TOURISM
Singapore hotel prices surge
Hotel rooms in Singapore are now the most expensive in almost a decade as the city-state seeks to position itself as a tourism and business destination in Asia. At S$259 (US$184.19) per night, the average hotel room rate in July rose nearly 70 percent year-on-year to the highest since Sept. 2012, as visitor arrivals continue to accelerate amid easing COVID-19 restrictions, the latest data from the Singapore Tourism Board showed. Visitor arrivals in Singapore rose for the sixth straight month in July to 726,601, up from 543,733 in June, the tourism board said.
INDIA
Services sector gains pace
Activity in the dominant services sector gathered pace last month, driven by an upturn in business activity and the sharpest rise in employment in over 14 years amid easing cost pressures. S&P Global India Purchasing Managers Index for services rose to 57.2 last month from a four-month low of 55.5 in July. A number above 50 shows expansion, while a print below that shows contraction in activity. “The pickup in growth stemmed from a rebound in new business gains as firms continued to benefit from the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions and ongoing marketing efforts,” S&P Global Market Intelligence Pollyanna economics associate director De Lima said.
BANKING
UBS exits Wealthfront deal
UBS Group AG has abandoned its plan to acquire US robo-adviser Wealthfront, unwinding what would have been the Swiss bank’s first major acquisition under chief executive officer Ralph Hamers. The companies together decided to terminate their January merger agreement, valued at US$1.4 billion, statements from both of them on Friday said, without specifying a reason. UBS would purchase a US$69.7 million note convertible into Wealthfront shares. Founded in 2008, Wealthfront was an early robo-adviser, using algorithms to help users manage money.
BANKING
HSBC trims HK staff
HSBC Holdings PLC is trimming the number of bankers focused on Chinese debt issuance amid a slump in bond deals from the world’s second-largest economy. Two vice presidents, who covered China debt markets, are leaving the firm, according to people familiar with the matter. With that, the Hong Kong-based team covering Greater China debt capital markets would shrink to one managing director and five directors, the people said. Banks have been reviewing headcount and cutting bankers in the Greater China region. UBS Group AG is letting go of half a dozen mainland China-focused employees in Hong Kong — including debt capital markets bankers.
TURKEY
Inflation rises slightly
The official inflation rate yesterday barely changed in a sign that a year-long crisis that has seen prices soar by 80 percent might finally be starting to ease. The Turkish Statistical Institute said that consumer prices rose by 80.2 percent last month from a year earlier. The figure was fractionally higher than the 79.6 percent reported in July and only a small bump up from the 78.6 percent reading in June. Turkey’s prices have been steadily rising since a low of 16.6 percent in May last year. The central bank said over the weekend it expects the inflation rate to fall to 65 percent by the end of the year.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
The founder of Chinese property giant Evergrande Group (恆大集團) has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and bribery, a court said yesterday, the latest blow for what was once the country’s leading developer. Evergrande’s rise was propelled by decades of rapid urbanization and rising living standards, but in 2020, its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation. The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors. Founder Xu Jiayin (許家印), 67, known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, was reportedly held by police in 2023, with Evergrande saying he had been subjected to
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