NEW ZEALAND
Orr to head central bank
Adrian Orr is to oversee the biggest overhaul of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand since it pioneered inflation targeting in the early 1990s. Orr, 54, is to begin a five-year term as governor of the central bank on March 27, Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in Wellington yesterday. A former deputy governor and chief economist at the central bank, Orr currently heads the government’s sovereign wealth fund, which has swelled to more than NZ$37 billion (US$25.61 billion) under his decade-long leadership. The New Zealand dollar jumped on Orr’s appointment as traders bet he would not allow the goals of full employment and price stability to weaken the central bank’s inflation-fighting resolve.
TURKEY
Resilient output ups growth
The economy grew by a strong 11.1 percent in the third quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, official statistics showed yesterday, with the high reading driven by one-off effects, as well as resilient output. The figure was well above the consensus market forecast, which had been for 10 percent growth. Growth was driven by construction and services, as well as a strong rise in exports, official data published by the Statistics Institute showed. Analysts said ahead of the data release that the third-quarter figure would be particularly strong as last year’s comparative period was especially weak due to the effects of the July 15 failed coup and a long religious holiday. The economy grew by 1.2 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter on a seasonally adjusted basis, the institute said. QNB Finansbank Research said its end of year forecast was for 6.3 percent GDP growth.
UNITED KINGDOM
Festive spending tumbles
Squeezed consumers reined in Christmas travel plans and bought fewer new cars last month, setting the stage for the first fall in festive spending in five years, credit card company Visa said yesterday. The downbeat message came alongside a cut by the Chambers of Commerce to its economic outlook for the next two years as the business organization sees inflation rising faster than pay for the next two years. Visa said inflation-adjusted consumer spending last month was 0.9 percent lower than last year. This was a smaller decline than October’s 2.1 percent drop, but still enough to make annual falls in spending likely for the first time since 2012 for both the Christmas season and this year overall, the company said.
AUTOMAKERS
BYD to build cars in Morocco
Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD Co (比亞迪) on Saturday signed an agreement to open a factory near the Moroccan city of Tangiers to build battery-powered vehicles, officials said. BYD is to become the third car manufacturer, after Renault SA and PPSA Peugeot Citroen of France, to construct cars in the North African state. The memorandum of understanding was signed at the royal palace in the coastal city of Casablanca in the presence of King Mohammed VI and BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu (王傳福), whose company is backed by US investor Warren Buffett. The factory in the new Mohammed VI Tangier Tech City, part of a project between China and Morocco, is to produce electric cars, buses and trucks at a 50-hectare site employing 2,500 people, the project directors said.
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
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
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