CHINA
Consumer inflation soars
Consumer inflation last month accelerated at its fastest pace in almost six years as African swine fever sent pork prices soaring nearly 70 percent, official data showed yesterday. The consumer price index hit 3 percent last month, the National Bureau of Statistics said, up from 2.8 percent in August and the highest since since November 2013.However, the producer price index — an important barometer that measures the cost of goods at the factory gate — contracted 1.2 percent from the previous year, the bureau said.
SINGAPORE
Apartment sales up 13%
Sales of private apartments last month jumped 13 percent to the highest in more than a year, even as home-price growth became more moderate. Developers in the city-state sold 1,270 apartments last month versus a revised 1,123 in August, Urban Redevelopment Authority data released yesterday showed. That is the most since July last year, when the government shocked the market by introducing curbs to take the heat out of residential real estate.
TRANSPORTATION
Uber retrenches about 350
In his latest bid to reduce losses at Uber Technologies Inc, chief executive officer Dara Khosrowshahi fired about 350 employees, in what he said is the “last wave” of workforce reductions. The cuts hit a handful of divisions, including self-driving car development and food delivery. Uber dismissed more than 800 employees over two rounds of cuts in July and last month. TechCrunch reported the news earlier on Monday, and an Uber spokesman confirmed the cuts. About 70 percent of the dismissals occurred in North America.
MOTORCYCLES
Harley electric bike on hold
Harley-Davidson Inc on Monday announced that it had suspended production and delivery of its LiveWire electric motorcycle, which the brand had rolled out as part of a diversification push. “We recently discovered a non-standard condition during a final quality check; stopped production and deliveries; and began additional testing,” the company said in a statement. The Wall Street Journal reported that the decision came after a problem with the vehicle’s battery charging was discovered.
BANKING
Negative rates at UniCredit
Italian banking giant UniCredit on Monday said it would pass on negative interest rates to clients with deposits of more than 1 million euros (US$1.1 million), having earlier spoken of charging for accounts with 100,000 euros. That would make it the first big eurozone bank to do so. UniCredit, which is also a major lender in Austria and several eastern European nations, plans to offer these clients money market investment alternatives on the balance up to 1 million that aim to avoid a negative return.
HOSPITALS
Metro Pacific ditches IPO
The hospital venture of a Philippine investment group delayed what would have been the nation’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) and instead plans to raise 35.3 billion pesos (US$684 million) by selling shares to KKR & Co and Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte. KKR and GIC are to pay 5.2 billion pesos for a 2.7 percent stake in Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings Inc and buy bonds worth 30.1 billion pesos, convertible into 239.93 million shares, a statement said yesterday. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
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