GREECE
No need for ‘haircut’: IMF
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin that she sees no need for a “haircut” of Greek debt, but that Athens needs to make “significant progress” on reforms. Lagarde on Wednesday told Germany’s ARD television the IMF was “much more confident after the progress made by the Greek authorities,” but that reforms were urgently needed in the country’s pension and income tax systems, as well as in other areas. Lagarde said she did see the need for debt restructuring to be implemented at the end of the current bailout program as well as possible interest rate cuts. Athens on Monday agreed to implement further reforms beginning in 2019, after the country’s current third bailout has ended.
UNITED STATES
Fed might hike rates ‘soon’
Many US Federal Reserve policymakers said it might be appropriate to raise interest rates again “fairly soon,” according to the minutes of the Fed’s last policy meeting released on Wednesday. The minutes of the Jan. 31 to Feb. 1 discussion, at which the US central bank voted to keep rates unchanged, also showed the depth of uncertainty at the Fed over the lack of clarity on US President Donald Trump’s economic program. “Many participants expressed the view that it might be appropriate to raise the federal funds rate again fairly soon if incoming information on the labor market and inflation was in line with or stronger than their current expectations,” the Fed said in the minutes.
GERMANY
Consumer mood to sour: poll
Consumer mood looks set to darken next month as concerns about rising inflation and Trump’s protectionist policies start to bite, a key survey found yesterday. Market research firm GfK said its forward-looking index for next month dipped to 10 points from 10.2 this month, slightly below analyst expectations. Sub-indices measuring consumer sentiment about the economic situation, income expectations and readiness to spend money all fell back in the latest survey of about 2,000 people.
MEXICO
Pre-Trump growth satisfies
The nation enjoyed solid economic growth last year before uncertainty struck over the impact of US President Donald Trump’s trade policies, official data showed on Wednesday. The 2.3 percent growth last year was in line with expectations, but slightly less than the previous year’s 2.5 percent expansion, the National Statistics Institute said. The data showed that in the fourth quarter, growth in Latin America’s second-biggest economy slowed to 0.7 percent from 1 percent the previous quarter.
BRAZIL
Central bank cuts rates
The central bank on Wednesday slashed its key interest rate further to try to yank Latin America’s biggest economy out of its worst recession in a century. The central bank cut the benchmark rate by 0.75 percentage points to 12.25 percent — still one of the world’s highest. It was the fourth such cut in a row, as inflation falls, but the economy shows few signs of recovering any time soon from two years of decline. The economy shrank 3.5 percent in 2015 and an estimated 3.6 percent last year. The bank’s own official growth forecast for this year stands at 0.8 percent.
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
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],”