CHINA
Industrial profit growth dips
Profit growth at China’s industrial companies last month slowed to the weakest in more than one year as still-high commodity prices continued to hit profitability. Industrial profit growth last month decelerated to 9 percent from a year earlier, the slowest pace since May last year, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. For the first 11 months of the year, profits climbed 38 percent from a year earlier, it said. While profits of coal miners and crude oil suppliers increased more than 200 percent in the first 11 months, as commodity prices soared, that has undermined the position of companies that use these products, with electricity and heating producers having profits decline worse than in the same period last year.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Binance gets Bahrain nod
Binance Holdings Ltd (幣安) received in-principle approval from the Bahraini Central Bank to be a crypto-asset service provider in the kingdom, the company said in a statement yesterday. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, still needs to complete the full application process, chief executive officer Zhao Changpeng (趙長鵬) wrote in an e-mail to Bloomberg News. That would be completed “in due course,” Zhao added. If successful, it would mark the first regulatory approval for a Binance entity in the Middle East or North Africa.
TURKEY
Lira plummets nearly 8%
The lira yesterday tumbled almost 8 percent against the US dollar amid persisting investor concern over Turkey’s monetary policy, having surged more than 50 percent last week after billions of dollars of state-backed market interventions. Yesterday, the lira weakened to as low as 11.6 against the US dollar before trimming losses to trade at 11.35 by 11am in Ankara. At current levels, the currency is 35 percent weaker than at the end of last year. Under pressure from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the central bank has slashed its policy rates by 500 basis points to 14 percent since September, despite inflation that has risen to more than 21 percent.
BANKING
Starling seeks lending unit
Digital-only start-up Starling Bank Ltd is on the hunt for a lending business to buy before its UK stock market debut, the Daily Mail reported, citing the bank’s founder and chief executive officer Anne Boden. Boden told the paper that the bank aims to acquire at least one lending platform in the first half of next year. Starling has made one such acquisition, buying Fleet Mortgages Ltd in July. “We’re likely to do one or more similar acquisitions in the same sort of model,” Boden said.
GLOBAL ECONOMY
Global GDP to top US$100tn
The world economy is next year to surpass US$100 trillion for the first time, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said, adding that the milestone is arriving two years earlier than previously forecast. Global GDP is to be lifted by the continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, although if inflation persists it might be difficult for policymakers to avoid tipping their economies back into recession, the London-based think tank said. “The important issue for the 2020s is how the world economies cope with inflation,” CEBR deputy chairman Douglas McWilliams said.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
Tax revenue from securities transactions last month increased 41.9 percent from a year earlier to NT$30.3 billion (US$975.8 million), rising on an annual basis for the third consecutive month and marking the highest for the month of October as Taiwanese stocks continued to perform strongly, data released by the Ministry of Finance showed yesterday. Last month, the TAIEX surged 2,412.81 points, or 9.34 percent, marking its largest-ever monthly rise for October as market sentiment was buoyed by a nearly 15 percent gain in contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which accounts for more than 40 percent of the
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
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