Germany’s government expects to receive a large revenue boost by tapping windfall profits generated by energy companies if they keep benefiting from disruptions in Europe’s electricity market, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday.
Germany will take in “many, many billions” of euros under the scenario and would use the revenue to help consumers affected by rampant inflation, Scholz said in an interview with broadcaster ZDF.
The government will use “earnings that exceed a threshold at companies that don’t have such high production costs and give it back to the citizens,” Scholz said.
Photo: AP
He also expressed confidence that Europe’s biggest economy would not face power blackouts.
The German government earlier on Sunday presented a 65 billion euro (US$64.5 billion) package to help citizens and companies cope with surging energy prices. The agreement, which brings total relief to almost 100 billion euros since the start of the Ukraine war, was hammered out overnight by Germany’s three-way ruling coalition of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democratic Party.
The government promised to support an EU effort to introduce levies on windfall profits as surging earnings at some energy companies amid rising electricity prices cause public outrage.
Germany has faced an energy crisis since Russia decided to all but shut down gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The decision by Russian supplier Gazprom PJSC on Friday not to restart the pipeline as planned after three days of maintenance has deepened the crisis. Europe is bracing for energy rationing this winter and perhaps even electricity blackouts.
Scholz told ZDF that his government is doing everything possible to prevent blackouts.
“I am also very certain” that such a scenario would not unfold this winter, he said.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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