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.
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
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
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