VIETNAM
GDP up 6.4% on exports
Economic growth accelerated this quarter, boosted by foreign investments and rising exports. GDP rose 6.4 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, up from 5.78 percent in the previous three months, the General Statistics Office said yesterday. In the nine months through this month, the economy grew 5.93 percent, compared with the median estimate of 5.83 percent in a Bloomberg survey of four economists. Growth is being buoyed by rising foreign direct investment and exports, stronger credit demand and a slight recovery in agriculture following a crippling drought, the office said.
JAPAN
Retail beginning to slump
Retail sales fell for the first time in three months, signaling that consumer spending is struggling to maintain traction. Sales fell 1.1 percent last month from the previous month, according to a Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry report released yesterday. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for a 0.6 percent drop. Compared with a year earlier, they fell 2.1 percent.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Novo to cut 1,000 jobs
Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk says it plans to lay off about 1,000 employees globally to reduce operating costs because of “a challenging competitive environment, especially in its large US market.” One of the world’s leading makers of diabetes medicines says half the job cuts are expected to be in Denmark. Copenhagen-based Novo said the layoffs are likely to affect its research and development departments, headquarters staff functions and global commercial organization.
BANKING
California to cut Wells ties
California state Treasurer John Chiang on Wednesday said that he is suspending some of the state’s most profitable lines of business with Wells Fargo amid allegations bank employees opened millions of accounts without customers’ permission. The announcement by the nation’s largest issuer of municipal debt reflects the growing political pressure on the banking giant since it agreed to pay US$185 million to settle the allegations. The sanctions apply to only a portion of California’s business with Wells Fargo.
TRANSPORTATION
Fosun buys controlling stake
Fosun Group (復星集團) will become the first private Chinese company to take a controlling stake in a high-speed railway project with the government, after agreeing to invest in a 46.2 billion yuan (US$6.9 billion) venture. Shanghai Fosun High Technology Co (上海復星高科技) signed an agreement with the Zhejiang provincial government, the company said on Wednesday. It did not disclose its stake. The project, a 270km link between Hangzhou and Taizhou, is to be financed through Sunvision Capital, a public-private partnership-focused fund owned by Fosun. Sunvision has a project pipeline worth almost 500 billion yuan across China, according to the statement.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple, Deloitte to join forces
Apple Inc on Wednesday announced an alliance with professional services group Deloitte to get more businesses using iPhones and iPads as workplace tools. Deloitte is creating an Apple practice with more than 5,000 strategic advisers devoted to helping businesses adopt new work styles using the technology giant’s mobile devices and software, the companies said in a joint release.
NORWAY
Calls for investment denied
The country’s US$890 billion wealth fund shrugged off a call to increase emerging market investments after it built up a position of about 10 percent in the world’s fastest-growing economies in the past four years. “There are limits to such an allocation,” Egil Matsen, the central bank deputy governor who is in charge of overseeing the fund, said in an interview on Wednesday in Bergen, Norway. “We are comfortable with the geographic distribution of the fund now.” The fund has slowed an expansion into emerging markets in a shift that started in 2012. It had 9.5 percent of its equity holdings in emerging markets, with China the largest investment, followed by Taiwan and India, according to its second-quarter report.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Samsung Biologics gets nod
Samsung Biologics Co, the drugmaking arm of the South Korean conglomerate, received approval to list its shares in South Korea, allowing it to move ahead with an initial public offering (IPO) that would help it expand in a lucrative pharmaceutical market. Samsung Biologics, which manufactures complex drugs called biologics for drug companies, has sought to ramp up its presence in the growing market for biopharmaceutical medicines. The global biologic medicines market is projected to exceed US$390 billion by 2020, according to an IMS Consulting Group report funded by Novartis. The South Korean stock exchange did not specify the potential size or timing of the IPO.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure