UNITED KINGDOM
Prostitutes to boost economy
The inclusion of illegal activities, such as prostitution and drugs, into the national accounts would add about ￡10 billion (US$16.7 billion) to national output, the statistics office said on Thursday. In a paper in which it estimated prostitutes’ “sales” and costs incurred — condoms and “working clothes — the Office of National Statistics said the inclusion of such activities was part of a raft of improvements to the way the economy will be measured from September.
SOUTH KOREA
Industrial growth slows
Industrial output growth slowed last month from the previous month, due to punitive actions against mobile carriers and a slump in consumer demand, government data showed yesterday. Production in the mining, manufacturing, gas and electricity industries gained 0.1 percent, compared with 0.9 percent growth in March, Statistics Korea said.
UNITED STATES
Economy contracts in Q1
The economy contracted in the first quarter for the first time in three years as it buckled under the weight of a severe winter, but there are signs activity has since rebounded. The Department of Commerce on Thursday revised down its growth estimate to show GDP shrinking at a 1 percent annual rate. GDP growth was initially estimated to have expanded at a 0.1 percent rate. The economy grew at a 2.6 percent pace in the fourth quarter last year.
MEAT PROCESSING
Tyson trumps Hillshire bid
US giant Tyson Foods launched a battle with Brazil’s JBS on Thursday over Hillshire Brands with a US$6.8 billion bid for the maker of popular sausages and hot dogs. Tyson, the world’s second-largest meat processor after JBS, topped the US$6.4 billion bid for Hillshire that was made on Tuesday by JBS’ US subsidiary Pilgrim’s Pride. Both are seeking a solid foothold in the US market for branded prepared foods — Hillshire owns popular brands such as Ballpark hot dogs, Jimmy Dean and Aidells sausages, and Sara Lee desserts.
CEMENT
Brazil fines manufacturers
Brazil’s anti-trust regulators have fined six cement manufacturers a record US$1.4 billion for a decades-long price-fixing scheme. In an unprecedented move, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense also ordered the companies to sell off shares to break up the cartel, it announced on its Web site. The scheme cost consumers at least US$12.6 billion over 20 years, estimated Alessandro Octaviani, who led the investigation.
LIQUOR
Diageo plans new distillery
London-based Diageo PLC says it plans to build a new distillery in Kentucky. The company said in a statement on Thursday that the project, planned on 120 hectares in Shelby County, would be a significant investment in the state’s growing bourbon industry. It still needs approval from local government officials.
INTERNET
Alibaba eyes Southeast Asia
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), China’s biggest e-commerce company, on Wednesday agreed to buy a 10 percent stake in Singapore Post Ltd to develop its logistics in Southeast Asia. Alibaba is to spend S$312.5 million (US$249 million) acquiring about 220 million new and existing shares, and the companies will enter talks for an e-commerce logistics venture.
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
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
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