INDONESIA
Trade surplus surges
Indonesia posted a trade surplus of US$1.33 billion last month, its largest in more than a year and a half, as exports and imports plunged. Outbound shipments fell 19.23 percent year-on-year to US$11.41 billion, while inbound shipments plunged 28.44 percent to US$10.08 billion. The surplus was the biggest since December 2013 and more than double the US$601 million forecast from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. The steep fall in exports and imports comes as economic activity continues to slow in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. Economic growth fell to a six-year low of 4.7 percent in the second quarter.
LOGISTICS
Brookfield buys Asciano
Canada’s Brookfield Infrastructure Partners yesterday said it hoped to use its US$6.6 billion purchase for Australian ports and rail operator Asciano to expand further in the region. The cash and stock transaction is the Canadian asset manager’s largest takeover, adding Asciano’s Australian container terminals to Brookfield’s hubs in North America and Europe. Asciano’s rail operations also pair well with Brookfield’s Australian and Brazilian logistics businesses, Brookfield chief executive Sam Pollock said.
CURRENCIES
Sudanese pound plunges
The Sudanese pound has hit a new low against the US dollar on the black market because of a shortage of foreign currency, traders said on Monday. They said the US dollar was selling at 10 Sudanese pounds for the first time, down from 9.5 last week. Sudan’s economy suffered when South Sudan gained independence in 2011, with the country losing nearly three quarters of its oil resources.
AVIATION
Airport runs on solar power
An airport in the south of India is the world’s first to run completely on solar energy following commissioning of a 12-megawatt project overseen by Bosch Ltd. The undertaking, at Cochin International Airport, is estimated to generate more than 50,000 units of electricity daily and will make the airport grid-power neutral, Bosch said in a news release yesterday. India currently has 4 gigawatts of solar capacity and aims to reach 100 gigawatts by 2022.
ENERGY
Wood Group axes jobs
Britain energy services company Wood Group yesterday said it had cut its headcount by 13 percent since the end of last year amid an oil-price collapse. The action, equivalent to an employee reduction of about 5,000, mirrors plans by several oil services groups and explorers as crude prices have tumbled by more than half in value over the past year. Wood Group, heavily present in the North Sea and the Americas, added that its net profit fell 17 percent to US$116.8 million in the six months to the end of June compared with the first half of last year.
WAGES
Koreas agree on pay hike
South Korea yesterday said it had reached agreement with North Korea on a minimum wage hike for North Korean workers at their Kaesong joint economic zone, ending a six-month dispute. The 5 percent hike will increase the minimum workers’ wage from US$70.35 a month to US$73.87, a spokesman for Seoul’s Unification Ministry said. The industrial estate, which lies just 10km over the border in the North, hosts about 120 South Korean firms employing about 53,000 North Korean workers.
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