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.
UNCERTAINTY: Innolux activated a stringent supply chain management mechanism, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure optimal inventory levels for customers Flat-panel display makers AUO Corp (友達) and Innolux Corp (群創) yesterday said that about 12 to 20 percent of their display business is at risk of potential US tariffs and that they would relocate production or shipment destinations to mitigate the levies’ effects. US tariffs would have a direct impact of US$200 million on AUO’s revenue, company chairman Paul Peng (彭雙浪) told reporters on the sidelines of the Touch Taiwan trade show in Taipei yesterday. That would make up about 12 percent of the company’s overall revenue. To cope with the tariff uncertainty, AUO plans to allocate its production to manufacturing facilities in
Taiwan will prioritize the development of silicon photonics by taking advantage of its strength in the semiconductor industry to build another shield to protect the local economy, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said yesterday. Speaking at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee, Liu said Taiwan already has the artificial intelligence (AI) industry as a shield, after the semiconductor industry, to safeguard the country, and is looking at new unique fields to build more economic shields. While Taiwan will further strengthen its existing shields, over the longer term, the country is determined to focus on such potential segments as
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
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