MACROECONOMICS
Aging world slowing growth
The world economy, hobbled by aging populations, will slow dramatically over the next 50 years unless countries find ways to increase productivity. That is according to a report from the McKinsey Global Institute. It says that without big gains in output per worker, global growth will slow to around 2 percent per year over the next half century from an average 3.6 percent the past 50 years. That would be slower than worldwide growth after the Great Recession.
EUROZONE
Industrial output slowing
Industrial output in the eurozone rose 0.2 percent in November last year, official data showed on Wednesday, a modest sign of more solid economic growth despite looming deflation. However, over 12 months, industrial production in the eurozone was down 0.4 percent in November, the EU’s Eurostat agency said. Across the 28-nation EU, industrial output also edged higher by 0.2 percent in November, and a smaller 0.1 percent drop year-on-year.
REAL ESTATE
Singapore home sales fall
Singapore’s annual home sales last year dropped to the lowest in six years as government property measures and lending curbs stemmed purchases. Sales last year dropped by half to 7,557 units from 2013, the lowest number since the 2008 financial crisis, according to data released by the Urban Redevelopment Authority. Developers sold 230 units last month compared with 423 units in November last year.
FINANCIAL
JPMorgan sees 7% decline
JPMorgan Chase & Co on Wednesday reported a 7 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings, which were hit by a US$990 million charge for legal expenses and came short of what analysts estimated. The bank said it earned US$4.93 billion, or US$1.19 per share, for the three-month period that ended last month. That compares with a profit of US$5.28 billion, or US$1.30 per share, a year ago. Total revenue fell 3 percent to US$22.5 billion from US$23.2 billion a year ago.
AVIATION
Cyprus trying to sell carrier
The Cypriot government decided on Wednesday to try to sell off the name and logo of national carrier Cyprus Airways, shut down last week after breaking EU state aid rules. Deputy government spokesman Victor Papadopoulos said the aim was to find an investor to create jobs for some of the airline’s 550 axed staff and increase the Mediterranean holiday island’s connectivity with the outside world.
RETAIL
Burberry reports more sales
Britain’s luxury fashion group Burberry announced rising sales on Wednesday, but said its performance in key market Hong Kong had been hit by the city’s mass protests last year. Group underlying sales climbed 15 percent to ￡604 million (US$916 million) in the three-month period that ended last month, compared with the equivalent period one year earlier.
ENTERTAINMENT
Caesars unit files Chapter 11
US casino company Caesars Entertainment Corp put its main operating unit into bankruptcy in Chicago yesterday. The second Chapter 11 filing for the unit this week follows months of negotiation and litigation over how best to reduce the billions of dollars of debt assumed in a 2008 buyout that was arranged by Leon Black’s Apollo Global Management and David Bonderman’s TPG Capital Management.
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
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
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