GERMANY
GDP grows by 0.4%
Strong foreign trade and buoyant consumption drove Europe’s largest economy to better-than-expected growth in the second quarter, federal statistics office Destatis said yesterday. GDP grew by 0.4 percent between April and June, adjusted for seasonal, calendar and price effects — twice as fast as analysts surveyed by Factset predicted. However, the final figure, which confirmed a preliminary Destatis reading earlier this month, represented a slowdown from the unexpectedly strong 0.7 percent expansion in the first quarter.
TRANSPORTATION
Iran firms eye canal pie
Iranian firms want to participate in the construction of a massive canal across Nicaragua that a Chinese company has vowed to build, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed Javad Zarif said on Tuesday. Representatives of private Iranian companies accompanying Zarif on a visit to Nicaragua’s capital discussed the possibility of getting a slice of the US$50 billion project, the minister told a news conference. The ambitious plan calls for a waterway linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans that would rival the century-old one in Panama, which has recently been expanded to take bigger ships. Work on Nicaragua’s canal, meant to have started two years ago, has not begun.
AUTOMAKERS
VW resolves dispute
Volkswagen AG and two of its parts suppliers on Tuesday resolved a contract dispute that had hit output at more than half of the carmaker’s German plants. After more than 20 hours of negotiations that went on through the night, VW said it had settled its differences with CarTrim, which makes seats, and ES Automobilguss, which produces cast iron parts needed to make gearboxes, but gave no details. The suppliers were seeking compensation for lost revenue they said ran into tens of millions of euros after VW canceled a contract. VW on Tuesday said that the suppliers had agreed to start delivering parts again and the affected plants would gradually resume production.
MANUFACTURING
Honda normalizes production
Honda Motor Co has resumed full production of motorcycles at a Japanese plant that was idled by major earthquakes in April. The company yesterday said that it had “virtually normalized” production at a factory in Kumamoto, on the southern island of Kyushu, as of Tuesday. Honda said it was still working to fully stabilize its supply network for engine parts for mini vehicles, transferring some of the production from Kumamoto to a factory Suzuka, in eastern Japan. The motorcycle plant was severely damaged and initially it was unsafe to go inside to inspect it due to repeated aftershocks.
AGRIBUSINESS
COFCO to buy out Nidera
State-owned China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corp (COFCO, 中國糧油集團) will buy out minority shareholders in Netherlands-based commodity trader Nidera BV and take full ownership of the company, it said, as it seeks to become an agribusiness powerhouse. COFCO’s deal to buy out the remaining 49 percent of Nidera, which trades grains and soybeans among other agricultural commodities, comes two years after it bought more than half of the company for US$1.2 billion. Financial terms of the new deal, which awaits regulatory approval, were not disclosed.
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
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San