MACROECONOMICS
AIIB wins two new backers
Switzerland and Luxembourg are planning to join the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China’s finance ministry said on Friday, the latest European nations to sign up to the multilateral lender which has drawn skepticism from the US. Chinese Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei (樓繼偉) on Friday said the bank had 27 “prospective” founding members, the Xinhua news agency reported, adding that the application deadline is March 31.
SOVEREIGN DEBT
Fitch lowers Finland debt
Fitch Ratings Inc cut the outlook for Finland’s sovereign debt grade to “negative” on Friday, saying the country’s growth prospects have worsened, in part because of a fall in exports to Russia. Finland still enjoys a top-level “AAA” rating, Fitch said. However, it noted that GDP contracted 0.1 percent last year after slowing the previous two years. It slightly cut its outlook for this year, saying the economy would expand 0.5 percent.
MACROECONOMICS
S&P raises Portugal outlook
Standard & Poor’s Financial LLC (S&P) on Friday raised its outlook for Portugal to “positive” from “stable,” noting gradual economic recovery in the eurozone country that needed an international bailout during the global financial crisis. The positive outlook means that S&P could raise Portugal’s sovereign credit rating, held at “BB/B,” within the next 12 months. The agency projected that Portugal’s economic recovery would broaden during 2015-2017, due to a rebound in investment from still low levels of 15 percent of GDP, versus 23 percent of GDP before the 2008 crisis.
MACROECONOMICS
Argentine GDP slows
Argentina’s GDP expanded 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter from the year earlier, bringing full-year growth to its slowest pace in five years as dwindling foreign reserves led the government to restrict US dollars for imports. Fourth-quarter growth compared with the 0.3 percent median estimate of seven economists surveyed by Bloomberg. In the full year, gross domestic product expanded 0.5 percent, the national statistics agency said on Friday.
MEDIA
NYT to print Chinese news
The New York Times is launching a monthly Chinese-language print publication for Hong Kong and Macau that will include global news as well as local content. The US newspaper group said on Thursday that the 24-page Chinese Monthly in simplified Chinese would launch on May 1 with a print run of 50,000 copies, to be available in hotels, airline lounges, residential complexes and on newsstands in Hong Kong and Macau.
RETAIL
Tiffany income to drop 30%
Tiffany & Co, the world’s second-largest luxury jewelry chain, on Friday predicted a 30 percent decline in net income this quarter as the stronger US dollar lowers the value of overseas sales and makes it less attractive for foreign tourists to come to the US to shop. The drop in the first quarter will be followed by a more “modest” decrease in the following period, the New York-based company said on Friday.
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],”