SOVEREIGN DEBT
Fitch downgrades Venezuela
Fitch Ratings Inc on Tuesday downgraded cash-strapped Venezuela to “restricted default” over its failure to make overdue payments on its sovereign bonds. “Fitch Ratings has downgraded Venezuela’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating [IDR] to ‘RD’ [restricted default] from ‘C’ and affirmed the long-term local currency IDR at ‘CC,’” the agency said in a statement. The downgrade “reflects the failure of bondholders to receive overdue interest payments on Venezuela’s sovereign bonds maturing Oct. 13, 2019, and Oct. 13, 2024, by the end of the 30-day grace period that ended on Nov. 13, 2017,” it said.
BANKING
HSBC unit to pay French fine
French financial prosecutors said Switzerland-based HSBC Private Bank Holdings (Suisse) SA has agreed to pay 300 million euros (US$354.7 million) to France to close a tax fraud case, a first in the country. In a written statement, prosecutors said a Paris court on Tuesday approved the agreement under an anti-corruption law introduced last year. Under the deal, the bank acknowledges “the existence of the alleged facts.” HSBC Holdings PLC’s Swiss bank was under investigation for helping clients illegally avoid paying taxes worth 1.6 billion euros to the French government in 2006 and 2007. A former employee gave the data to French authorities in 2008.
AUTOMAKERS
Volkswagen offices raided
Prosecutors and tax authorities on Tuesday raided the offices of several senior officials of Volkswagen AG, the German automaker said. Investigators searched the offices of supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch, finance chief Frank Witter and human resources head Karlheinz Blessing, a Volkswagen spokesman said. Files and computers were seized. The raid was related to suspicions of overpayments for works council chief Bernd Osterloh, the spokesman said. Osterloh’s office was also searched.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Khartoum to reform rates
Sudan is taking steps to close the gap between its official and unofficial currency rates and scrap subsidies by the end of 2019 to win foreign investment after US sanctions ended, Sudanese Minister of State for Finance Magdi Hassan Yassin told reporters on Tuesday. Washington last month suspended 20-year sanctions and lifted a trade embargo, because it decided that Sudan had made progress on counterterrorism cooperation and on internal conflicts. It also unfroze assets and removed financial restrictions. Sudan is hoping the measures will help it get back on its feet after years of hardship caused partly by the secession of the south in 2011, when it lost three-quarters of its oil output, its main source of foreign currency.
PETROLEUM
Curbs should continue: UAE
OPEC and allied oil producers should extend their production cuts beyond March next year to help rebalance the market, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said, adding weight to a gathering consensus for longer reductions in output among participants in the global accord. The UAE favors maintaining the cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the first quarter of next year, Emirati Minister of Energy Suhail Al Mazroui said. The fourth-largest member of OPEC staked out its position a day after OPEC secretary-general Mohammed Barkindo said that caps on output are the “only viable option” to restore stability to the market.
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],”