GERMANY
November orders plunge
Industrial orders fell more sharply than expected in November last year, official data showed yesterday, adding to an emerging picture of softer growth in the final quarter of last year. Businesses reported that new contracts were down 1 percent month-on-month, federal statistics authority Destatis said. Excluding large orders for items such as aircraft, which often swing sharply from month to month, the fall still came in at 0.8 percent. Companies reported that orders from domestic customers rose 2.4 percent, but that foreign orders fell 3.2 percent.
UNITED KINGDOM
New car sales fall sharply
New car sales last year fell at their fastest rate since the global financial crisis a decade ago, hit by a slump in demand for diesel, stricter emissions rules and waning consumer confidence due to Brexit, an industry body said. Demand dropped by nearly 7 percent last year to 2.37 million vehicles, the largest decrease since registrations nosedived 11.3 percent in 2008, preliminary data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders showed.
IRAN
Bank mulls propping up rial
The central bank has proposed slashing four zeros from the rial, official news agency IRNA reported on Sunday, after the currency plunged in a year marked by an economic crisis fueled by US sanctions. “A bill to remove four zeros from the national currency was presented to the government by the central bank yesterday and I hope this matter can be concluded as soon as possible,” IRNA quoted central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati as saying. The currency was trading at about 110,000 rials per US dollar on the unofficial market on Sunday.
RETAIL
Bid to stop Sears razing fails
Sears Holdings Corp is preparing to potentially wind down the iconic retailer after chairman Eddie Lampert’s bid to buy several hundred stores out of bankruptcy fell short of bankers’ requirements, people with knowledge of the matter said. The retailer started laying the groundwork for a liquidation after a series of meetings on Friday in which its advisers weighed the merits of a US$4.4 billion bid by Lampert’s hedge fund to buy Sears as a going concern, the people said.
JAPAN
Abe tries to avoid seizure
The government would consider countermeasures to protect Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp assets in South Korea from a seizure sought in response to a wartime forced-labor complaint, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. It is “very regrettable that former workers from the Korean Peninsula are taking action for seizing the assets,” Abe told Japan Broadcasting Corp’s Sunday Debate program. He said he has “requested relevant departments to study specific measures based on international law.”
MALAYSIA
Goldman banker denied bail
A court yesterday declined to grant bail to former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng (吳崇華), pending his extradition to the US where he faces charges related to suspected money laundering of funds siphoned off from state fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). Ng has been detained in Kuala Lumpur since Nov. 1 last year, shortly after the US Department of Justice announced charges against him, another Goldman Sachs official, Tim Leissner, and Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho (劉特佐) over the alleged theft of 1MDB funds.
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