ISRAEL
Growth slows on investment
The nation’s economy expanded slower than previously estimated last year as exports and capital investment declined, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday. GDP rose 2.3 percent from 2014, driven largely by private consumption, the bureau said. The bureau previously estimated 2.5 percent expansion. Earlier this week, the Bank of Israel cut its growth estimate for last year to 2.8 percent, from 3.3 percent three months ago. Exports fell 3 percent for last year, while capital investment declined 1.5 percent, the bureau said.
PETROLEUM
US ships crude oil overseas
The first US shipment of crude oil to an overseas buyer departed a Texas port on Thursday, just weeks after a 40-year ban on most such exports was lifted. The Theo T tanker left NuStar Energy LP’s dockside facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, along the western shore of the Gulf of Mexico, NuStar spokeswoman Mary Rose Brown said in an e-mail. The ship is carrying a cargo of oil and condensate from ConocoPhillips Co’s wells in south Texas that was sold to Swiss trading house Vitol Group.
FINANCE
India to curb cooperatives
India is to crack down on errant financial firms that raise funds, mainly from millions of poor rural customers, through loosely regulated credit cooperative societies, the Indian Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare said. The federal government plans to penalize cooperatives that fail to repay investors when deposits come due or engage in other violations of regulations. One measure under discussion is to either have an independent regulator supervise credit cooperatives or bring them under the purview of an existing regulator, such as the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
CARMAKERS
General Motors to face trial
General Motors Co must face a jury trial this month on allegations that injuries from a 2014 car crash arose from the automaker’s ignition switch defect, a New York federal judge ruled. Despite having reached settlements with hundreds of victims, the Wednesday decision sets the stage for the first jury trial this year on the defect on Jan. 11, which turns off airbag deployment and has been linked to 124 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
BANKING
Bank admits tax evasion
Large cash and gold withdrawals were some of the ways Bank Lombard Odier & Co Ltd allowed US clients to sever a paper trail on their assets and cheat the US Internal Revenue Service, the Swiss lender admitted, agreeing to pay US$99.8 million to avoid prosecution. That penalty is the second-largest paid under a program to help the US clamp down on tax evasion through Swiss banks. Total penalties have reached more than US$1.1 billion. DZ Privatbank (Schweiz) AG is also to pay almost US$7.5 million under accords released on Thursday.
DATA STORAGE
EMC puts price on job cuts
EMC Corp, the data storage equipment company being acquired by Dell Inc for about US$67 billion in the biggest technology deal ever, on Thursday said its previously announced job cuts would result in an estimated US$250 million charge. The reduction is expected to be “substantially completed by the end of the first quarter of this year, with all the cuts finished by the end of the year,” EMC said in a regulatory filing, without specifying the number of jobs being cut.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
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