CHINA
Credit growth too fast: IMF
The nation has made progress on reforms, but still should allow market forces to play a more decisive role and accelerate its opening up to the rest of the world, the IMF said yesterday. While credit growth has slowed, it remains too fast, and policymakers should de-emphasize growth targets and focus on higher-quality growth, the fund said in a statement. The economic expansion would likely slow to 6.6 percent this year and to about 5.5 percent by 2023, the IMF said.
GERMANY
Retail sales beat forecasts
Retail sales last month rose more than expected after four consecutive monthly drops, data showed yesterday. The private consumption data showed retail sales rose by 2.3 percent on the month in real terms, the Federal Statistics Office said. It was the strongest monthly increase since October 2016 and beat the Reuters consensus forecast of a 0.7 percent rise. On the year, retail rose by 1.2 percent, slightly weaker than the Reuters consensus forecast of a 1.3 percent increase.
AVIATION
Longest flight to return
Singapore Airlines Ltd yesterday said that it would relaunch the world’s longest commercial flight in October, a journey of almost 19 hours from the city-state to the New York City area, but it would not be available to economy travelers. The daily, non-stop journey from Singapore Changi Airport to Newark Airport in New Jersey would cover about 16,700km and take about 18 hours and 45 minutes, the airline said in a statement. The current record holder is Qatar Airways Ltd Flight 921 from Auckland to Doha, which takes 17 hours and 40 minutes.
ADVERTISING
Sorrell invests in shell firm
Martin Sorrell, the recently ousted boss of WPP PLC, has taken control of a listed shell company to use it as a vehicle to buy marketing firms, replicating the approach he took in the 1980s to build the world’s biggest advertising group. Sorrell plans to invest ￡40 million (US$53 million) of his own money into Derriston Capital, a little-known two-year-old company, which would be renamed S4 Capital, he said in a statement.
? AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai to invest in Alabama
Hyundai Motor Co is to invest US$388 million to expand and upgrade its engine manufacturing operations in Montgomery, Alabama, and create 50 new jobs. The Seoul-based automaker is to spend about US$40 million to build a new engine-head machining facility that would be completed in November and be operational by the middle of next year, it said in a statement. The rest of the investment is to go toward equipment and updating its engine plant to support production of Sonata and Elantra sedans.
ENERGY
Canada buys pipeline
The Canadian government on Tuesday said it is buying a controversial pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific Coast to ensure it gets built. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government plans to spend C$4.5 billion (US$3.46 billion) to purchase Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline. The pipeline expansion would triple the capacity of an existing line to ship oil extracted from the oil sands in Alberta across the snow-capped peaks of the Canadian Rockies.
TECH TITAN: Pandemic-era demand for semiconductors turbocharged the nation’s GDP per capita to surpass South Korea’s, but it still remains half that of Singapore Taiwan is set to surpass South Korea this year in terms of wealth for the first time in more than two decades, marking a shift in Asia’s economic ranks made possible by the ascent of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). According to the latest forecasts released on Thursday by the central bank, Taiwan’s GDP is expected to expand 4.55 percent this year, a further upward revision from the 4.45 percent estimate made by the statistics bureau last month. The growth trajectory puts Taiwan on track to exceed South Korea’s GDP per capita — a key measure of living standards — a
Samsung Electronics Co shares jumped 4.47 percent yesterday after reports it has won approval from Nvidia Corp for the use of advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which marks a breakthrough for the South Korean technology leader. The stock closed at 83,500 won in Seoul, the highest since July 31 last year. Yesterday’s gain comes after local media, including the Korea Economic Daily, reported that Samsung’s 12-layer HBM3E product recently passed Nvidia’s qualification tests. That clears the components for use in the artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators essential to the training of AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek (深度求索), and finally allows Samsung
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
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