PHILIPPINES
Outsourcing head bullish
The nation’s US$26 billion outsourcing industry expects to continue growing, despite the risks brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, but sees a three-year government support plan as key to boosting its competitiveness. The industry has shown a “tremendous resilience,” IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines president and chief executive Rey Untal said in an interview in Manila. “We are cautiously optimistic of sustaining some level of growth for this industry in the near future.” With a high level of English proficiency, a young population and cheap labor, the nation has been one of the global leaders in business-process outsourcing. Outsourcing revenue, a key pillar of the economy, rose 7.1 percent last year, association data showed. The association has penciled in 3.5 percent to 7.5 percent annual growth through 2022.
JAPAN
Consumer prices decline
Key consumer prices last month fell at a slightly slower pace, but failed to log gains for a sixth straight month, with economists expecting worse to come. A gauge of prices excluding fresh food fell 0.3 percent year-on-year, largely reflecting the impact of government travel subsidies, following a 0.4 percent drop in August, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said yesterday. Analysts had forecast a 0.4 percent decline. While the latest data might help ease concerns of a descent into longer-term deflation, additional factors are expected to weigh on prices from next month. The central bank next week is likely to consider slightly adjusting its inflation forecasts to reflect the short-term downward impact on prices of the travel subsidies, people familiar with the matter said.
BANKING
Largest-ever US fine agreed
Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay US$2.9 billion in penalties to settle criminal charges in the 1MDB Malaysian bribery scandal, the largest US fine ever in a corruption case, the US Department of Justice Department said on Thursday. Acting US Assistant Attorney General Brian Rabbitt said that Goldman Sachs “accepted responsibility” in the case that involved US$1.6 billion in bribes, the largest ever recorded, and massive gains laundered through the US financial system. Goldman Sachs helped raise US$6.5 billion for the Malaysian government’s sovereign wealth fund. The justice department has said that more than US$4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB by high-level officials at the fund and their associates between 2009 and 2015. The investment fund “was looted by corrupt officials and their co-conspirators, including senior Goldman bankers” turning it “into a piggy bank for corrupt public officials and their cronies,” Rabbitt said at a news conference.
BANKING
Traders defy pandemic
Traders at Barclays PLC had another strong quarter as COVID-19 pandemic-driven market volatility persisted. The London-based bank’s securities division reported a 23 percent jump in foreign-exchange, rates and credit trading income in the third quarter, helping the bank beat earnings estimates. Equity trading income jumped 40 percent. Barclays also posted lower-than-expected impairments from the pandemic. Barclays chief executive Jes Staley said that the bank was weathering the crisis “with strong income performance in our corporate and investment bank more than offsetting headwinds in our consumer businesses.” Total trading income jumped 29 percent. The consumer business also benefited from a pickup in mortgage demand, swinging back to profit.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”