GREECE
Islands losing VAT discount
Mykonos, Santorini and Rhodes will be among the first islands to lose their preferential tax rates under Athens’ bailout deal, the government said on Monday. The islands — many of which lack airports and rely on tenuous maritime links to the mainland in winter — had until now enjoyed a 30 percent break on the value added tax (VAT) rate. As of Thursday, the three VAT rates of 6, 13 and 23 percent will apply on the three islands, as well as Naxos, Paros and Skiathos, as in the rest of the country, the Ministry of Finance said. The next islands to lose their VAT benefits will be announced on June 1 next year and Jan. 1 the following year, the ministry said.
DENMARK
Borrowing need raised
The government said it will need to borrow more than previously estimated as the debt office prepares to end an eight-month hiatus on bond auctions that has sapped liquidity from its benchmark debt market. The government will need to borrow 153 billion in kroner (US$23.5 billion) next year, 6.3 percent more than it first estimated, according to a statement published by the Ministry of Finance in Copenhagen late on Monday. The borrowing need will be 4.8 percent higher this year than previously calculated, or 132 billion kroner, the ministry said.
TRADE
WTO boss likes limited talks
Negotiators may increase chances of reaching deals if they focus on limited sectors of the economy rather than long-running global talks, WTO director-general Roberto Azevedo said. He said WTO members are unlikely to resolve disputes over farm subsidies and market access at a ministerial meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, in December. Even so, the WTO has “often had success where we’ve taken more innovative approaches,” Azevedo said. Another “significant” step was a WTO accord this year to update the Information Technology Agreement, an accord to reduce tariffs on 201 technology products valued at US$1.3 trillion a year, he said.
AUTOMAKERS
More recalls possible
Seven more companies could be facing recalls because they use air bag inflators made by Takata Corp, according to letters they received last week from US safety regulators. So far about 23.4 million Takata driver and passenger air bag inflators have been recalled on 19.2 million US vehicles sold by 11 different companies, including Honda Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent letters to Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, Suzuki Motor Corp, Tesla Motors Inc, Volvo Trucks, Volkswagen AG and Spartan Motors Inc seeking information on which models have Takata inflators. As of Sept. 1, only 4.4 million air bag inflators had been replaced.
INTERNET
Facebook out briefly
Facebook Inc on Monday stumbled for the second time in a week, going out of service for slightly less than an hour. The social network was down for 42 minutes about mid-day in California, after being out of service for 12 minutes four days earlier, according to the Web site performance tracker currentlydown.com. Facebook did not disclose how many of its more than 1 billion users were affected by the outage. People took to Twitter during the outage, with #facebookdown jumping into a spot among the top trending hashtags.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
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