GERMANY
Economy rebounds in Q1
The economy bounced back in the first quarter from a weak second half last year, official data showed yesterday, with GDP adding 0.4 percent. The country had only narrowly avoided a technical recession last year, federal statistics authority Destatis also confirmed, shrinking 0.2 percent in the third quarter and remaining flat in the fourth. Last year, GDP expansion slowed from the previous year’s 2.2 percent to 1.4 percent.
CHEMICALS
German firms feel squeeze
Weaker manufacturing output in Germany and worldwide weighed on German chemical firms in the first quarter, the VCI industry federation said yesterday. German chemical and pharmaceutical makers reported that production was down 6 percent year-on-year and revenues were down 3.8 percent, at 48.3 billion euros (US$54.2 billion), VCI said. Falling prices counteracted a quarter-on-quarter increase in production, it said.
TURKEY
Foreign-currency tax revived
The country is to reintroduce a tax of 0.1 percent on some foreign-currency transactions, imposing the charge on the seller after keeping the levy at zero for more than a decade, according to a presidential decision published in the Official Gazette yesterday. The fee would not apply to the interbank market and credit transactions. Exemptions also include sales to the Ministry of Treasury and Finance, as well as transactions between banks or authorized institutions, and sales by banks to a borrower related to repayment of foreign-currency loans.
RETAIL
Walmart mulls Asda IPO
Walmart Inc confirmed that it is considering an initial public offering (IPO) for its Asda unit after UK antitrust regulators blocked a planned merger with rival J Sainsbury PLC. “While we are not rushing into anything, I want you to know that we are seriously considering a path to an IPO,” Judith McKenna, the company’s international chief, told employees at an internal event in Leeds, England, on Tuesday. She said that any preparations for going public would “take years.”
BANKING
Banco cuts Spanish jobs
Banco Santander SA wants to slash about 3,700 jobs in Spain, or about 10 percent of its workforce in the country, a union representative said on Tuesday. The eurozone’s largest bank by market value, which employs about 32,000 people in Spain, also wants to close 1,150 branches, about one in four, a representative of the UGT union said. With further meetings between the two sides likely in the coming weeks, the final figure for job and branch cuts would be known at the end of June, the UGT representative said.
BANKING
Lenders eye Commerzbank
ING Groep NV and UniCredit SpA are lining up advisers to investigate a potential takeover of Commerzbank AG after the German lender’s talks with Deutsche Bank AG broke down last month, people familiar with the matter have said. The Dutch bank is working informally with boutique investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners, while the Italian lender is working with JPMorgan Chase & Co, the people said. UniCredit also has a long-standing relationship with Lazard Ltd and the firm’s financial advisory managing director, Joerg Asmussen, a former German deputy minister of finance, they said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last