DEBT
Argentina hearing date set
A US court of appeals is to hold a hearing on April 13 to analyze the possible lifting of injunctions that have restricted Argentina from paying off some of its debts, according to an order issued by the court late on Friday. The date of the hearing is one day before the deadline established for Argentina to deliver a US$4.65 billion payout to key “holdout” creditors, as agreed in a deal last month that could allow the country to return to international debt markets after almost 15 years. Argentine Minister of Economy and Public Finances Alfonso Prat-Gay plans to issue up to US$15 billion in bonds to pay Argentina’s settlement with creditors and finance other government operations, official news agency Telam reported, citing unnamed government sources.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis to produce records
The US government on Friday asked Novartis AG to provide records of about 80,000 “sham” events in which the government says doctors were wined and dined so they would prescribe the company’s cardiovascular drugs to their patients. The Swiss drugmaker and the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office are engaged in a whistleblower lawsuit that alleges Novartis provided illegal kickbacks to healthcare providers through bogus educational programs. The US said it needs Novartis to provide information to support its allegation that the company defrauded federal healthcare programs of hundreds of millions of US dollars for about a decade.
ENERGY
Australia to fund ‘clean’ tech
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday said the country would establish a A$1 billion (US$751.90 million) “clean-energy” innovation fund, in a major departure from his predecessor’s much maligned approach to combating climate change. Turnbull said the new fund would focus on investing in high-tech “clean” energy technologies. He pledged that the world’s largest exporter of coal and iron ore would cut emissions by 26 to 28 percent of 2005 levels by 2030, a target he submitted as part of negotiations on a global climate deal in Paris last year.
CHINA
Web finance ‘self-regulated’
China’s central bank on Friday said that firms involved in Internet finance had set up an industry association, as authorities try to get a handle on the rapidly growing, but weakly regulated sector. The group would seek to “self-regulate” the industry at a time of growing risk from Internet financing, according to a transcript of a speech by a People’s Bank of China official at the opening ceremony. The Shanghai-based industry association groups online payment providers, peer-to-peer lenders and other Internet finance entities, the bank said.
ACQUISITIONS
JSW not offering Jindal cash
JSW Energy Ltd, controlled by the owners of India’s third-largest steelmaker, would offer little upfront cash in its planned acquisition of an electricity project from Jindal Steel & Power Ltd, people with knowledge of the matter said. JSW aims to reach an agreement by the end of this month on the purchase of Jindal Steel’s 1,000 megawatt plant in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district, the people said. The initial consideration would be about 45 billion rupees (US$673 million), with most to be settled through payment guarantees rather than cash, according to the people. The total value of the deal could reach as much as 65 billion rupees, the people said.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
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