Aeronautics
EADS loses S Korea jet bid
European aerospace consortium EADS has been eliminated from a bid to provide fighter jets worth US$7.3 billion to South Korea due to a failure to meet some requirements, a report said yesterday. The Eurofighter was dropped from the bid also sought by US company Boeing after Seoul’s military found that the EADS proposal did not meet its key demands, Yonhap news agency said. It cited an unidentified official at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). Seoul is seeking 45 one-seater aircraft and 15 two-seaters, but EADS proposed only six two-seater aircraft, which are costly to produce, due to budget problems, Yonhap said. DAPA will submit the proposal from the remaining bidder for a final review by top military officials, the official added, indicating Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle would be the only candidate.
Australia
Rudd warns over economy
Embattled Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday warned the country faced the risk of a recession if the conservative opposition are elected at next month’s polls. Rudd said opposition leader Tony Abbott, who is the frontrunner to win the Sept. 7 election, would slash A$70 billion (US$64 billion) from government spending if elected prime minister and weaken the economy. Abbott has denied the figure, describing it as “simply a fantasy,” but has not yet revealed his policy costings. Rudd said analysis by Finance Minister Penny Wong had found the conservatives needed to make cuts of A$69 billion to A$71 billion to fund its promises.
Property
Home sales boom
US home sales probably increased last month to the highest level in more than three years as growing demand for residential real estate bolsters the expansion, economists said before reports this week. Combined purchases of existing and new homes climbed to a 5.64 million annualized pace last month, the fastest clip since November 2009, according to the median forecasts of economists in a Bloomberg survey. Another report may show the world’s largest economy is poised to strengthen. Improving sales, even as borrowing costs rise, and a limited supply of homes, lots and materials are helping boost home values and builder confidence. The waning effects of across-the-board federal spending cuts, combined with gains in the housing and auto markets, will probably help lift economic growth in the second half of the year. Sales of previously owned homes rose to a 5.15 million annualized pace last month from 5.08 million in June, according to the median forecast of 59 economists surveyed before the National Association of Realtors’ report on Aug. 21.
Greece
Agency chairman sacked
Authorities yesterday dismissed the chairman of its privatization agency HRADF after a newspaper reported that he traveled on the private plane of a businessman who just bought a state company. Stelios Stavridis is the second head of HRADF to leave in less than six months, reigniting controversy around the ailing privatization program which is a key part of its international bailout. An official said the dismissal followed a report in Proto Thema on Saturday that Stavridis last week traveled on the private plane of shipowner Dimitris Melissanidis, a major shareholder of a Greek-Czech consortium which in May agreed to buy a 33 percent stake in state gambling firm OPAP.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
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