NEW ZEALAND
Growth slower than expected
The economy grew less than expected in the final three months of last year as it recovered from a contraction caused by a COVID-19 lockdown in Auckland, the country’s largest city. GDP rose 3 percent from the third quarter, when it fell a revised 3.6 percent, Statistics New Zealand said yesterday. The economy expanded 3.1 percent from one year earlier. The fourth-quarter recovery was led by services and production, while output from the primary sector fell, the agency said.
BRAZIL
Rate raised for ninth time
The central bank raised its key interest rate for the ninth straight time on Wednesday, as Latin America’s largest economy continues to reel from surging inflation, now exacerbated by the Ukraine war. The bank’s monetary policy committee raised the benchmark Selic rate by 1 percentage point, to 11.75 percent, in line with analysts’ forecasts, citing inflation that “continued to negatively surprise” policymakers. The annual inflation rate stands at 10.54 percent, far above the central bank’s target of 3.5 percent.
ENERGY
Battery firms get financing
Reliance Industries Ltd and Softbank Group-backed Ola Electric Mobility Pvt are to receive incentives under India’s US$2.4 billion program to boost local battery cell production after winning a tender, four sources said. The winning bidders also include Hyundai Global Motors Co and Indian jewelry maker Rajesh Exports Ltd, the sources said on condition of anonymity. Ola Electric and Hyundai would get incentives for 20 gigawatt hours capacity, while Reliance and Rajesh Exports have won incentives for 5 gigawatt hours, the sources said. They did not provide a financial value.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Qualcomm halts Russia trade
Qualcomm Inc said on Wednesday that it has stopped selling its products to Russian companies in compliance with US-imposed sanctions after Moscow invaded Ukraine. The company’s action was disclosed by Qualcomm senior vice president of government affairs Nate Tibbits on Twitter, replying to a comment by Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Revenue from Russia and Ukraine accounts for less than 1 percent of its total revenue, Qualcomm said earlier this month.
STEELMAKERS
Thyssenkrupp faces concern
Thyssenkrupp AG said the planned separation of its steel operations has been thrown into uncertainty by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. The German industrial conglomerate can no longer offer “a statement on the feasibility” of a standalone steel business due to economic conditions, the firm said in a statement. The firm also suspended its full-year forecast for free cash flow before mergers and acquisitions.
RETAILERS
Ocado lowers forecast
Ocado Group PLC’s online grocery joint venture with Marks & Spencer Group PLC yesterday said this year’s revenue growth might be lower than previously expected. Ocado Retail said it is initiating cost-cutting measures across the business and reported a 5.7 percent decline in first-quarter retail revenue, as customers return to pre-COVID-19 shopping habits. Revenue growth would likely be closer to 10 percent for the full year, while earnings margin might be affected by significant increases in energy costs, the company said.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
NATURAL PARTNERS: Taiwan and Japan have complementary dominant supply chain positions, are geographically and culturally close, and have similar work ethics Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other related companies would add ￥11.2 trillion (US$78.31 billion) to Japan’s chipmaking hot spot Kumamoto Prefecture over the next decade, a local bank’s analysis said. Kyushu Financial Group, a lender based in Kumamoto’s capital, almost doubled its projection for the economic impact that the chip sector would bring to the region compared to its estimate a year earlier, a presentation on Thursday said. The bank said that 171 firms had made new investments since November 2021, up from 90 in an earlier analysis. TSMC’s Kumamoto location was once a sleepy farming area, but has undergone
RSS