■FINANCE
Roth calls for cooperation
Central banks around the world should coordinate more in times of crises to prevent financial groups from looking outside national boundaries for assistance, the head of Switzerland’s central bank said in an interview published yesterday. Speaking to the Financial Times, Jean-Pierre Roth said that while such cooperation was not currently underway, it was “important to be aware of the question.” “We have to think about eliminating differences and coordinating more,” the chairman of the Swiss National Bank told the business daily. “It would be very delicate for us to have a Swiss bank that required a massive credit not knocking on our door, but knocking on the door somewhere else,” he said.
■ENERGY
Oil prices fall to US$112.39
World oil prices fell further yesterday, dragged down by worries that weaker US oil demand could spread to Europe and Japan, analysts said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month, dropped US$0.48 to US$112.39 a barrel. That came on top of a US$0.90 drop in New York trade on Monday, when the price closed at US$112.87 at the end of floor trading. Brent North Sea crude for October delivery fell US$0.58 to US$111.36 after settling US$0.61 lower at US$111.94 a barrel on Monday in London.
■ECONOMY
UBS forecasts US recession
The US is likely to slip into recession in the coming months as the cushioning impact of sharp interest rate cuts and tax rebates wears out, UBS bank economists said yesterday. “Sharp cuts in interest rates and tax rebates have prevented the US economy from sliding into recession until now,” UBS said in a statement. “But the economists of UBS Wealth Management now expect the effects of fiscal concessions to peter out in the second half of the year, leaving the US economy facing the inevitable prospect of recession.” Real economic growth in the US is expected to reach 1.3 percent this year, but just 1.0 percent next year.
■TECHNOLOGY
Softbank to buy from Casio
Softbank Corp, Japan’s third-largest mobile-phone operator, said yesterday it will buy handsets from Casio Computer Co. Softbank, based in Tokyo, will start selling the phones by the end of this year, the two companies said in a statement yesterday. A joint venture between Casio and Hitachi Ltd will make the handsets, they said. Casio, the maker of mobile phones equipped with Exilim camera technology, already supplies KDDI Corp, the second-ranked wireless operator in Japan.
■HONG KONG
Tom Group falls to HK$0.36
Tom Group Ltd, the media company controlled by billionaire Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), fell to a record in Hong Kong trading after saying its first-half loss widened. Tom Group declined 6.4 percent to HK$0.36 (US$0.046) at 10:12am on the Hong Kong stock exchange, the lowest since the company moved its listing to the main board from the Growth Enterprise Market in August 2004. The net loss expanded to HK$547 million (US$70 million), from a restated HK$85 million a year earlier, the company said. Sales fell to HK$1.33 billion from HK$1.35 billion. Tom Group shares have declined 42 percent this year, compared with a drop of 25 percent in the city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index.
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
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