JAPAN
Household spending up 1.2%
Household spending rose 1.2 percent last month from the same month last year, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications data showed yesterday, the first gain since August last year. The result surprised economists, who had foreseen a 1.9 percent decline, according to a Bloomberg market forecast. However, economists likely overlooked the positive effect of the extra day last month due to the Leap Year, NLI Research Institute senior economist Taro Saito said. Separate economic data released yesterday showed Japan’s jobless rate came in at 3.3 percent last month, slightly worse from 3.2 percent in the previous month.
SAUDI ARABIA
Consumer activity down
Consumers withdrew and spent less money last month, according to central bank data released on Monday. M3, one of the broadest measures of money supply, shrank for the first time since at least 2000, when Bloomberg started tracking the data. Cash withdrawals through ATMs fell 8 percent after expanding for at least the previous five months, central bank data show. Point-of-sale transactions, an indicator of consumer confidence in the economy, dropped 9 percent from the year-earlier period to 15.2 billion riyals (US$4.1 billion). The kingdom’s growth may slow to 1.5 percent this year, according to the median estimate of a Bloomberg survey, the slowest pace since at least 2009.
RETAIL
Wal-Mart wins ruling
Wal-Mart Stores Inc has won a legal victory in a fight over tax revenue with the government of Puerto Rico. A federal judge in the US island territory ruled on Monday that a modified tangible-property tax is invalid. The retail giant filed the suit in December last year and is Puerto Rico’s largest private employer. Federal Judge Jose Antonio Fuste also said in his ruling that the government needs to be more transparent and that Puerto Ricans deserve to know the truth about how the economic crisis originated. The Puerto Rican Department of Justice is considering whether to appeal the decision.
TECHNOLOGY
Dell to sell Perot Systems
Dell Inc has agreed to sell its Perot Systems subsidiary, which provides information technology services to hospitals and governments, to the Japanese technology company NTT Data Corp for almost US$3.1 billion. NTT Data disclosed the agreement with Dell in a filing with the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Monday. It did not say when it intended to complete the acquisition. Dell bought Perot Systems, founded by the entrepreneur and onetime presidential candidate Ross Perot, for US$3.9 billion in 2009 as it tried to expand beyond its struggling core business of making personal computers. However, now Dell is shedding peripheral units and raising cash as it prepares to take over EMC Corp.
CASINOS
Elaine Wynn files suit
Elaine Wynn, the ex-wife of Wynn Resorts Ltd founder Steve Wynn, filed suit in a Nevada state court seeking to gain control over her shareholdings in the casino company. Chief executive officer Steve Wynn breached their January 2010 stockholder agreement, Elaine Wynn said on Monday in a statement. She accused her ex-husband of orchestrating her ouster from the board in retaliation for asking questions about the “tone at the top,” the absence of appropriate internal controls, the withholding of information from the board and alleged reckless activity of the CEO and others.
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