JAPAN
Minister pans BOJ’s clarity
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) should communicate its inflation goal more clearly, Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy Motohisa Furukawa said. “It’s desirable for the BOJ to consider whether there’s a better way for the public to understand its inflation policy,” Furukawa said on NHK’s Sunday Debate program yesterday. The nation’s central bank has avoided setting an explicit inflation goal. Some lawmakers have pushed to revise the country’s law to force the central bank to adopt an inflation target to help conquer more than a decade of falling prices. The BOJ will review whether to begin referring to its so-called price stability understanding as a target during a meeting that begins today, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
STOCK MARKETS
Shares hit Chinese markets
An added 16.09 billion yuan (US$2.56 billion) of shares in 22 companies will be available for trading today on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges after lockup periods expired, according to Xinhua news agency. Newly tradeable shares in Southwest Securities Co (西南證券), China Shipbuilding Industry Co (中國船舶重工) and Jiangsu-based jean-fabric maker Black Peony Group Co (黑牡丹集團) account for more than 12 billion yuan of the total, based on Friday closing prices, Xinhua said, citing the stock exchanges. The value of shares freed from lockup periods more than tripled from the previous week, according to the report.
AVIATION
Airlines call for UN’s help
Global airlines yesterday called for a deal brokered by a UN agency to avoid an impasse between China and the EU over jet pollution spilling into a trade war. China’s decision to order its airlines not to join an EU carbon trading scheme and the EU’s refusal so far to back down on its plans, have wedged airlines between conflicting laws, Tony Tyler, the head of the International Air Transport Association, said in an interview. He also said airlines faced a tough year this year and warned of further airline bankruptcies in Europe or elsewhere if the region failed to resolve its sovereign debt crisis.
BANKING
Swiss bank skips court date
The US Department of Justice called Switzerland’s largest private bank a fugitive from justice after it did not send any representatives to a court hearing in New York, where it has been charged with conspiring with US clients to hide US$1.2 billion from the US Internal Revenue Service. Wegelin & Co is said to have helped at least 100 US clients conceal huge sums of money from the US tax agency in overseas accounts. Federal prosecutors said the bank recruited US customers who were concerned about possible prosecution for tax violations at home, including some that had already pulled money out of other Swiss banks.
BANKING
UK bankers arrested
An unspecified number of employees at unidentified UK banks are among a “number” of people arrested as part of an investigation into “tax-related criminal offenses,” the country’s customs and revenue service said. “As a result of an ongoing investigation into tax-related criminal offenses,” the service “has arrested a number of people, some of whom work for UK banks,” a spokesperson said by telephone. “This investigation relates to the actions of the people arrested in relation to their own financial affairs and is not connected to the business activities of the banks.”
AI REVOLUTION: The event is to take place from Wednesday to Friday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s halls 1 and 2 and would feature more than 1,100 exhibitors Semicon Taiwan, an annual international semiconductor exhibition, would bring leaders from the world’s top technology firms to Taipei this year, the event organizer said. The CEO Summit is to feature nine global leaders from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), Applied Materials Inc, Google, Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc, Microsoft Corp, Interuniversity Microelectronic Centre and Marvell Technology Group Ltd, SEMI said in a news release last week. The top executives would delve into how semiconductors are positioned as the driving force behind global technological innovation amid the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, the organizer said. Among them,
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said Taiwan’s government plans to set up a business service company in Kyushu, Japan, to help Taiwanese companies operating there. “The company will follow the one-stop service model similar to the science parks we have in Taiwan,” Kuo said. “As each prefecture is providing different conditions, we will establish a new company providing services and helping Taiwanese companies swiftly settle in Japan.” Kuo did not specify the exact location of the planned company but said it would not be in Kumamoto, the Kyushu prefecture in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, 台積電) has a
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