Sunday January 11, 2009

Chartered Semiconductor earnings alert adds to Singapore recession woes

This article belongs to the Singapore recession watch story arc.

ft.com :

Chartered Semiconductor exemplifies the problems facing Singapore's ailing electronics sector after warning that it will suffer its biggest loss in nearly 4 years when it reports its results for 2008 Q4. The problem child of Temasek Holdings, the Singapore state investment company, Chartered is the world's third-largest foundry chipmaker. Electronics is Singapore biggest industrial sector, employing 119,000 workers, including 5,125 at Chartered Semiconductor, and accounting for 40% of the city-state's non-oil exports. However, its position is declining amid falling exports and growing job losses. Chartered Semiconductor already has cut overtime and reduced wages and spending.

Even before the latest woes, Chartered Semiconductor was Temasek's worst performing corporate asset because of its plunging market value, in spite of producing chips for popular consumer items such as Microsoft's Xbox 360 game player. There is speculation that Temasek Holdings, which owns 59.4% of the company, could sell Chartered Semiconductor or merge it with a rival, such as UMC, which is also struggling. Some analysts believe it may decide to delist Chartered by taking it private. Singapore's electronics exports fell by 17% in Nov 2008, the 20th month of decline.

- Chartered's problems started a long time ago, before most people noticed any slowdown in the Singapore economy, and certainly long before it was made public that, yes, indeed Singapore is now in a recession. In fact it was even before Singapore's stagflation phase. So if you want a good leading indicator of the Singapore economy, you need not look much further than Chartered Semiconductor. It's the nature of the semiconductor business - boom times come quickly, and on the flipside, the bust, well, that has seemed to come even quicker, hasn't it? With the global economic collapse going on and factories closing left and right, we wouldn't expect this thing to turn around any time soon. Anyone who tells you otherwise is at best an optimist and at worst an economist.

See also :

1. Junk bonds : Chartered Semiconductor debt rating lowered to junk By Fitch
2. Chartered Semiconductor salary cut - all employees pay reduced by 5-10% on economic slowdown
3. Chartered Semiconductor forces block leave, stops bus services, mulls 4-day working week
4. Singapore economy falling into technical recession as exports fall
5. Singapore GDP contracted 6.8% annualized in Q3 2008, heads deeper into recession

(2009-01-11 11:16:00 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

India aims for 10% nuclear power, 60000 megawatts from nuclear energy by 2030

bloomberg.com :

India may produce 60,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2030, Shyam Saran, special envoy to the prime minister, said in New Delhi today [8 Jan 2009]. India aims to add nuclear capacity to increase electricity generating capacity and help cut peak power shortages that may widen to 18.1% in the year to Mar 2009. India signed atomic accords with the US, Russia and France after a 30-year international ban on nuclear trade with the South Asian nation was lifted in Sep 2008. Nuclear power may generate as much as 10% of India's electricity by 2030, Saran said. Nuclear power plants accounted for 2.9% of India's installed capacity of 146,753 megawatts at the end of Oct 2008. India wants to add 40,000 megawatts of capacity by 2020.

- India's goal to generate 10% of its electricity from nuclear power is a laudable one. Even as the electrical grids of the world evolve to become smarter and more decentralized, reliable baseload electrical power generation will still remain a primary concern for a long time to come. With currently available technology, there are still just about a handful of ways to generate baseload power - fossil fuels including diesel and fuel oil, natural gas and coal, hydro, geothermal - and nuclear power. Besides hydro and geothermal power which are naturally geographically limited in scope, renewable sources such as solar and wind are for the most part intermittent. On the multi-gigawatt scale at the country level, governments are finding that nuclear power remains one of the options that they should take a good look at.

See also :

1. Asia going nuclear amid rising oil prices, global warming concerns
2. Should we build more nuclear power plants? Yes
3. Gulf Arab states want nuclear power
4. China's nuclear energy plants to power up
5. Developing countries eye nuclear power: report
6. Singapore : Nuclear power not ruled out

(2009-01-11 10:40:55 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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