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.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
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