MACROECONOMICS
France expects flat growth
French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said on Thursday he was concerned that growth this year of the EU’s second-biggest economy would be very weak, around the 0.1 percent level predicted by the European Commission. “The European Commission says 0.1 percent: I fear it won’t be far from that,” Moscovici told a forum in Paris. “We are fighting for it to be more,” he added. Both the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have forecast that the French economy will manage to grow by just 0.1 percent this year.
FOREIGN RESERVES
Egypt’s reserves fall further
Egypt’s foreign currency reserves dropped slightly again last month, the central bank said on Thursday. The US$13.4 billion level at the end of last month was just below the February figure of US$13.5 billion, representing a smaller drop than previous months. The nation’s reserves have fallen sharply from US$36 billion since the popular uprising in 2011 that ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian government is in talks with the IMF to secure a US$4.8 billion loan to bolster the country’s battered economy and help cover a widening budget deficit. Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation and Planning Ashraf el-Araby said on Thursday that a final agreement with the IMF could be reached in the next two weeks.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda recalls cars over leak
Japanese automaker Honda said on Thursday it was recalling 145,573 vehicles due to a fault that caused oil to leak onto some cars’ exhaust pipes. The firm said it had received 14 complaints from motorists, including nine cases where the burned oil released fumes into the affected vehicles. There were no injuries, it added. The recall covers vehicle brand models “Vamos,” the “Vamos Hobio” small van and the “Z” two-door hatchback built between October 1998 through August 2010 and sold only in Japan, the automaker said in a document filed with Japan’s transport ministry.
TELECOMS
BlackBerry turns off music
BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) says it is silencing its streaming music service barely two years after its launch. The Canadian firm e-mailed BlackBerry Messenger Music subscribers this week to notify them that the cloud-based service will stop working on June 2. RIM said on Thursday the decision follows a “strategic business review” of its offerings. BBM Music launched in August 2011 as a US$4.99 per month service that allowed BBM users to swap song recommendations and share music with friends. However, there were limitations — each user could only share up to 50 songs from a catalogue of millions of tracks for their own personal playlist.
ENERGY
Skilling’s case under review
Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron Corp chief executive serving a 24-year prison term over the energy company’s spectacular collapse, may get a chance to leave prison early. The US Department of Justice has notified victims of Enron’s fraud and 2001 bankruptcy that prosecutors may enter an agreement with Skilling that could result in a resentencing. Skilling, 59, has served about six and a quarter years in prison following his May 2006 conviction by a Houston federal jury on 19 counts of securities fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors. Once ranked seventh on the Fortune 500 list of large US companies, Enron went bankrupt on Dec. 2, 2001.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
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