FINANCE
Poland ready with liquidity
Poland’s central bank is ready to supply the country’s banking system with liquidity if a need arises and its intervention in the foreign exchange market will be random, Governor Marek Belka said late on Saturday. The current storms in the European economy carry a risk of shortages of available cash, Belka said at the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank fall meeting in Washington. “The central bank is ready to, if it becomes necessary, to supply liquidity to Polish banks,” he said. “They should feel secure. Even if the international banking system dries up they can count on us.” Belka also said that should the current destabilization in the country’s forex market continue, the central bank will carry out intermittent intervention aimed at keeping the rouble from sliding and spooking speculative investors.
ECONOMY
Australia not crisis-immune
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan sounded caution yesterday over Canberra’s plans to return to surplus next year, warning that Europe’s debt fears had delivered a “huge hit” to global confidence. Swan told ABC television from Washington there was a mood of “sober realism” among finance ministers at this weekend’s meetings of the G20 and IMF, with a “fair degree of concern” about the state of the global economy. Swan said Australia was not immune from Europe’s problems, tempering his previously strident promises of returning the budget to surplus by next year to 2013. “We’re determined to come back to surplus, but I just make the observation that these events globally have an impact upon global growth,” he said. “That has an impact upon domestic growth. That has an impact on revenue collections. And of course it makes it tougher to come back to surplus.”
PORTUGAL
Forecast both good and bad
Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said on Saturday he anticipated a better-than-expected economic performance this year, but that the outlook for next year was gloomier than previously forecast, Dow Jones Newswires reported. He said in an interview that the economy would contract by 1.8 percent this year, better than the previously estimated -2.2 percent growth, but that he expected -2.3 percent growth next year, a downgrade on the -1.8 percent that had been predicted. He credited better domestic performance for this year’s upgraded forecast, but explained that the new figures for next year were brought on by a worsening global economic outlook. He said he expected a return to positive growth in 2013, at 1.2 percent.
INTERNET
Google feature tag launched
Google News has announced a twist in the automated news-feed algorithm: “featured” content selected from the stories it delivers every day. Google announced on Saturday that news organizations can add “standout” metadata tags to their best stories and the US edition of Google News may include a “featured” label when it displays a link to the story. There is no guarantee “standout” stories will be featured, the company said. If a news provider puts the standout tag on more than seven stories in a week, Google’s algorithm won’t factor in the tag from that company as much, or may ignore it, Google said. News organizations can also use a standout tag to highlight strong work by other providers. The plan was announced at the Online News Association conference in Boston.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
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