Gasoline prices continued to hit record highs, as state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and rival Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced they were raising wholesale gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.4 per liter.
CPC's new rates went into effect today, while Formosa's were effective as of 2am.
Oil prices have risen rapidly in the past month and have resulted in continuing hikes in domestic gasoline prices.
CPC said its price adjustment was in line with the policy of raising prices in Taiwan by 80 percent of the price fluctuation of West Texas Intermediate crude oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange, which was up 2.17 percent over the past week.
Light, sweet crude for delivery next month rose US$0.01 to US$74.16 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and mid-afternoon in Singapore on reports that supply from US operating refineries had recovered.
inflation
The rise in fuel prices came amid news that local dairy producers would raise the price of fresh milk by 15 percent next month, prompting market speculation that the nation's inflation could accelerate in the second half of this year.
The inflation benchmark rose 0.10 percent last month from a year earlier largely due to increases in fuel and medicine prices, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on July 5. For the first half of this year, the consumer price index (CPI) was up 0.61 percent year-on-year, the statistics bureau said.
On May 24, DGBAS forecast the CPI would rise to 1.9 percent in the third quarter and 2 percent in the final three months of of this year.
The all-time high gasoline prices have caused complaints among consumers, especially taxi drivers.
opposition
The Consumers' Foundation (消基會) has urged the government to suspend the pricing mechanism, but Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆) insisted that the flotation measure should continue as the oil price range was still normal.
Adjusting domestic prices along with international oil prices can also help raise environmental awareness, Chen said.
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
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
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)