ECONOMY
Vietnam forecasts growth
Vietnam’s leaders are forecasting strong economic growth even as the government is expected to fail to meet this year’s goal of restructuring nearly 300 state-owned companies. The government expects GDP expansion of 6.7 percent next year, a rise from 6.5 percent this year, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in a speech to parliament yesterday. Vietnam is targeting average economic growth of 6.5 percent to 7 percent from next year to 2020. Inflation this year is expected to be 2 percent, the lowest in 15 years, he said.
BANKING
Morgan Stanley earnings fall
Turbulence in global markets hit Morgan Stanley’s business particularly hard in the third quarter, sending the bank’s earnings down 42 percent. The New York-based investment bank and wealth advisory firm earned US$939 million after payments to preferred shareholders for the three-month period ending last month, the bank said on Monday, compared with US$1.63 billion a year earlier. On a per-share basis, the bank earned US$0.48 per share, compared with US$0.84 a year earlier. That was far below the US$0.67 per share that analysts were looking for, according to FactSet. Overall, Morgan Stanley’s revenue was US$7.8 billion compared with US$8.9 billion the year before.
ENGINEERING
Technip wins contract
French oil engineering group Technip yesterday said it had won a contract from Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas to supply three hydrogen reformers at a production plant in Malaysia for Petronas. Technip indicated the deal in Johor State for state-owned Petronas’ Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development project was “significant,” in the region of between 50 million and 100 million euros (US$57million and US$112 million). The reformers, set to come on stream from 2018, allow production of hydrogen from methane using Technip’s top-fired steam methane reforming proprietary technology at Malaysia’s largest greenfield downstream site.
INTERNET
DEA agent sentenced
A former US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent on Monday was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for extortion and money laundering in connection with the Silk Road investigation. On top of his jail time, Carl Force was ordered to pay US$340,000 in restitution and to serve an additional three years of supervised release. Force, 46, in July pleaded guilty in a US federal court in San Francisco. He is one of two US federal agents so far who have been charged with crimes in connection with their roles in investigating Silk Road. Force had served as a DEA agent for 15 years.
AUTOMAKERS
Air bag probe might expand
US regulators on Monday said they could expand their investigation into Takata Corp air bag inflators beyond 11 automakers, as questions arose about whether vehicle design played a role in the devices posing a deadly risk to the public. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) head Mark Rosekind said his agency can add more auto manufacturers to the consent order that regulators announced with Takata in May. Tomorrow, NHTSA expects to make a case in public that it should coordinate the Takata recall to ensure that an estimated 23.4 million air bag inflators installed in 19.2 million US vehicles from 11 automakers are properly replaced.
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
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
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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