanded at a better-than-expected rate of 5.8 percent last quarter thanks to strong domestic demand, Bank Negara said yesterday, helping the country to its best annual performance in four years. The news will come as welcome relief for the government, which has recently unveiled measures to help the petroleum-exporting country cope with the recent plunge in global oil prices. The growth in Southeast Asia’s third-biggest economy in October to December last year was better than the 5.6 percent tipped by analysts in a Bloomberg News survey. The annual rate of 6 percent also surpassed the 5.8 percent forecast and was the best performance since 7.4 percent growth in 2010. The central bank said “domestic demand remained the anchor of growth in the fourth quarter,” with analysts pointing to solid performances in the construction, services and manufacturing sectors.
BANKING
HSBC Swiss profits drop
HSBC’s Swiss private bank has seen a steep drop in profits since 2008 and even fell to a loss in 2013, showing how problems in the business have hit the British bank’s bottom line as well as its reputation. Its Swiss private bank lost US$291 million in 2013, the last set of published full-year results, and only scraped a US$14 million profit in the first-half of last year. HSBC is due to release last year’s full-year results on Feb. 23. HSBC this week admitted failings in compliance and controls in its Swiss unit after media reports alleged it helped wealthy customers conceal millions of dollars of assets in a period up to 2007. The Swiss unit’s profits have fallen steeply every year since 2008, when they peaked at US$553 million and represented 6 percent of HSBC’s total earnings.
BANKING
Credit Suisse back in black
Credit Suisse Group AG rose the most in two years yesterday after it announced fresh measures to boost capital buffers, including plans to increase asset reductions and give investors the option of receiving their dividend in shares. Switzerland’s second-biggest bank returned to profit in the fourth quarter, posting 921 million Swiss francs (US$991 million) in net income, compared with a SF476 million loss in the same period a year earlier. The lender cut bonuses for the group and the executive board. The board of directors agreed to cut its compensation by 25 percent, while performance-related pay for the executive board was cut by an equivalent of 20 percent of the amount that would have otherwise been granted, split between the current and prior year awards, the bank said.
INTERNET
China’s rules affecting firms
China’s Internet curbs are isolating it from the world and having a “highly detrimental” impact on business, the EU Chamber of Commerce in China said yesterday, in an unusually strong statement by a foreign business chamber. Beijing has increased online restrictions since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) took office in 2013 and critics say a recent acceleration of the crackdown has further limited free speech in the nation. The chamber said 86 percent of respondents in a survey of its members reported a “negative effect on their business as a result of certain Web sites and online tools being blocked.” The chamber said 13 percent of respondents had deferred research and development investment or were unwilling to set up such operations in China since Internet curbs were tightened at the beginning of this year.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six