DENMARK
Growth forecasts cut
The government yesterday cut its growth forecasts for this year and next as Scandinavia’s smallest economy struggles to cope with international headwinds exacerbated by Britain’s decision to leave the EU. GDP will expand 0.9 percent this year, compared with a May forecast for 1.1 percent, according to government documents. GDP next year will grow 1.5 percent, versus the 1.7 percent predicted just three months ago. “Overall, the growth outlook for the international economy has been downgraded slightly following the prospect of slightly slower growth in Europe in 2017 due to Brexit,” the government said in the outlook. To deal with the economic slowdown, the minority government of Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen is planning to cut taxes across income brackets, according to a posting on his Facebook page released late on Monday.
AIRLINES
China Southern’s profits fall
China Southern Airlines Co (中國南方航空) said its profits were dented by the yuan’s depreciation while two of China’s largest private carriers reported an increase in earnings amid a surge in travel. China Southern, Asia’s biggest by passengers, also said late on Monday that it would consider breaking away from a decade-old policy of not hedging for fuel to revive earnings as nimbler and private low-fare carriers raise competition in China, where three-government owned airlines have dominated the market. A weaker yuan following the surprise devaluation in August last year cost the Guangzhou-based carrier 1.5 billion yuan (US$225 million) in currency losses, a tenfold surge. Hainan Airlines Co (海南航空) and Spring Airlines Co (春秋航空) — China’s largest budget airline — both reported an increase in profit.
TRANSPORTATION
Uber, rival halt UAE services
Ride-hailing companies grounded their services in Abu Dhabi after reports police arrested drivers and impounded cars. Uber Technologies Inc and its Middle East competitor, Careem Networks, suspended services in the capital of the United Arab Emirates for a fourth day. Police arrested 50 drivers working for limousine companies and impounded 70 cars, Abu Dhabi-based The National reported late on Sunday. Mohamed al-Qamzi, general manager of TransAD, the city’s taxi regulator, said the companies had on occasion contravened regulations by offering trips at a lower price than licensed limousines, the newspaper reported. Uber and Careem described the suspension as temporary, without providing a reason for the halt. Uber said none of its drivers were arrested.
AVIATION
AirAsia to sell leasing unit
AirAsia Bhd expects to sell its aircraft-leasing unit as early as December as the largest customer for Airbus Group SE’s single-aisle jets aims to net as much as US$1 billion from the transaction and pare debt. Proceeds from the sale may be used to reduce debt or pay a dividend, chief executive officer Tony Fernandes said yesterday in a Bloomberg Television interview with Yvonne Man. AirAsia’s board approved the sale process for all or a substantial part of the unit, Asia Aviation Capital Ltd, the carrier said in a filing on Monday. “Depending on who’s the buyer, and there seems to be tremendous interest, we’ll likely divest all or maybe keep a minority interest for a period and sell out,” Fernandes said. The company named RHB Investment Bank Bhd, Credit Suisse Group AG and BNP Paribas SA as advisers for the transaction.
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