VIETNAM
PM eyes sustained growth
Vietnam seeks to sustain economic growth next year at about 6.8 percent amid a projected 7 percent rise in exports, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said. Inflation should stay below 4 percent next year, Phuc told legislators in a speech in Hanoi aired live on television. Overseas sales are set to gain 7.9 percent this year, while inflation will likely average 2.7 to 3 percent this year, he said. Growth in the Southeast Asian economy accelerated to 7.31 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, surpassing expectations to reach the fastest pace since the start of last year. Vietnam is benefiting from rising foreign investment in manufacturing as businesses shift production from China to bypass higher tariffs.
ECUADOR
Oil exports resume
Ecuador on Sunday said it had resumed crude oil exports curbed by violent protests that forced several wells in the Amazon to halt operations. The country was hit by 12 days of demonstrations, led by indigenous groups, against fuel price hikes until President Lenin Moreno reached a deal with protest leaders on Oct. 13. “Oil production has recovered, so the operation of the Trans-Ecuadorian Oil Pipeline System has been standardized,” Petroecuador, the national oil company, said in a statement. “All suspended exports will be rescheduled in the coming days.”
RIDE-HAILING
Gojek announces new CEOs
Indonesian ride-hailing and payments company Gojek said two senior officials would jointly take over running operations of the US$10 billion firm after chief executive officer and cofounder Nadiem Makarim resigned to join Indonesia’s Cabinet. Gojek president Andre Soelistyo and the other cofounder, Kevin Aluwi, would be the joint CEOs, the company said. It had “planned for this possibility and there would no disruption to its business,” it said in a statement. Soelistyo has been at the firm since 2016 and previously headed Singaporean private equity firm Northstar Group, while Aluwi runs the company’s data science and analytics teams.
OIL RIGS
Temasek plans takeover
Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte plans to take control of Keppel Corp for about S$4 billion (US$3 billion) and undertake a review of the oil-rig builder’s business that could involve a board shakeup. The state-backed investor, which already owns about one-fifth of Keppel, offered to buy an additional 30.6 percent stake at S$7.35 a share, according to a statement yesterday. That is 26 percent higher than what Singapore-based Keppel traded at before its shares were halted. Temasek said it plans to keep Keppel traded on the Singapore stock exchange. Keppel also has businesses involved in real estate and infrastructure.
AIRLINES
Strike cancels flights
Cabin crew at four Lufthansa subsidiary airlines staged a day-long strike on Sunday, causing dozens of cancelations at German airports in a battle for better pay and conditions. The walkout, called by the UFO cabin crew union, at Eurowings, Germanwings, SunExpress and Lufthansa CityLine led to more than 100 flight cancelations, mainly hitting short-haul journeys at Hamburg airport, Munich, Berlin-Tegel, Cologne and Stuttgart, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. Frankfurt airport, the country’s busiest, reported “only a few” cancelations, affecting CityLine flights.
‘FINGERPRINTING’: The ‘private relay’ feature hides a user’s IP address by rerouting the Web connection through a third party, making it impossible to infer their identity Apple Inc on Monday said a new “private relay” feature designed to obscure a user’s Web browsing behavior from Internet service providers and advertisers would not be available in China for regulatory reasons. The feature was one of a number of privacy protections Apple announced at its annual software developer conference on Monday, the latest in a years-long effort by the company to cut down on the tracking of its users by advertisers and other third parties. Apple’s decision to withhold the feature in China is the latest in a string of compromises the company has made on privacy in a country
PLEDGE: The contract chipmaker said it would issue at least NT$2.5 a share each quarter and no less than NT$10 per share for the whole of this year Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday raised its proposed cash dividend for last quarter to NT$2.75 per share from NT$2.5 a year earlier, given the company’s increased earnings. That represents a payout ratio of about 51 percent based on its earnings per share of NT$5.39 in the first three months of this year. TSMC said that its board of directors approved the cash dividend distribution yesterday. The Hsinchu-based chipmaker reassured its investors that it intends to maintain a stable and sustainable dividend policy. The company said that it would issue at least NT$2.5 a share
TIMELY RAIN: Before the arrival of the seasonal plum rains late last month, the nation had gone almost a year without significant rainfall in catchment areas Timely plum rains have significantly alleviated a historic water shortage in Taiwan, allowing water restriction measures to be lifted in some areas, while the hardest-hit areas remain on alert, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said yesterday. “Thanks to Tropical Storm Choi-Wan, the sustained plum rains and continued water resource management efforts, the water situation in Taiwan has been greatly alleviated,” Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美華) told an online news conference. More than 100mm of rain has fallen in the catchment areas of the reservoirs in Miaoli and Taichung counties over the past few days, Water Resources Agency data
Apple Inc has hired Ulrich Kranz, a former senior executive at BMW AG’s electric vehicle (EV) division, to help lead its own vehicle efforts, people familiar with the situation said. The tech giant hired Kranz in recent weeks, about a month after he stepped down as CEO of Canoo Inc, a developer of self-driving EVs. Before cofounding Canoo, Kranz was senior vice president of the group that developed the i3 and i8 cars at BMW, where he worked for 30 years. Kranz is one of Apple’s most significant automotive hires, a clear sign that the iPhone maker is determined to build a
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