REAL ESTATE
Hong Kongers seeking homes
Hong Kong buying enquiries for expensive Australian and New Zealand homes have ramped up due to anti-government protests in the territory, according to agents and real-estate data. Jamie Mi, partner at Melbourne-based Kay & Burton, said the real-estate agency was receiving about one-third more enquiries from Hong Kong buyers than usual, with most buyers targeting high-end properties priced above A$5 million (US$3.4 million). Juwai.com (居外網), China’s largest international property Web site, recorded a 50 percent increase in Hong Kong enquiries for Australian properties in the past quarter.
CHINA
Companies return to profit
The nation’s companies returned to profit last month, driven by a comparison with weak results a year earlier, a jump in electrical machinery equipment sales and an improvement in the returns of manufacturers of vehicles, chemicals and processed oil. Industrial profits rose 2.6 percent from a year earlier, after dropping in June. For the first seven months of the year, profits were down 1.7 percent. Infrastructure investment in railways pushed up profits of electrical machine production, ING bank NV economist Iris Pang (彭藹嬈) said.
AUTOMAKERS
Polestar opens China plant
Volvo Cars Co’s performance electric-car brand, Polestar, has opened a factory in western China to produce a gasoline-electric hybrid for export to Europe and the US. Polestar chief executive officer Thomas Ingenlath yesterday said that exports of the two-door, carbon fiber Polestar 1 coupe would start this year to Europe, priced at about 150,000 euros (US$165,000). Exports to the US from the factory in Chengdu would start next year, Ingenlath said. Volvo Cars is owned by Chinese automaker Geely Holding Group (吉利控股集團).
UNITED KINGDOM
Huawei decision in autumn
The government would make a decision on whether to allow equipment made by China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) to be used in the country’s 5G networks in the autumn, Treasury Select Committee chair Nicky Morgan said. “We will make the right decision for the UK. I would hope we could do something by the autumn,” Morgan told BBC radio. “We’ve got to make sure that this is going to be a decision for the long term, making sure that we keep all our networks secure.”
INTERNET
Facebook order suspended
Facebook Inc scored an interim victory on Monday when a German court temporarily suspended restrictions that the national competition watchdog had placed on the social network’s data collection practices. The Federal Competition Office immediately said it would appeal the ruling by the Duesseldorf regional court before the Federal Court of Justice. The office had found in February that Facebook abused its dominant market position to gather information about users for their advertising business.
AUTOMAKERS
Ex-Volkswagen boss dies
Volkswagen AG’s powerful ex-chairman Ferdinand Piech, credited with the automaker’s rise from the brink of bankruptcy to world leader status, has died aged 82, his wife said on Monday. According to several media, including the Bild newspaper and DPA news agency, Piech died on Sunday night at a hospital in Rosenheim in Bavaria.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
CUSTOMERS’ BURDEN: TSMC already has operations in the US and is a foundry, so any tariff increase would mostly affect US customers, not the company, the minister said Taiwanese manufacturers are “not afraid” of US tariffs, but are concerned about being affected more heavily than regional economic competitors Japan and South Korea, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said. “Taiwan has many advantages that other countries do not have, the most notable of which is its semiconductor ecosystem,” Kuo said. The US “must rely on Taiwan” to boost its microchip manufacturing capacities, Kuo said in an interview ahead of his one-year anniversary in office tomorrow. Taiwan has submitted a position paper under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act to explain the “complementary relationship” between Taiwan and the US
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