Brazil
Bank cuts interest rate
Brazil’s central bank on Wednesday slashed its interest rate for the ninth time since August last year, to a record low of 7.5 percent, in a bid to revive sluggish economic growth. The bank’s monetary policy committee Copom announced the half-point reduction after the market closed. Goldman Sachs said earlier this week that it expected the cut could be the last in the cycle that began a year ago, given that inflation is rising. The world’s sixth largest economy showed clear signs of a slowdown in the first quarter of this year, expanding only 0.2 percent compared with the previous quarter.
Philippines
Domestic economy grows
The Philippine economy has expanded 5.9 percent in the second quarter, as the government increased public spending and inflation remained low. GDP growth was slightly lower than the adjusted 6.1 percent in the first quarter, but Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said yesterday the figures are above market expectations and average regional growth. The biggest contributor came from the services sector. Steady inflows of remittances from Filipinos overseas propped up domestic spending while tourist arrivals grew 11.7 percent from a year ago to reach 2.1 million.
retail
Carrefour reports losses
Carrefour says it lost 31 million euros (US$39 million) in the first half of the year as the struggling big box retailer pulled out of Greece and Singapore. The company said yesterday that the loss was largely due to the cost of selling its stake in Greek supermarket chain Marinopoulos, which will now exclusively operate Carrefour-branded stores in the country. The two stores in Singapore will also be closed by the end of the year. Not including discontinued operations, the company would have posted a net gain of 199 million euros. In the first half last year, the company lost 249 million euros. The retailer has recently brought in a new CEO to regain competitiveness in Europe and push further into Asia and Latin America.
AVIATION
JAL seeks ￥663bn in IPO
Japan Airlines Co (JAL) will seek as much as ￥663 billion (US$8.4 billion) in the largest initial public offering since Facebook Inc, capping a state-backed turnaround since it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010. Shares will be on offer at a price range of ￥3,500 to ￥3,790, according to a statement yesterday. That is in line with the indicative price of ￥3,790 announced earlier this month. The carrier will not get any of the sale proceeds as the 175 million shares are being sold by its government-backed parent. JAL is returning to the Tokyo stock exchange after shedding a third of its workforce, scrapping routes and retiring older planes in a restructuring that returned it to profit.
Internet
Google congratulates
Google on Wednesday began sendng members of its online social network search page reminders about the birthdays of friends. “Everyone deserves a little love on their birthday,” Google’s Irene Chung said in an online message announcing the new feature. “Starting today, you’ll see a reminder on Google.com when someone in your circles has a birthday.” Search page birthday reminders are only shared with friends indicated in a person’s preferences list in Google+ controls at plus.google.com/up/birthday, according to Chung.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
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