MACROECONOMICS
UK mulls rate rise
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has indicated that Britain’s record-low interest rates could start to rise at the turn of the year. Carney on Thursday said that he expected the key rate to climb over the next three years from its current level of 0.5 percent — where it has stood for more than six years to stimulate growth after the worldwide economic downturn of 2008. Carney said that rates would rise slowly before reaching a level that is about half as high as its historical average of 5 percent.
INVESTMENTS
China FDI climbs 8%
China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows rose 8 percent in the first half from the same period last year, a Chinese Ministry of Commerce official said yesterday. Investment into China’s fast-growing services sector jumped 23 percent in the first half from the same period last year, accounting for more than 60 percent of the period’s total FDI, Chinese Assistant Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen (王受文) said at a news conference. The ministry did not announce the exact investment value or the monthly figures for last month. Outbound direct investment soared 29.2 percent to US$56 billion in the first six months from last year, data showed.
MINING
S African wage talks stuck
South African gold-mine workers and bosses are stuck “far apart” in their wage talks as a new offer by companies failed to impress unions, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said. Companies including AngloGold Ashanti Ltd, Sibanye Gold Ltd and Harmony Gold Mining Co offered more compensation for lost jobs, as well as raising medical payments and some workers’ retirement ages, the Chamber of Mines said in a statement on Thursday. The offer is “meaningless” as it does not talk about wages, NUM spokesman Livhuwani Mammburu said. NUM is asking for an 80 percent increase in base pay for entry-level underground workers who now earn about 5,800 rand (US$470) per month. The companies have offered a gain of as much as 13 percent.
TELECOMS
Ericsson’s profits fall
Swedish wireless equipment maker Ericsson AB yesterday said broadband demand in North America has stabilized but remains low, with second-quarter net profit falling 20 percent to 2.1 billion kronor (US$245.3 million). Overall, net sales in the second quarter grew 11 percent to 60.7 billion kronor, driven by strong development in the network segment, Ericsson said. Ericsson CEO Hans Vestberg said that the mobile broadband business in North America stabilized in the April-to-June period, but at a lower level than a year ago. The decline was partly offset by an increased pace of 4G deployments in China, he added.
BANKING
Citi profit beats estimates
Citigroup Inc, the third biggest bank in the US, posted earnings that beat analysts’ estimates, as CEO Michael Corbat cut expenses. Second-quarter net profit jumped to US$4.85 billion, or US$1.51 per share, from US$181 million, or US$0.03 per share, in the same period last year, the New York-based lender said on Thursday. Excluding accounting adjustments and one-time items, profit was US$1.45 per share, beating the US$1.34 average estimate of 27 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Total revenue, excluding accounting adjustments, fell 1.5 percent to US$19.2 billion from a year earlier, in line with analysts’ estimates.
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day