UNITED KINGDOM
One good Brexit chaos note
The nation almost certainly avoided a recession ahead of the now-postponed Oct. 31 deadline to leave the EU. The economy expanded 0.4 percent between July and September, thereby avoiding a second straight quarter of contraction, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey. Brexit stockpiling has led to volatility in output this year, but the underlying picture is one of an economy that has lost momentum amid the turmoil convulsing British politics.
ELECTRONICS
Toshiba operating profit up
Toshiba Corp is set to post a sevenfold increase from a year earlier in April to September operating profit, the Nikkei reported on Sunday, without saying where it got the information. Despite the ¥50 billion (US$458 million) in operating profit in the six-month period, the company will report a net loss because of the weak performance of a chip-making subsidiary and deficits in its LNG business, the newspaper said. Toshiba is due to release half-year results tomorrow.
AGRICULTURE
India needs more onions
India is to import 100,000 tonnes of onions, Indian Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said in a message on Twitter on Saturday, in a bid to curb rising prices. State-owned trading firm MMTC Ltd is importing onions to distribute between Friday and Dec. 15, the minister said. A more than 200 percent surge in onion prices has pushed the nation’s September headline inflation rate to its highest level since July last year after heavy monsoon rains damaged crops and reduced supplies.
OIL
Iranian official reduces find
Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zanganeh yesterday said that an oil field whose discovery Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced on Sunday adds only 22.2 billion barrels to the nation’s estimated crude reserves. Out of the amount at the site, only a tenth — 2.2 billion barrels — can be extracted due to technological limitations, Zanganeh told reporters. Rouhani said the field in the southwestern province of Khuzestan held 53 billion barrels of oil, calling it a “small gift by the government to the people of Iran.”
AUTOMOTIVE
Tesla unveils Shanghai cars
Tesla Inc yesterday unveiled its first vehicles built in China, a milestone for the company as it prepares to start sales of domestically made electric sedans in the world’s largest auto market. Assembled in Tesla’s new Shanghai Gigafactory, which broke ground in January, the first Model 3 sedans came in blue and were emblazoned with the brand name in Chinese characters. The plant is producing cars in small quantities as part of preparations and Tesla is working with local authorities to obtain manufacturing certification.
BANKING
Sewing urged to focus
Some Deutsche Bank AG shareholders have called for chief executive officer Christian Sewing to end his role in supervising the investment banking division amid concern it might distract him from his main job, the Telegraph reported on Sunday. Deka Investment, one of the bank’s shareholders, called it “unusual” for a chief executive to run a division while there is ongoing restructuring involving 18,000 job losses. Ingo Speich, the head of corporate governance for Deka, suggested that it would be more appropriate to split the function.
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],”