TRADE
Japanese surplus up 140%
Japan’s current account surplus more than doubled year-on-year in February, with lower oil prices helping narrow trade deficits and a weaker yen boosting repatriated returns on foreign investment, official data showed yesterday. Japan logged a surplus of ¥1.44 trillion (US$12 billion), up 140.5 percent from a year earlier, the Japanese Ministry of Finance said. Meanwhile, the Bank of Japan held off further easing measures after a two-day meeting. The bank stayed pat on its record stimulus program, which is adding about ¥80 trillion to the money supply every year.
ECONOMY
ECB stimulus hits goal
The European Central Bank’s (ECB) 1.1 trillion euro (US$1.2 trillion) stimulus program is off to a running start. The bank on Tuesday said it has met its monthly goal of purchasing 60 billion euros in government and private-sector bonds, the first stage of an effort that is to last into next year. The ECB said it had bought 52.52 billion euros in government bonds since launching the effort on March 9. The 60 billion euro goal was reached by additional purchases of private-sector bonds.
MANUFACTURING
German slump deepens
German industrial orders fell again in February, the nation’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy said yesterday. Provisional official data showed a 0.9-percent month-on-month decline, following a sharp 2.6 percent drop in January, according to revised figures. For the three-month period covering December, January and February, which economists say provides a more accurate picture, factory orders rose 0.5 percent compared to the previous three months.
BANKING
ANZ wins fees appeal
Australia’s ANZ Banking Group Ltd has won an appeal against a court decision that late payment fees charged on credit cards were exorbitant and unlawful. The Australian Federal Court yesterday unanimously overturned a decision by Justice Michelle Gordon in February last year that ANZ had been illegally imposing penalties for late payments on credit cards. A lawyer representing customers in the class-action lawsuit, Andrew Watson, said yesterday’s decision will be appealed in the High Court.
INSURANCE
Manulife, DBS deal rumored
Canada’s Manulife Financial Corp is nearing a deal worth more than US$1 billion to sell insurance through the Asian network of Singaporean lender DBS Group Holdings Ltd, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing an unidentified person. The multiyear agreement, expected to be signed last night, would see Manulife make payments to DBS over the life of the contract, the newspaper reported.
SOFTWARE
Microsoft eyes autistic hires
Microsoft Corp has launched a pilot program to hire autistic workers at its headquarters in Washington state. “Each individual is different, some have amazing ability to retain information, think at a level of detail and depth or excel in math or code. It’s a talent pool that we want to continue to bring to Microsoft,” Mary Ellen Smith, a corporate vice president wrote in a company blog last week. Smith, who has a son with autism who is now 19, said the program builds on long-standing efforts at Microsoft to enlist people with disabilities.
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],”