JAPAN
Too soon for new deal: PM
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said now is not the time to discuss revising an accord the government set with the Bank of Japan in 2013 that aimed to help achieve its 2 percent inflation target. “It’s still too early, as the new governor hasn’t been appointed yet,” Kishida said in an interview on BS TV Tokyo yesterday. He said he expects to work out whether to discuss it after a new governor is appointed, with Governor Haruhiko Kuroda due to step down in April. A 10-year historic accord that ties Japan’s central bank to a 2 percent inflation goal has been the focus of speculation that it may need to be changed. Japan’s consumer inflation rate hit a 41-year high of 4 percent last month, the government reported on Friday.
DEBT
Yellen upbeat on Zambia
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen again expressed cautious optimism that China will be willing to enter into a multilateral debt restructuring deal with Zambia. The potential agreement is seen as a crucial test case for efforts to help developing countries find relief from sometimes crushing external debt. “Our counterparts are sophisticated economics officials who can listen to a reasoned argument and understand it,” Yellen told reporters in Dakar, Senegal, on Saturday. “I definitely think they get what the problem is, and that there needs to be a solution.” Zambia is seen as a key test case for the so-called Common Framework, a program set up by wealthy countries to unify the positions of commercial and sovereign creditors and smooth the path to debt relief for the most heavily indebted countries. “The Chinese understand that we’re concerned” about Zambia, but there are many countries now that are falling into a situation — partly because of Russia’s war in Ukraine and what’s happened to food and energy and fertilizer prices, but also because of the pandemic,” Yellen said.
MASS MEDIA
Vox lays off 7% of workers
Vox Media Inc, the publisher of properties like Vox.com, Eater, The Verge and New York Magazine, laid off 7 percent of its workforce on Friday. Affected groups include revenue, editorial, operations and core services, according to a memo to staff from chief executive officer Jim Bankoff obtained by Bloomberg News. Bankoff referenced other firms’ difficulties in the media and tech space and said even a steep slowdown in hiring and reduced spending has not staved off the need to cut more costs. This is the third round of layoffs, and the largest, for Vox Media in less than a year. It axed 3 percent of its staff after acquiring Group Nine Media Inc, publisher of Thrillist and NowThis, in March last year and cut 39 employees in July, citing reduced advertising budgets.
ELECTRONICS
WD-Kioxia talks progress
Western Digital Corp (WD) and Kioxia Holdings Corp are progressing in their merger talks and have figured out a rough structure that would eventually involve a dual listing in Japan, according to people familiar with the matter. Under the terms being discussed, Western Digital would spin off its flash business and merge it with Kioxia, creating a publicly traded company in the US, the people said. The company would also plan a second stock listing in Japan, they added. Western Digital management is expected to run the combined company, the people said. Combined, the two will become the world’s second-largest maker of flash memory chips that provide storage in everything from smartphones to supercomputers.
GERMANY
Slow China weaning urged
Germany must reduce its dependence on China gradually, as decoupling from the Chinese market would costs jobs in Europe’s biggest economy, Finance Minister Christian Lindner was quoted as saying yesterday. Germany is working on a new China strategy that takes a more sober view of relations and aims to reduce dependence on Asia’s economic superpower, which has been the country’s top trading partner since 2016. “Decoupling our economy from the Chinese market would not be in the interest of jobs in Germany,” Lindner was quoted as saying by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. He said that gradually other world regions and markets would have to become more important for German business over the coming years and decades, Welt reported. “The political conditions must be improved for this,” Lindner said.
AUTOMOTIVE
California EV numbers swell
Almost one in five new cars sold in California last year was a zero-emission vehicle, the state said on Friday, as the largest car market in the US states charges toward its goal of electrifying its fleet. Last year officials set ambitious targets for boosting the number of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) on the roads, as they look to slash planet-warming gases produced by combustion engines. On Friday the California Energy Commission said 18.8 percent of new cars sold in the state last year were EVs, PHEVs or fuel cell electric vehicles, all of which California includes in its zero-emission category. Ten years ago, that figure was 2 percent.
AUTOMAKERS
Crippling US strike ended
Members of two local unions at CNH Industrial NV factories in Wisconsin and Iowa reached an agreement over a new labor contract on Saturday, ending a strike that has been ongoing since May last year, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union said. The contract, which was voted on as an improved “last, best, and final offer” by CNH Industrial workers, included wage increases, shift premium increases, classification upgrades and as other improvements, the UAW, which represents more than 1,000 hourly workers at the two plants, said in a statement. More than 1,000 union members in Racine, Wisconsin, and Burlington, Iowa, walked off their equipment-making jobs in May last year after a six-year contract expired at the facilities.
BANKING
ICICI profit surprises
ICICI Bank Ltd, India’s second-largest bank, reported 34 percent growth in profit, helped by a surprise improvement in interest margin. Net income was 83.1 billion rupees (US$1 billion) in the October-to-December quarter, compared with 61.9 billion a year ago, the company said in a statement on Saturday. That beat the average estimate of 80.5 billion rupees in a Bloomberg survey. The bank’s net interest margin was also ahead of the consensus view. ICICI, a large player in retail loans in the world’s second-most populous country, saw deposits grow 10 percent year-on-year to 11.2 trillion rupees in the December quarter, down from the 16 percent growth the prior year. Meanwhile, the bank’s retail loans portfolio, which accounts for more than half of its total advances, rose 23.4 percent from a year ago and 4.5 percent from preceding three-month period.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
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