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.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
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