CHINA
Home-price recovery slows
The home-price recovery slowed last month, as a supply glut in less-prosperous cities challenges the authorities’ efforts to revive the residential market with interest-rate cuts and easing of mortgage restrictions. New-home prices increased in 27 cities, 12 fewer than last month, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. Prices dropped in 33 cities, compared with 21 in September, and were unchanged in 10. The average price of the 70 cities rose 0.07 percent last month from September, the slowest monthly gain since June, according to Bloomberg calculations based on official data.
UNITED STATES
CPI increases 0.2 percent
Consumer prices increased last month after two straight months of declines as the cost of healthcare and other services rose, evidence of firming inflation that further supports views that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates next month. The Department of Labor on Tuesday said its Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.2 percent last month, reversing September’s 0.2 percent drop. In the 12 months through last month, the CPI advanced 0.2 percent after being unchanged in September.
ARGENTINA
Police raid central bank
Police raided the central bank on the orders of a judge on Tuesday, the bank said, days after a state prosecutor accused the regulator’s president of selling US dollar reserves at a rate below that on the international futures market. The bank said it had already turned over the information and documents requested by Judge Claudio Bonadio ahead of the police operation.
EUROPEAN UNION
Youth job program launched
More than 100,000 new apprenticeships, trainee slots and entry-level jobs are to be created by 2017 under a new effort to reduce youth unemployment, EU Labor Commissioner Marianne Thyssen said in a speech in Brussels on Tuesday. The EU aims to jump-start hiring by creating 10,000 business-education partnerships with the European Business Network for Corporate Social Responsibility, a group whose members include corporations and national associations. Unemployment across the 28-nation union stood at 20.1 percent for under-25 job seekers in September, and 22.1 percent within the 19-nation eurozone.
ENERGY
Air Liquide to buy Airgas
France’s Air Liquide SA on Tuesday said that it is to acquire Airgas Inc for US$13.4 billion to build the world’s largest industrial gas company. Air Liquide said the transaction would significantly enhance its position in the US, the world’s leading market for industrial gases. It catapults Air Liquide past Germany’s Linde AG as the industry’s largest company by revenue. Annual revenues of the two merging companies are about US$20.5 billion.
BANKING
Baidu plans online bank
Search engine Baidu Inc (百度) plans to launch an online bank with Citic Group (中信投資集團), the two companies said yesterday. The Baixin Bank (百信銀行), a venture between Baidu and China Citic Bank (中信銀行), would be the country’s first lender formed by an Internet company and a traditional bank, Baidu said in a statement. The new bank would have 2 billion yuan (US$313 million) in registered capital.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last