ECONOMY
NZ interest rate cut to 2.75%
New Zealand’s central bank on Thursday reduced its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.75 percent and indicated more cuts were likely. The 0.25 percent rate cut was the third quarter-point reduction in recent months and had been expected by most economists. Reserve Bank Governor Graeme Wheeler said the economy was growing at an annual rate of about 2 percent, down from about 4 percent last year. He said business and consumer confidence had weakened, while construction in Christchurch, which is rebuilding from a devastating 2011 earthquake, had reached a plateau.
CURRENCY
China reins in capital controls
China is tightening capital controls following a devaluation of its yuan, media reports said, as worries about financial outflows rise. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange had ordered financial institutions to increase checks and boost controls on foreign exchange transactions, especially over-invoicing of exports which is used to hide capital outflows, the Financial Times on Wednesday quoted unnamed sources and an internal memo as saying. “The main objective is to reduce volatility, curb capital outflows and limit depreciation pressure on the yuan,” DBS Bank’s Tommy Ong said.
ECONOMY
Brazil’s credit cut to junk
Standard & Poor’s cut Brazil’s sovereign credit rating to junk on Wednesday, citing the struggle by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s government to master growing debt and political turmoil. “We are lowering the long-term foreign and local currency ratings on Brazil to ‘BB+’ and ‘BBB-’ respectively,” the agency said in a statement. “The negative outlook reflects what we believe is a greater than one-in-three likelihood of a further downgrade due to a further deterioration of Brazil’s fiscal position,” the agency said.
EMPLOYMENT
Employment rate eases
Australian unemployment eased last month, official figures showed yesterday. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said the jobless rate dipped to 6.2 percent last month from 6.3 percent — matching expectations — thanks to a better-than-expected jump in new posts. The latest data showed the proportion of adults in work or looking for work, measured by the participation rate, softened to 65.0 percent from 65.1 percent in July, after surging in June.
ECONOMY
Swedish deflation deepens
Swedish deflation deepened last month, giving the central bank little respite in its struggle to revive price growth in the largest Nordic economy. Consumer prices fell an annual 0.2 percent last month, according to Statistics Sweden. They were seen declining 0.1 percent in a survey of analysts and 0.2 percent by the central bank. Excluding changes in interest costs, the annual rate fell to 0.8 percent from 0.9 percent in July.
ECONOMY
Turkey’s GDP expands
Turkey’s GDP expanded 3.8 percent in the April-to-June period, compared with a revised 2.5 percent in the previous quarter, the statistics agency said yesterday. That compared with a median estimate of 3.1 percent in a Bloomberg survey of 16 analysts. Seasonally adjusted output rose 1.3 percent from the previous quarter. Household demand, which makes up roughly two-thirds of GDP, grew 5.6 percent in the second quarter while public consumption expanded 7.2 percent, the agency said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by