■ Labor
Jobless rate falling: CEPD
Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) officials yesterday expressed confidence that the nation's unemployment rate will drop below 4 percent next year. The unemployment rate for the first 11 months of this year stood at 4.15 percent, and the rate for the whole year is estimated at 4.1 percent, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics. CEPD officials said although the unemployment rate is unlikely to fall below 4 percent this year, it is expected to continue to fall with the help of the government's measures to promote employment. The CEPD said 9.93 million people were employed from January through last month, up 157,000 from the same period last year. Compared with the same time last year, the percentage of employed people in the agricultural sector decreased to 5.97 percent; that of the industrial sector increased to 35.76 percent; and that of the service sector rose to 58.26 percent, they said.
■ Finance
American Express must pay
American Express will have to pay up to US$75 million to clients who said the company collected hidden fees on foreign purchases made with its cards, under an agreement reached in Miami, Florida, on Friday. In a class-action suit launched in 2003, the company was accused of collecting exchange fees of up to 2 percent on foreign currency purchases by more than 800,000 American Express clients without telling the clients. The suit, first filed in Florida and later combined with similar suits elsewhere, led to the agreement this week in a Miami federal court under which American Express will repay all of the exchange fees collected between March 1997 and last October. Some 9 million account holders have received notifications that they are eligible for repayments, according to the agreement. Each account holder will get a minimum of US$15 and possibly much more, depending on when the accounts were opened and how much was collected.
■ Automakers
Toyota suspends night shifts
Toyota Motor Corp halted night-shift production at its factories in Japan as snowfall in parts of the country closed roads and worsened traffic, making it difficult to deliver parts and ship vehicles, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said. Twelve factories in Aichi prefecture, where Toyota is based, in addition to auto assembly plants at units in Iwate and Fukuoka prefectures have suspended production during night shifts, the newspaper reported, citing a spokesman at Toyota who was not named. The disruption will cause "no major impact," to overall vehicle production because the carmaker will compensate for the loss by boosting production on other days, the newspaper said, citing the Toyota spokesman.
■ Economy
Japan slashes budget
Japan's Cabinet on Friday approved a draft budget of nearly ?80 trillion (US$687.9 billion) for next year that would slash spending across the board. The plan, which is ?2.5 trillion, or 3 percent, smaller than the current fiscal year's main budget, would fall below ?80 trillion for the first time in eight years, reflecting government efforts to trim its spending, officials said. A budget bill will be presented to Parliament for debate and approval next month. The draft budget cuts outlays in almost all areas. Defense spending will be cut by 0.9 percent, allocations for public works projects by 4.4 percent, and official development assistance by 3.4 percent, the draft budget shows.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to