INDIA
GDP may slow to 7.1%
India’s economic growth is estimated to slow to 7.1 percent in the current fiscal year ending March 31 compared with 7.6 percent last year, the first indicator of the impact of the demonetization drive. The data released on Friday by the Indian Central Statistics Office comes as the nation has seen a sharp cash shortage following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprise announcement on Nov. 8 pulling the nation’s highest value bank notes out of circulation. Experts have said the move could push GDP growth to below 6.5 percent this year as demonetization has hit all parts of the economy.
MACROECONOMY
EU ends year strong
Further evidence has emerged to show that the 19-country eurozone economy ended strongly last year. In a wide-ranging survey of economic activity across the bloc, the EU found sentiment running at near six-year highs. Its economic sentiment indicator rose 1.2 points to 107.8, its highest level since March 2011. Friday’s survey found confidence up across sectors, from retail to industry, and in most countries. Italy, though, was flat, and Spain suffered a retreat.
TRADE
Canada posts surplus
Canada on Friday posted its first trade surplus in more than two years, driven by record exports to countries other than the US. The small trade surplus for November amounted to C$526 million (US$397 million), the first since September 2014, following a C$1 billion deficit in October, Statistics Canada said. The news came as a surprise after analysts had widely agreed on expectations of a C$1.6 billion deficit.
CONSUMER GOODS
14 convicted over sterilizer
The Seoul Central District Court on Friday convicted 14 people — including a former head of the local unit of British consumer goods maker Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC — over the sale of humidifier sterilizers linked to deadly lung injuries, sentencing the former boss to seven years in prison. The court found Shin Hyun-woo guilty of criminal negligence for failing to inspect the safety of the product and allowing its sale, and false labeling for marketing it as safe, a spokeswoman for Reckitt said.
? HEALTH
Theranos to cut jobs by 41%
Theranos Inc, the embattled blood-testing company, is to fire about 41 percent of its workers after months of regulatory setbacks, lawsuits and scrutiny. The Silicon Valley start-up will eliminate 155 positions, leaving 220 employees who will focus on developing a new product, a tabletop blood testing product called the miniLab. It is the second wave of layoffs for Theranos, which in October fired 340 workers and said it would close its testing labs.
COMMODITIES
Abidjan blocks cocoa sales
Trucks carrying thousands of tonnes of cocoa have been blocked in the main port of Ivory Coast, the world’s top producer, as authorities have temporarily stalled exports, sources said on Friday. There are nearly “700 trucks blocked here at the port in Abidjan,” said Moussa Kone, head of the national cocoa producers’ union. He said trucks filled with cocoa have also been stranded in San Pedro, the nation’s second port, for several days.
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
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
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