BREXIT
Derivatives control pushed
The EU is pushing ahead with plans to assert control over the clearing of euro-denominated derivatives, a politically charged step that could force firms to move from London to the EU after Brexit. The European Commission was set yesterday to propose that firms deemed systemically important to the EU financial system could be required to accept direct oversight by the bloc’s authorities, or be forced to move their euro-clearing operations to a location inside the EU, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The push to “bring home” euro clearing, made forcefully by the European Parliament, will clearly be one of the EU’s demands in the Brexit talks, Bruegel think tank director Guntram Wolff said.
GREECE
ECB unlikely to want bonds
The European Central Bank (ECB) is unlikely to include Greek bonds in its asset-purchase program for the foreseeable future, a person familiar with the matter said, as European creditors are not prepared to offer substantially easier repayment terms on bailout loans to improve the nation’s debt outlook. Euro-area finance ministers are to meet in Luxembourg tomorrow to discuss debt-relief measures that the ECB has said are needed before it will consider purchasing Greek bonds. They are expected to complete a review of Athens’s rescue program that would allow for the disbursement of at least 7.4 billion euros (US$8.3 billion) in aid needed for a similar amount of bond repayments next month.
ENTERTAINMENT
Ubisoft, Nintendo stars unite
Video game giants Ubisoft and Nintendo have teamed up to put their respective stars, Raving Rabbids and Mario, together in a new role-playing adventure. Japan’s Nintendo has agreed to lend France’s Ubisoft its famous moustachioed plumber Mario for the game, due out in late August on the Switch console. The two companies spent three years working on the project, said Xavier Poix, managing director of Ubisoft’s French studios. It is the first time Nintendo agreed to lend characters from the Mario galaxy to a non-Japanese company, Poix said. In another first, Mario will carry a weapon, Poix said.
MACROECONOMICS
Paris to miss deficit target
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe yesterday said there is a very strong possibility that the nation will miss its deficit target for this year because of the previous government’s lax spending. The government has been aiming to bring the deficit down to 2.8 percent of GDP this year, below the 3 percent threshold required by eurozone rules. Philippe told franceinfo radio there was “an extremely high risk” that the government would fail to do so. He blamed budget-busting spending by former French president Francois Hollande’s government. The government’s auditors, the Cour des Comptes, is to submit a report next month which will determine “whether we are on a path to 2.8 percent or whether we are higher,” Philippe said.
TAXES
Jakarta, Google reach deal
Indonesia has reached a settlement with Alphabet Inc’s Google over a long-running tax dispute, Indonesian Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati said yesterday. There was “an agreement with them based on 2016, but we can’t disclose the figure,” she said, declining to provide details. Officials last year said Google owed about 5 trillion rupiah (US$376 million) in taxes and penalties for 2015, while documents show it paid 5.2 billion rupiah in taxes.
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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day