UNITED KINGDOM
Zero-hours contracts high
About 1 million Britons are in jobs offering no guaranteed minimum work or pay, far more than the 250,000 estimated by the country’s statistics agency, an industry survey showed yesterday. Zero-hours contracts have come in for growing criticism from trade unions and the opposition Labour Party because people who sign up to them are offered very little security while often being expected to work at short notice. The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, the main professional body for human resources, said that based on a survey of more than 1,000 employers, it estimated that 3 to 4 percent of workers were on zero-hours contracts, equivalent to about 1 million people.
ENERGY
HHI wins steam power bid
South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) yesterday said it had won a US$3.3 billion order to build a steam power plant in Saudi Arabia. Under the deal signed on Sunday with Saudi Electricity Co, Hyundai will complete the massive facility with a production capacity of 2,640 megawatts by 2017, the company said in a statement. The plant will be located 135km north of the southwestern city of Jizan, it said. HHI is the world’s top shipbuilder, but also constructs power and water plants. In October last year, the company won a US$3.2 billion order to build a thermal power plant near Jeddah.
RETAIL
Eurozone sales slid in June
Eurozone retail sales, a key indicator or demand in the economy, slipped in June even as other data suggested the bloc was finally turning the corner on a deep recession, official data showed yesterday. Retail sales by volume in the 17-nation eurozone fell 0.5 percent compared with May, when they rose 1.1 percent, the Eurostat statistics office said. In the 27-member EU, sales were down 0.3 percent after a gain of 1.3 percent in May. Compared with data for June last year, retail sales were down by 0.9 percent in the eurozone but up 0.1 percent in the full EU, Eurostat said.
BANKING
HSBC first-half profit up 22%
Global banking giant HSBC yesterday announced a 22 percent increase in half-year net profits to US$10.28 billion on lower costs and falling bad-debt charges. The result came in slightly below analysts’ consensus forecast of profit after tax of US$10.52 billion, according to a survey by Dow Jones Newswires. Pre-tax profit rose 10.0 percent to US$14.1 billion in the six months to the end of June compared with the first half of last year. Total operating expenses decreased 13 percent, and loan impairment charges and other credit risk provisions dropped to US$3.1 billion in the first half, the bank said.
AUTOMAKERS
Buick drives GM China sales
General Motors Co (GM), the largest foreign automaker in China, yesterday said sales growth in the country accelerated last month as deliveries of Buick vehicles expanded at the fastest pace this year. Total sales climbed 11.1 percent to 221,580 units last month, after expanding 10.6 percent the preceding month, GM said in a statement. Buick deliveries jumped 26 percent to 66,208 units on the popularity of the Excelle line and Cadillac sales surged 83 percent to 3,688, though Chevrolet fell 3.4 percent to 43,343. GM’s sales have risen 11 percent this year, keeping it on track to reach its target of selling 3 million vehicles this year in the world’s largest auto market.
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
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
RESHAPING COMMERCE: Major industrialized economies accepted 15 percent duties on their products, while charges on items from Mexico, Canada and China are even bigger US President Donald Trump has unveiled a slew of new tariffs that boosted the average US rate on goods from across the world, forging ahead with his turbulent effort to reshape international commerce. The baseline rates for many trading partners remain unchanged at 10 percent from the duties Trump imposed in April, easing the worst fears of investors after the president had previously said they could double. Yet his move to raise tariffs on some Canadian goods to 35 percent threatens to inject fresh tensions into an already strained relationship, while nations such as Switzerland and New Zealand also saw increased
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