JAPAN
Forecast cuts expected
The central bank this month is to cut its forecast for both economic growth and inflation amid a slowdown in the global economy and cheaper commodities, a leading newspaper said yesterday. The Bank of Japan is to unveil the downward revisions in its biannual outlook for economic activity and prices report, which is due out on Oct. 30, the Nikkei business daily said. Bank policymakers are to downgrade the forecast for economic growth from 1.7 percent to about 1 percent for the fiscal year to March next year, the daily said, adding that the following fiscal year’s growth estimate would also be lowered from 1.5 percent.
SPAIN
S&P raises rating
Standard & Poor’s on Friday raised Spain’s debt rating by one notch to “BBB+,” lauding government labor market reforms that improved the nation’s economic prospects. Along with announcing the upgrade with a stable outlook, the agency raised its forecasts for annual growth from this year to 2017 from 2.2 percent in its previous forecasts in April to an average of 2.7 percent. S&P predicted exports will represent about 34 percent of GDP by the end of this year, up from 25 percent in 2008.
ARGENTINA
Debt payment to be made
Buenos Aries on Monday is to repay US$5.9 billion of its debt in keeping with its repayment schedule, Minister of the Economy Axel Kicillof said on Friday. “We will follow this deadline as we have done for years. It is the largest payment in one installment in a decade,” Kicillof said. The payment is to be made by drawing on the nation’s foreign-exchange reserves, which showed a balance of US$32.5 billion on Friday. A longstanding dispute over the debt with US hedge funds remains.
AIRLINES
Air France to cut jobs
Details emerged on Friday of Air France’s alternative restructuring plan, including 2,900 job cuts and possibly the first forced layoffs, as the French government publicly backed the airline as it faces off with unions. Air France-KLM’s management on Thursday gave a green light to alternative restructuring plans after negotiations with its pilots’ union on an initial cost savings plan failed. The former national airline has shed more than 6,000 jobs in recent years, nearly 10 percent of its workforce. Chief executive Alexandre de Juniac said he “favored voluntary departures” and that forced layoffs would be a case of “last resort” as the airline retires 14 long-haul planes and reduces flights.
HEALTHCARE
Caner drug approved
The first combination of breakthrough drugs that boost the immune system to fight cancer has been approved, giving maker Bristol-Myers Squibb an early lead over competitors testing their own combinations in a pharmaceutical gold rush of sorts. The US Food and Drug Administration has given accelerated approval to a regimen combining the New York-based drugmaker’s two immuno-oncology drugs, Opdivo and Yervoy, to treat patients with advanced melanoma who have a particular genetic variation. Together, the drugs slowed or temporarily stopped cancer progression in 60 percent of patients, versus 11 percent who only received Yervoy, in a study.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts