SOUTH KOREA
Consumer sentiment recovers
Confidence among consumers improved for a third month and signaled optimism for the first time since April, as expectations for easing global trade tensions and an economic recovery buoyed sentiment, the Bank of Korea said. The bank’s consumer sentiment index rose to 100.9 this month from 98.6 a month earlier, data released yesterday showed. The index is based on a monthly survey of household views about income, spending and the economy. A reading above 100 signals optimism.
FRANCE
Confidence unexpectedly up
Consumer confidence rose unexpectedly this month to reach its highest level in more than two years, indicating domestic resilience of the economy spurred by President Emmanuel Macron’s fiscal stimulus. Confidence hit its highest level since June 2017 — the month after Macron was elected — as households became more optimistic about their financial situation and their ability to make significant purchases. Fears of unemployment fell further below the long-term average and consumers’ assessment of living standards improved.
INDIA
Gas exchange in works
The country’s largest electricity trading platform plans to unveil the nation’s first natural gas exchange by March as it seeks to tap increasing demand for the cleanest fossil fuel. Indian Energy Exchange has started putting together the infrastructure and a team of about 20 officials to run the bourse, strategies director Rajesh Mediratta said in an interview in New Delhi. The exchange would help bring down the price of natural gas through competitive trade, Mediratta said.
BANKING
SEB implicated in fraud
A second major Swedish bank was reportedly used for money laundering, with the state broadcaster SVT saying that it could trace the flow of cash back to a case surrounding the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. SEB AB, one of the country’s top three banks, failed to prevent suspicious funds from passing through its Baltic operations over several years, SVT reported yesterday. It on Wednesday last week reported that Swedbank AB might have breached US sanctions against Russia.
BANKING
BOE fines Citigroup
The Bank of England (BOE) on Tuesday fined Citigroup Inc £43.9 million (US$56.59 million), saying that the lender’s British operations failed to provide it with accurate regulatory returns between 2014 and last year. The British Prudential Regulation Authority said that Citigroup’s UK framework for reporting data to regulators was not designed, implemented or operating effectively.
TECHNOLOGY
Dell lowers revenue forecast
Dell Technologies Inc has lowered its annual revenue forecast in response to component shortages from supplier Intel Corp. Adjusted sales would be US$91.8 billion to US$92.5 billion for fiscal year 2020, Dell chief financial officer Tom Sweet told analysts on Tuesday. The company also continues to contend with falling demand for servers amid geopolitical and trade tensions. Weaker sales in China and among large corporate clients led a 16 percent decline in third-quarter revenue from servers and networking gear.
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],”