OIL
PDVSA to pay bond interest
Struggling Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA says it has begun paying US$539 million in interest payments on four bonds just hours before a grace period expires. The company, the source of 96 percent of the nation’s foreign revenue, informed bondholders in a statement on Twitter that on Thursday it began “the transfer process” for the payment of PDVSA bonds maturing in 2026, 2024, 2021 and 2035. The grace period for making those payments runs out between Friday and Sunday.
SINGAPORE
Good home sales even better
Home sales rose last month, extending gains for a year that is already the best since 2013, as developers marketed more projects. Developers sold 785 units last month, up from a revised 760 in October, Urban Redevelopment Authority data released yesterday showed. They also launched more units — 450 versus 242 — the data showed. Companies launched new projects including Parc Botannia, which sold 253 of 357 units marketed. Overall, Singapore developers have sold about 10,245 units this year through last month.
OIL
Lebanon okays group bid
Lebanon on Thursday approved a first bid from an international consortium including France’s Total SA, Italy’s ENI SpA and Russia’s Novatek OJSC to explore for oil and gas off the nation’s Mediterranean coast. The group was the only one to respond to a call for bids by the authorities in Beirut, with Lebanon’s attempts to begin offshore energy exploration in recent years hampered by political instability.
TECHNOLOGY
EU might fine Qualcomm
Qualcomm Inc is likely to be penalized in the coming weeks by the EU for paying Apple Inc to shun rival chip companies, a person familiar with the case said. Regulators are set to find that the company violated antitrust law by using incentive payments to ensure exclusivity, the person said. EU officials have been studying a September ruling involving Intel Corp that raised similar issues and could issue findings on Qualcomm as soon as next month, the person said. The person did not discuss a potential fine, which is widely expected.
INTERNET
Facebook bolsters video use
Facebook Inc on Thursday moved to bolster its appeal and money-making potential as an online platform for viewing video similar to YouTube. The leading social network is next year to test showing short ads before videos on a new “Watch” section devoted to just that activity, a blog post by product manager director Maria Angelidou-Smith and product manager Abhishek Bapna said. Facebook also said it is updating its News Feed content ranking system to ramp up distribution of videos by popular publishers.
MANUFACTURING
Robot production sees record
Annual production of industrial robots surpassed 100,000 for the first time — and it only took 10 months. Shipments were up 67 percent through October compared with a year earlier, China’s state media reported on Thursday. There is more to come: full-year output is to reach 120,000 units, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology forecast. China produced about 90,000 robot units last year, more than South Korea and North America combined, data compiled by Bloomberg from the International Federation of Robotics showed.
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
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
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