TRADE
Indonesia ready for war
Indonesia stands ready to respond to global risks brought about by an intensifying trade war and rising US interest rates that have driven the nation’s currency to a two-decade low, officials said. The government would coordinate its policy response with the central bank and the financial services authority, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati told reporters in Jakarta yesterday. Bank Indonesia will take steps to stabilize the currency and ease volatility, central bank Governor Perry Warjiyo said. The rupiah was headed for a 1.8 percent loss this week.
INDUSTRY
German orders rebound
New orders for industrial firms booked a strong rebound in August from a slip in July, official data showed yesterday, brightening the outlook for the second half of the year. Companies reported a 2 percent month-on-month increase in new business, adjusting for price, seasonal and calendar effects, federal statistics authority Destatis said in a statement. That was well above the 0.6 percent boost forecast by analysts.
PHILIPPINES
Inflation near decade high
Inflation jumped to an almost 10-year high last month, data showed yesterday, putting pressure on President Rodrigo Duterte to act as the cost of food and fuel hits the country’s poor in the pocket. Consumer price increases accelerated to 6.7 percent, from 6.4 percent in August, in the steepest climb since February 2009, the Philippine Statistics Authority said. That compared with a 6.8 percent median forecast of economists in a Bloomberg survey.
MEXICO
Central bank maintains rate
The central bank kept its key rate unchanged, saying that while it expects faster inflation to be transitory, the board would take the necessary actions to ensure its goal for prices is reached. Policymakers at Banco de Mexico, led by Governor Alejandro Diaz de Leon, kept borrowing rates at 7.75 percent on Thursday, the highest in almost 10 years, as forecast by 26 of 28 economist surveyed by Bloomberg.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota recalls 2.4m hybrids
Japanese car giant Toyota Motor Corp yesterday said that it is recalling more than 2.4 million hybrid cars over a fault that could cause crashes, just a month after an another recall affecting hybrids. The firm last month said it was recalling more than 1 million hybrid cars globally after uncovering a technical problem that could cause fires. The latest recall affects several models of Toyota’s Prius and Auris hybrid vehicles produced between October 2008 and November 2014, with more than 1 million of the affected cars in Japan.
CONGLOMERATES
KRR sells Vietnam stake
KKR & Co raised about US$209 million selling its stake in Vietnamese conglomerate Masan Group Corp, people with knowledge of the matter said, after its shares doubled since the private equity firm invested. KKR sold 54.8 million Masan shares at 89,200 dong apiece, the midpoint of a marketed range, the people said. The price represents a 5 percent discount to Masan’s last close. The shares were offered at 87,800 dong to 90,600 dong each, according to terms for the deal obtained by Bloomberg earlier.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by