■INDIA
Interest rates raised 0.25%
The central bank has unexpectedly hiked key interest rates a quarter of a percentage point, as the bank tries to cool high inflation amid a faster-than-expected economic rebound. The bank raised the benchmark repo rate — at which the central bank makes short-term loans to commercial banks — to 5 percent and raised the reverse repurchase rate — the rate at which it borrows from commercial banks — to 3.5 percent, with immediate effect. “These measures should anchor inflationary expectations and contain inflation going forward,” the Reserve Bank of India said in a statement after trading hours Friday.
■HOUSING
Container houses reappear
Rocketing house prices in China’s booming south are forcing low-earners to turn to cheap homes made out of shipping containers, state media said on Friday. Clusters of container villages are cropping up around the boomtown of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, where real estate prices can rise as high as 20,000 yuan (US$2,900) per square meter, the People’s Daily said on its Web site. An 18m² container can be rented for an entire year for just more than 2,000 yuan, the report said. The containers, fitted with kitchens, bathrooms and windows, are gaining popularity among migrant laborers, builders and students, it said.
■FRAUD
Tax evasion investigated
German prosecutors said on Friday they were investigating about 1,100 customers and staff of Swiss bank Credit Suisse’s local operations on suspicion of hiding money from German tax authorities. “The Credit Suisse clients have investments in total of around 1.2 billion euros [US$1.6 billion],” said Dirk Negenborn, spokesman for prosecutors in Duesseldorf, Germany. He said the total amount of tax owed was unclear. Sources said the Credit Suisse information should allow German tax authorities to recover up to 400 million euros.
■MOVIES
Icahn ups ante on Lions Gate
Activist shareholder Carl Icahn raised the stakes in his yearlong dispute with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp on Friday, launching an all-out bid to take over the movie studio following disagreements over its spending. The hostile bid comes a week after Lions Gate rejected Icahn’s offer to buy a larger minority stake and rewrote its bylaws to make such a takeover attempt more difficult in future. The new offer for all outstanding shares also raised the specter of Canadian government involvement because Icahn, an American, could own the Vancouver-based company and cause friction with the country’s cultural policies. Icahn owns almost 19 percent of Lions Gate.
■AIRCRAFT
Boeing speeds up production
Boeing Co will speed up production plans for its 777 and 747 models in anticipation of greater demand from commercial airlines. Boeing, the world’s second-largest aircraft maker behind Airbus, said on Friday it saw the airline industry recovering this year, followed by a return to profitability next year. That should lead to demand for new aircraft in 2012 and beyond, the company said. The company also said the speedup was necessary because of a “conservatively managed approach to production.” Boeing said it did not think the new production schedule would have a material impact on earnings this year. It expects to offer an update to its earnings forecast when it releases first-quarter results next month.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).