MACROECONOMICS
AIIB wins two new backers
Switzerland and Luxembourg are planning to join the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), China’s finance ministry said on Friday, the latest European nations to sign up to the multilateral lender which has drawn skepticism from the US. Chinese Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei (樓繼偉) on Friday said the bank had 27 “prospective” founding members, the Xinhua news agency reported, adding that the application deadline is March 31.
SOVEREIGN DEBT
Fitch lowers Finland debt
Fitch Ratings Inc cut the outlook for Finland’s sovereign debt grade to “negative” on Friday, saying the country’s growth prospects have worsened, in part because of a fall in exports to Russia. Finland still enjoys a top-level “AAA” rating, Fitch said. However, it noted that GDP contracted 0.1 percent last year after slowing the previous two years. It slightly cut its outlook for this year, saying the economy would expand 0.5 percent.
MACROECONOMICS
S&P raises Portugal outlook
Standard & Poor’s Financial LLC (S&P) on Friday raised its outlook for Portugal to “positive” from “stable,” noting gradual economic recovery in the eurozone country that needed an international bailout during the global financial crisis. The positive outlook means that S&P could raise Portugal’s sovereign credit rating, held at “BB/B,” within the next 12 months. The agency projected that Portugal’s economic recovery would broaden during 2015-2017, due to a rebound in investment from still low levels of 15 percent of GDP, versus 23 percent of GDP before the 2008 crisis.
MACROECONOMICS
Argentine GDP slows
Argentina’s GDP expanded 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter from the year earlier, bringing full-year growth to its slowest pace in five years as dwindling foreign reserves led the government to restrict US dollars for imports. Fourth-quarter growth compared with the 0.3 percent median estimate of seven economists surveyed by Bloomberg. In the full year, gross domestic product expanded 0.5 percent, the national statistics agency said on Friday.
MEDIA
NYT to print Chinese news
The New York Times is launching a monthly Chinese-language print publication for Hong Kong and Macau that will include global news as well as local content. The US newspaper group said on Thursday that the 24-page Chinese Monthly in simplified Chinese would launch on May 1 with a print run of 50,000 copies, to be available in hotels, airline lounges, residential complexes and on newsstands in Hong Kong and Macau.
RETAIL
Tiffany income to drop 30%
Tiffany & Co, the world’s second-largest luxury jewelry chain, on Friday predicted a 30 percent decline in net income this quarter as the stronger US dollar lowers the value of overseas sales and makes it less attractive for foreign tourists to come to the US to shop. The drop in the first quarter will be followed by a more “modest” decrease in the following period, the New York-based company said on Friday.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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