INDONESIA
New tax bracket added
Parliament yesterday approved a law to let the government add a top income bracket, increase the value-added tax and roll out a second round of an amnesty program next year. Lawmakers agreed to pass the tax law at a plenary session — a boon to the government’s efforts to expand its revenue base and rein in its budget deficit. The bill is the second in a series of the nation’s omnibus laws, which aim to revise many existing laws at once. The tax law is set to boost state earnings and help the government bring the fiscal deficit under the legal limit of 3 percent of GDP by 2023.
HOUSING
UK prices surge 1.7%
UK house prices increased last month at the fastest pace in more than 14 years, and healthy demand is set to persist, despite the headwinds facing the economy, mortgage lender Halifax said yesterday. The average price of a home rose 1.7 percent to ￡267,587 pounds (US$363,645) following a 0.8 percent gain in August, it said. The increase was the largest since February 2007 and pushed up the annual pace of growth to 7.4 percent. The housing market has boomed since the summer of last year, boosted by a tax cut on property purchases and demand driven by the COVID-19 pandemic for larger homes away from city centers with space to work from home.
AIRLINES
UK drops refund probe
Britain’s competition regulator yesterday scrapped its action against Ryanair Holdings PLC and British Airways over their failure to offer refunds to passengers prevented from flying by COVID-19 restrictions, because it said a lack of legal clarity made the outcome uncertain. The Competition and Markets Authority started action against the airlines in June. It yesterday said that the law did not provide passengers with a sufficiently clear right to a refund in such unusual circumstances, and it could not therefore justify continuing to pursue its action.
BANKING
AfDB backs US$7bn in trade
The African Development Bank (AfDB) said it would support trade valued at US$7 billion throughout the next five years in a bid to spur the growth of the world’s biggest free-trade area. The financier — founded in 1964 — would guarantee loans given to companies to sell their products across the continent in a move that would facilitate the development of the African Continental Free Trade Area that went into effect on Jan. 1. The bank would back about 2,000 transactions, it said in an e-mail. Companies in 2019 faced a shortfall of US$81 billion in financing trade, a survey done by the Abidjan, Ivory Coast-based lender showed.
TECHNOLOGY
Google to invest in Africa
Google on Wednesday announced that it would invest US$1 billion in boosting Africa’s Internet access and start-up ventures. Spread over five years, the investment includes funding for Google’s Equiano subsea cable — a major private infrastructure project aimed at ramping up Africa’s high-speed connections. The network is planned to run through South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and the Atlantic island of St Helena. Google said the project would lead to a 21 percent drop in Internet prices, as well as a fivefold increase in connection speeds in Nigeria and almost triple in South Africa.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
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