GREECE
Islands losing VAT discount
Mykonos, Santorini and Rhodes will be among the first islands to lose their preferential tax rates under Athens’ bailout deal, the government said on Monday. The islands — many of which lack airports and rely on tenuous maritime links to the mainland in winter — had until now enjoyed a 30 percent break on the value added tax (VAT) rate. As of Thursday, the three VAT rates of 6, 13 and 23 percent will apply on the three islands, as well as Naxos, Paros and Skiathos, as in the rest of the country, the Ministry of Finance said. The next islands to lose their VAT benefits will be announced on June 1 next year and Jan. 1 the following year, the ministry said.
DENMARK
Borrowing need raised
The government said it will need to borrow more than previously estimated as the debt office prepares to end an eight-month hiatus on bond auctions that has sapped liquidity from its benchmark debt market. The government will need to borrow 153 billion in kroner (US$23.5 billion) next year, 6.3 percent more than it first estimated, according to a statement published by the Ministry of Finance in Copenhagen late on Monday. The borrowing need will be 4.8 percent higher this year than previously calculated, or 132 billion kroner, the ministry said.
TRADE
WTO boss likes limited talks
Negotiators may increase chances of reaching deals if they focus on limited sectors of the economy rather than long-running global talks, WTO director-general Roberto Azevedo said. He said WTO members are unlikely to resolve disputes over farm subsidies and market access at a ministerial meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in December. Even so, the WTO has “often had success where we’ve taken more innovative approaches,” Azevedo said. Another “significant” step was a WTO accord this year to update the Information Technology Agreement, an accord to reduce tariffs on 201 technology products valued at US$1.3 trillion a year, he said.
AUTOMAKERS
More recalls possible
Seven more companies could be facing recalls because they use air bag inflators made by Takata Corp, according to letters they received last week from US safety regulators. So far about 23.4 million Takata driver and passenger air bag inflators have been recalled on 19.2 million US vehicles sold by 11 different companies, including Honda Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent letters to Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, Suzuki Motor Corp, Tesla Motors Inc, Volvo Trucks, Volkswagen AG and Spartan Motors Inc seeking information on which models have Takata inflators. As of Sept. 1, only 4.4 million air bag inflators had been replaced.
INTERNET
Facebook out briefly
Facebook Inc on Monday stumbled for the second time in a week, going out of service for slightly less than an hour. The social network was down for 42 minutes about mid-day in California, after being out of service for 12 minutes four days earlier, according to the Web site performance tracker currentlydown.com. Facebook did not disclose how many of its more than 1 billion users were affected by the outage. People took to Twitter during the outage, with #facebookdown jumping into a spot among the top trending hashtags.
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