UTILITIES
Tanzania to boost production
Tanzania’s government plans to sell shares in the state-owned power utility to the public this year and split it into separate generation, transmission and distribution units, Minister of Energy and Mining Sospeter Muhongo said. The state is to offer as much as 49 percent of Tanzania Electric Supply Co, or Tanesco, while the government is to retain a controlling stake, Muhongo said. The government is also to invest US$1.2 billion in the company over 10 years, boosting efforts to increase electricity production to 10,000 megawatts by 2025 from 1,400 megawatts, Muhongo said.
INVESTMENT
Treasuries fall amid tension
Treasury investors in benchmark 10-year notes are to lose 1.7 percent this year as the US Federal Reserve raises interest rates, economists project. The yield is expected to climb to 2.80 percent from 2.29 percent yesterday, based on a Bloomberg survey of banks and securities companies with the most recent forecasts given the heaviest weightings. The estimated loss takes into account expected interest payments. US Treasuries fell yesterday as tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia sent crude oil higher, raising speculation increasing fuel costs might cause inflation to accelerate.
REAL ESTATE
Singapore properties drop
Singapore home prices dropped for a ninth quarter, posting the longest losing streak in 17 years, as tighter mortgage curbs cooled demand in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market. An index tracking private residential prices fell 0.5 percent in the three months ending Thursday last week from the previous quarter, preliminary data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority show. That took the annual decline to 3.7 percent, almost matching the 4 percent drop in 2014, which was the first year-on-year slide since 2008. Developers sold 5,599 new units in the nine months to September, on course for the lowest annual sales since 2008.
COMMODITIES
Haven assets return
Gold climbed with silver on the first trading day this year as rising tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran spurred a return to haven assets. Bullion for immediate delivery climbed as much as 0.5 percent to US$1,066.04 an ounce and traded at US$1,064.04 at 12:29pm in Singapore, Bloomberg generic pricing showed. The metal lost 10 percent last year for a third annual drop, the longest slump since 2000. Gold, traditionally seen as a store of value during political turmoil, climbed after Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran, a day after its embassy in Tehran was attacked to protest the Saudi execution of a prominent Shiite cleric. While unexpected incidents last year such, lifted prices briefly, gold still fell last year.
AVIATION
Soul probes budget airlines
South Korea is to review safety at six low-cost airlines after a Jin Air flight made an emergency return to the Philippines. The Ministry of Transport yesterday said that the safety investigation comes as the ministry is looking into the Jin Air incident. Jin Air Co said a Boeing 737-800 jet bound for Busan, South Korea, returned to Cebu, the Philippines, 40 minutes after takeoff on Sunday when one of the plane’s doors was found to be leaking air. The company said its initial investigation found no defect in the jet. No injuries were reported, but local media reports said passengers complained of a loud noise and suffered from headaches during the return trip.
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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