MACROECONOMICS
Puerto Rico misses deadline
Puerto Rico failed to submit audited financial statements for fiscal 2014 by its self-imposed Saturday deadline, according to a US Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board filing. The commonwealth’s annual report for the fiscal year ended June 30 last year was 181 days late, the longest that Puerto Rico has been overdue on its yearly audited statements since at least 2000, according to Daniel Hanson, an analyst at Height Securities, a broker dealer based in Washington. The commonwealth is tardy because certain agencies have yet to submit reports and an independent auditor is conducting additional procedures given Puerto Rico’s liquidity risk, according to the filing posted late on Friday on the board’s Web site. The commonwealth’s economy has struggled to grow since 2006. It’s seeking to reduce its US$73 billion debt load by negotiating with investors.
UNITED STATES
BP halts appeals process
BP has decided to end its effort to recoup money it paid in economic damage claims to businesses and individuals under a settlement arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill stemming from a well blowout and the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. BP on Friday filed a motion to withdraw an appeal over what it said were overpayments worth hundreds of millions of dollars and involving more than 790 businesses. The appeal was before the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. After a 2012 settlement with businesses and individuals was approved, BP said that the claims administrator had not been correctly matching business’ revenues and expenses, resulting in overpayments. A court eventually ordered a new calculation method, but refused to order restitution of payments already made. Geoff Morrell, a BP spokesman, said the firm decided to withdraw its appeal to help “wind down” the claims program.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda recalls some SUVs
American Honda Motor Co is recalling some 2016 CR-V SUVs to replace Takata air bags that could rupture in a crash and send metal fragments flying. The recall affects just 515 of the small sport utility vehicles, and Honda said only 30 were sold before dealers were told to stop sales. US officials last month said that eight people have died and 98 others have been injured by air bag inflators that explode with too much force, sending shrapnel into car occupants. Recalls have covered about 19 million cars made by 12 different car and truck manufacturers. The company late on Friday said that the defect covered by the new recall appears to be different from previous defects, but that it could still result in metal fragments hitting the driver or passengers.
ROMANIA
Oldest coal mine closes
The oldest coal mine in Romania and until now the deepest in Europe, with shafts going down as far as 940m, closed on Friday, ending production at what was once a proud symbol of the country’s coal industry. The Petrila mine opened in 1859 when the country was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It hit peak production in 1983 when workers extracted 1.2 million tonnes of coal — falling to just 110,000 tonnes last year. Romania committed itself four years ago to ending state subsidies for coal production and turning instead to greener energy sources. Petrila pit’s equipment, including a giant Siemens motor that has been running since 1945, is scheduled be sold for scrap metal next year and most of its buildings demolished.
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