BANKING
OBU assets grow 0.2%
The 61 offshore banking units (OBUs) of financial institutions operating in Taiwan had assets totaling US$196.679 billion last month, up US$361 million (0.2 percent) from October, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday. The OBUs of 38 local banks held US$174.13 billion in assets, while foreign banks’ 24 OBUs held US$22.549 billion, the central bank said. At the end of last month, the primary uses of funds of all OBUs were discounts and loans, amounting to US$80.572 billion, or 41 percent of total assets, the statement said.
EMPLOYMENT
Temp workers increase
Those with “atypical employment”— such as part-time, temporary and dispatch work — numbered 805,000 in May, accounting for 7.11 percent of total employment, statistics released on Thursday by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics showed. The figure represented an increase of 13,000 people from the same period last year, the agency said. Compared with 2008, the numbers increased by 155,000 people, or 6.45 percent, it added.
PAPER
TPPC appoints new chair
Taiwan Pulp and Paper Corp (TPPC, 台灣紙業) on Thursday appointed president Yu Mei-ling (余美玲) to replace Phil Hsu (許良宇) as chairman after Hsu suddenly passed away, a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said. The company did not specify the cause of Hsu’s death. Hsu, 38, was elected chairman in March following a bitter management battle between Yu and former chairman Chien Hung-wen (簡鴻文). Yu is to serve as chairman until June 27, 2020, the company said.
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
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
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
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