VIETNAM
FDI to reach record high
Disbursed foreign direct investment (FDI) is forecast to rise to a record this year as the government steps up efforts to attract factories. Disbursed FDI is to exceed US$16 billion this year, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Dang Huy Dong said on Thursday in an interview in Hanoi. Pledged foreign investment is to increase up to US$28 billion, he said. “FDI growth is very impressive so far this year and we expect it to continue,” Dong said. “We aim to draw more FDI into areas including export-oriented, energy and high-technology” sectors by building a more business-friendly environment, he said.
GERMANY
Factory orders up in June
Factory orders climbed 1 percent in June compared with the previous month thanks to a strong rise in domestic demand. The Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy yesterday said that domestic orders were up 5.1 percent in June, while those from abroad were down 2 percent. The rise in the overall figure followed a 1.1 percent increase in May. The ministry said that, for the entire second quarter, orders were 0.8 percent higher than in the first quarter.
UNITED KINGDOM
RBS posts profit in Q2
The Royal Bank of Scotland PLC (RBS) has swung to a profit in the second quarter as the taxpayer-owned bank reduced charges for past misdeeds. RBS said it posted net income of £680 million (US$893.9 million) after a loss of £1.08 billion in the same period last year. Charges for litigation and conduct issues fell to £342 million in the quarter, from £1.28 billion a year earlier. Chief executive officer Ross McEwan said the results show RBS is growing income, reducing costs and improving returns for shareholders.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts