Kuwait is to issue billions of dollars worth of bonds in international markets to finance a budget deficit resulting from low oil prices, a report said yesterday.
Kuwaiti Minister of Finance Anas al-Saleh said Kuwait is to issue US dollar-denominated sovereign bonds of up to US$9.6 billion during the fiscal year March 31 next year, al-Qabas newspaper reported.
This comes on top of a US$6.6 billion domestic debt program which is already under way.
Kuwait, like other energy-rich Gulf Cooperation Council states, has already taken on tens of billions of dollars in foreign debt to finance budget shortfalls.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and United Arab Emirates have sold bonds or taken syndicated loans to plug their deficits.
The minister’s decree did not specify the share of Islamic sukuk bonds in the planned issue.
It is to be the country’s first foreign debt in about two decades.
Kuwait recorded a budget deficit of US$15 billion last fiscal year, breaking a 16-year run of surpluses.
Oil income contributed about 95 percent of public revenues in those years. During the past two years, oil has lost about 60 percent of its value.
The emirate, home to 1.3 million Kuwaitis and 3 million foreigners, is also projecting a budget shortfall of US$29 billion this fiscal year.
During surplus years, Kuwait piled up about US$600 billion in its sovereign wealth fund in holdings mostly in the US, Europe and Asia.
Like its Gulf peers, Kuwait has taken some austerity measures that include liberalizing prices of diesel and kerosene and hiking gasoline prices.
A dispute over gasoline prices led to parliament being dissolved and snap polls set for Nov. 26.
Parliament a few months ago approved a law to raise heavily subsidized power and water fees, but exempted citizens.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six