HONG KONG
‘Wise’ to trade in yuan
The currency system cannot realistically serve as a conduit between China and the rest of the world, former Monetary Authority chief executive Joseph Yam (任志剛) said yesterday. The territory’s status as a global financial center makes its economy especially vulnerable to volatile fund flows — a dilemma that will only deepen as China relaxes its capital controls, Yam wrote in a blog post. It might be wise to let local stocks be priced and traded in the yuan as well, he said.
MONGOLIA
IMF to delay bailout funds
The IMF is to delay disbursing bailout funds after its prime minister and Cabinet were toppled in a parliamentary no-confidence vote last week, the fund said yesterday. The cash-strapped and debt-ridden nation was granted a US$5.5 billion rescue package from the IMF and other partners in May. The IMF office in Mongolia said a review of the bailout package would be held after a new administration is formed.
RETAIL
Hermes posts record profits
Luxury goods maker Hermes yesterday said that good sales momentum across all of its divisions and in all regions helped it achieve a record profitability in the first six months. Growth in leather goods and saddlery was “sustained” and the perfumes division also booked an increase in sales, the company said. Overall, group revenue rose by 11 percent to 2.713 billion euros (US$3.23 billion) in the period from January to June, while operating profit was up 13 percent at 931 million euros and net profit climbed by 11 percent to 605 million euros.
UNITED STATES
Deficit higher than year ago
The federal government recorded a slightly larger deficit last month than a year ago, while the deficit through the first 11 months of this budget year is well above the same period last year. The Department of the Treasury said that last month’s deficit totaled US$107.7 billion, up 0.5 percent from a deficit of US$107.1 billion a year ago. With one month to go in this budget year, the deficit totals US$673.7 billion, 8.8 percent above the deficit for the same period a year ago, it said.
INDIA
Larger oil area for auction
The nation is to offer larger areas with higher oil and natural gas reserves in the next auction of discovered fields later this year as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government seeks to curtail rising crude oil imports. “The next round would be meatier, bigger and players can expect even better fields,” said Atanu Chakraborty, head of oil regulator Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons. It last year offered 67 small oil and gas fields holding about 625 million barrels of reserves in its first auction in six years.
INSURANCE
Storms to take toll on profits
Munich Re, the world’s largest reinsurer, said that storms led by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma will probably wipe out third-quarter profits and threaten the company’s ability to meet its full-year earnings target. “These two events are expected to result in high insured losses, which the market and Munich Re are unable to quantify at the moment,” the company said on Wednesday in a statement. It had previously given guidance of this year’s profit of 2 billion euros to 2.4 billion euros.
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
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
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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