SOUTH KOREA
Stocks fall after summit
Stocks in the nation plunged and the currency weakened after US President Donald Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was abruptly cut short yesterday without a deal. The benchmark KOSPI index closed 1.8 percent — the most since Oct. 23 last year — while the won slipped 0.5 percent. So-called peace stocks, a group of infrastructure names that had rallied on hopes that a positive outcome from the summit might lead to new business opportunities in the North Korean regime, also fell. Futures contracts on the S&P 500 Index fell as much as 0.4 percent.
SWITZERLAND
Economy returns to growth
The economy returned to growth in the final three months of last year, dodging the worst of the weakness that hit neighbors to the north and south. While missing the 0.4 percent median forecast of economists, the 0.2 percent expansion marked a rebound from the third quarter, when the economy shrank a revised 0.3 percent. Manufacturing jumped 1.5 percent, boosted by pharmaceuticals and chemicals. End-of-year momentum was led by exports and household spending, while investments in equipment tumbled 1.1 percent, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. With the US-China trade dispute gnawing at sentiment, the global economy has lost momentum, with Europe looking particularly weak. Italy sunk into recession and Germany narrowly avoided that fate. Switzerland’s export-reliant economy is exposed to the downturn, although low unemployment and manufacturing-sector figures indicate that it is not headed for a outright slump. Still, industry expects weaker order growth this year due to cooling demand in its biggest markets. That would curb economic growth, which the Swiss National Bank forecasts will cool to about 1.5 percent this year.
AUTOMAKERS
British production falls
British car production declined for the eighth month in a row in January as output bound for China plunged by more than 70 percent. The industry is struggling with multiple headwinds, including falling demand in China , a regulatory backlash against diesel vehicles in Europe and continued uncertainty over Brexit, which has put the brakes on investment in the UK. The sharp fall in production in January was mainly driven by the slowdown in production for export. Output bound for China dropped by 72.3 from last year — the biggest fall on record — according to figures published yesterday by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, an industry lobby group. Output for European markets fell by one-fifth. British factories produced a combined 120,649 vehicles in the month, down by 18.2 from January last year.
AUSTRALIA
Home lending slows
Home lending slowed to the weakest since the 1980s. Loans to buy houses advanced just 0.2 percent in January from the prior month, according to monthly financial aggregates released by the Reserve Bank of Australia in Sydney yesterday. That was the lowest level since July 1984, when the nation was initiating a deregulation campaign to help a moribund economy. The bank, which has kept interest rates low to spur economic growth, last month dumped its tightening bias as signs mount that consumers are reining in spending amid falling house prices.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”