GERMANY
Production beats estimates
Industrial production fell by less than expected in March and trade proved resilient, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy data showed yesterday, supporting robust growth expectations for the first quarter. The reports followed by one day data showing the nation’s industrial orders rose for the second consecutive month in March, the first time since 2015. Industrial output edged down by 0.4 percent on the month, yesterday’s data showed. This was better than the consensus forecast in a Reuters poll for a drop of 0.6 percent. The decline was driven by a 2.5 percent fall in energy output. Manufacturing production was down 0.5 percent while construction output rose 1.5 percent. In the first quarter as a whole, industrial production rose 1.4 percent on the quarter, the ministry said. The ministry said the industrial upswing in the first quarter had momentum.
FINANCE
Wells Fargo eyes unit sale
Wells Fargo & Co is weighing a sale of its insurance brokerage business, which could fetch about US$2 billion, people familiar with the matter said. The San Francisco-based lender has begun reaching out to private equity firms to gauge interest in Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA Inc, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is not public. While the company is planning to move forward with a sale, it has not set a timeline for holding a formal auction, one of the people said. If Wells Fargo fetches US$2 billion for the insurance services unit, it would be the company’s largest divestiture on record, topping the US$1.05 billion sale last year of its crop insurance business to Zurich Insurance Group AG, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
BANKING
Credit Suisse to cut staff
Credit Suisse Group AG is cutting as many as 35 positions at its equities business in Asia after the unit’s revenue slumped, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The firm is mainly culling trading, sales, prime brokerage and research positions in the region, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The latest round of reductions, which started about two months ago, is to be completed by next month, the person said. Credit Suisse is shaking up a markets business that was singled out as unprofitable and suffering from “significantly reduced client activity” by the firm’s chief executive officer Tidjane Thiam when reporting first-quarter earnings last month. Equities trading revenue dropped 16 percent in the Asia-Pacific region in the quarter, stung by a slump in derivatives sales.
TRADE
EU pushes China on access
Europe hopes China would deliver its pro-globalization pledges by increasing foreign access to its own markets, EU Ambassador to China Hans Dietmar Schweisgut said yesterday ahead of a summit to discuss Beijing’s signature New Silk Road development plan. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January painted a picture of China as a wide-open economy in contrast to a rising wave of global protectionism. However, the Chinese government has faced increasingly fervent criticism from foreign business groups and governments, who say China has done little to remove discriminatory policies and market barriers that favor Chinese companies. Schweisgut said Europe was impressed by Xi’s defense of globalization and open markets in Davos, calling them important messages.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
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