GERMANY
Corporate tax cap mulled
The government is looking to cap its corporate tax burden at 25 percent as the nation seeks to help smaller businesses amid signs the economy is lurching into a recession. The proposal was made yesterday by Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier as part of a package aimed at supporting the so-called Mittelstand — small and medium-sized businesses that account for nearly 60 percent of the nation’s jobs. According to Deloitte, Germany’s overall tax burden on companies is about 30 to 33 percent. Altmaier did not specify the impact of the tax cut on government revenue.
INDIA
FDI, online sales eased
New Delhi has decided to liberalize foreign direct investment (FDI) in domestic manufacturing, coal mining and digital media, and will also allow single-brand retailers to start online sales to infuse capital into the country and boost its economy. Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that the Cabinet on Wednesday approved 100 percent FDI in coal mining and associated infrastructure. He said it also approved 100 percent FDI in contract manufacturing and up to 26 percent investment in digital media. The government also relaxed the 30 percent local sourcing requirement in single-brand retailing and permitted online sales without the prior opening of brick-and-mortar stores. “Online sales will lead to the creation of jobs in logistics, digital payments, customer care, training and product skilling,’’ Goyal said.
HOTELS
HK unrest prompts moves
The unrest in Hong Kong is prompting businesses to relocate conferences and other major meetings to locations such as Thailand and Singapore, hotel billionaire William Heinecke said on Wednesday. “Some conferences have been canceled in Hong Kong and moved,” said Heinecke, the chief executive officer of Bangkok-listed Minor International PCL. The trend is “significant,” he said, adding that it is helping offset the slowdown in Chinese tourist arrivals in Thailand. “If the protests in Hong Kong persist, more tourists could opt to visit Thailand instead, benefiting hoteliers such as Minor,” said Maria Lapiz, managing director at Maybank Kim Eng Securities (Thailand) PCL in Bangkok.
GAMING
Caesars drops Japan plan
Caesars Entertainment Corp said it would not pursue a license for a casino in Japan and would focus instead on its current business plan, including a merger with Eldorado Resorts Inc scheduled to close next year. Caesars management made the decision out of sensitivity to the Japanese government and business partners, who must make decisions this year to advance the casino process, chief executive officer Tony Rodio said in a statement. A casino in Japan is expected to cost upward of US$10 billion, market watchers said.
NORWAY
GDP up 0.2% in Q2
The nation’s economic growth accelerated in the second quarter, keeping up momentum as the central bank ponders whether to raise interest rates again as soon as next month. Mainland GDP, which excludes oil and shipping, expanded 0.7 percent in the quarter, Statistics Norway said in a statement yesterday. That was up from a revised 0.5 percent in previous quarter. A Bloomberg survey of 13 economists predicted a quarterly expansion of 0.8 percent, in line with the central bank’s forecast.
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