PROPERTY
HK plans vacancy tax
Hong Kong’s government unveiled details of a planned tax on unsold new apartments, including potential jail time for developers who defy the rules. Developers would be required to submit reports annually on the status of apartments, with false statements punishable by a fine and a year in prison, a document submitted to the Legislative Council late on Tuesday proposed. Under the plan, a tax amounting to double an apartment’s annual rental value would apply after six months of vacancy. The proposal also plugs a loophole: Developers cannot beat the tax simply by selling a new apartment to an associated company. The government plans to introduce a bill containing the measures before the end of the legislative year in July.
PROPERTY
Evergrande faces fund gap
Hui Ka Yan (許家印), China’s second-richest man, has 17 billion reasons to keep him awake at night. His property developer, China Evergrande Group (恒大集團), has debt maturing in 12 months or less that exceeds its cash by 114 billion yuan (US$17 billion), its full-year report released late on Tuesday showed. The yawning gap is partly the result of a drop in its cash buffer in the second half of last year. The giant funding gap indicates that Hui’s efforts to whittle down a US$100 billion debt pile and put the firm on a more solid financial footing still have some way to go. It might also explain why the company was willing to pay yields as high as 13.75 percent on bonds it sold in October last year — an issue Hui personally invested US$1 billion in.
INTERNET
Line, Mercari join forces
Line Corp and Mercari Inc are joining forces on mobile payments as Japan’s Internet companies race to dominate cashless transactions in the world’s third-largest economy. The operator of Japan’s most popular messaging platform and the used-goods online marketplace app would let users shop and pay for purchases at stores that accept each other’s systems, they told reporters in Tokyo yesterday. They also launched an alliance to welcome other mobile payment providers.
AIRPORTS
Group buying GMR stake
A consortium including India’s Tata Group, a unit of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and SSG Capital Management, is to invest 80 billion rupees (US$1.2 billion) to buy a stake in GMR Airports Ltd. The deal would pump 10 billion rupees into GMR Airports, a unit of GMR Infrastructure Ltd and purchase 70 billion rupees of the airport unit’s equity shares from the parent, according to a statement. GMR operates Delhi International Airport Ltd, the nation’s biggest airport. The deal values GMR Airports at 180 billion rupees, the company said in a filing. After the purchase, Tata would hold 20 percent in the airport unit, while GIC would get 15 percent and SSG would own 10 percent.
MACROECONOMICS
Downside risks remain: ECB
European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi said that risks to the eurozone’s economic outlook remain tilted to the downside and a pickup in inflation is delayed, warranting a continued accommodative monetary policy that includes negative interest rates. “If necessary, we need to reflect on possible measures that can preserve the favorable implications of negative rates for the economy, while mitigating the side effects, if any,” Draghi said. “That said, low bank profitability is not an inevitable consequence of negative rates.”
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
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