GERMANY
Factory orders jump 0.3%
Factory orders unexpectedly rose for a second month in September in a sign that Europe’s largest economy is poised to regain growth momentum toward the end of this year. Orders gained 0.3 percent from the previous month, compared with economists’ predictions for a 0.5 percent decline. It was only the third monthly increase this year. Orders slid 2.2 percent on the year. The Deutsche Bundesbank has said underlying momentum in the economy remains intact, even though growth probably stalled in the third quarter, affected by US protectionism and new emissions rules that automakers have struggled with.
TIREMAKERS
Michelin to close UK factory
France’s Michelin on Monday announced plans to close a Scottish manufacturing plant with 845 employees, due to growing competition from cheaper products in Asia. The Dundee factory — opened in 1971 and now exclusively manufacturing 16-inch and smaller tires for cars — would close in mid-2020, Michelin said, citing lower demand for the plant’s premium tires and stiffer competition from “low-cost, entry-level products from Asia.” The announcement came as global companies have been reassessing the merits of keeping their UK manufacturing sites open after Britain leaves the EU in March. Michelin did not refer to Brexit in its announcement.
AIRLINES
Icelandair up on acquisition
Icelandair shares on Monday shot up more than 40 percent after it announced it had acquired low-cost compatriot WOW Air. The two airlines have benefited from a boom in travel to Iceland over the past few years and have used the island as a hub to offer transatlantic flights. No value for the deal was given, but local media said it could be worth about 16 million euros (US$18.25 million). WOW Air has run into financial difficulties in the past few months due to heightened competition and rising fuel prices. It lost US$13.5 million before tax and interest last year, after two years of profitable operations.
AEROSPACE
Boeing loses radar deal
The US Air Force has terminated a US$76 million contract with Boeing Co to update the radar on its flagship airborne early-warning and control aircraft, after the company encountered major delays in developing hardware and software, budget documents showed. The air force determined that the best approach for upgrades would be to replace the legacy radar processor and its related components, spokeswoman Captain Hope Cronin said in an e-mail. “Boeing estimated several additional years and an additional US$60 million would be needed to complete the project,” Cronin said.
REAL ESTATE
HK rents to fall: brokerage
Rents in the world’s costliest office market, Hong Kong, might fall for the first time in four years as an equities rout weighs on sentiment in the territory. Grade-A office rents in Central and Admiralty districts will decline about 4 percent next year, Colliers International Inc said in a report. That compares with an estimated gain of 9 percent this year. Declines in stocks this year have undermined confidence at the financial firms that rent more than half of the grade-A office space in the central business district, the property brokerage said. Looming interest rate increases and the US-China trade war will also take a toll on sentiment, it said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts