AUSTRALIA
Parliament passes tax hikes
Lawmakers have narrowly approved tax increases for the wealthy that the government says will help it meet its pledge to deliver a budget surplus next year. The legislation will limit the availability of a tax rebate on health insurance premiums to lower and middle-income earners. It is expected to cost wealthy earners a total of A$2.4 billion (US$2.6 billion) over three years. The bill scraped through the House of Representatives yesterday by 71 votes to 70, but it is assured passage through the Senate with the guaranteed support of the government and Green Party senators. The government has promised to deliver a surplus of A$1.5 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1 this year, despite the European debt crisis slashing revenues.
FINANCE
China to buy more EU debt
Beijing has confidence in the euro and will keep buying the debt of European governments, People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) said yesterday. The central bank chief’s comments came during a visit to Beijing by EU leaders for a Chinese-European summit. Appearing with EU leaders at a university, Zhou said Beijing had confidence in the eurozone and supported European efforts to end the continent’s financial troubles. China’s top economic official, Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), on Tuesday said his government was willing to play a bigger role in Europe’s recovery, but he made no financial commitment.
ECONOMY
S Korea jobless rate rises
South Korea’s unemployment rate last month rose from a month earlier amid growing global economic uncertainty, official figures showed yesterday. Statistics Korea said the rate was 3.5 percent last month, compared with 3 percent in December. However, the economy gained 536,000 jobs last month compared with a year earlier. Last month, South Korea posted its first trade deficit in two years, as falling overseas demand hit exports.
BANKING
BNP profit falls on debt
France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas, yesterday said its net profit last year tumbled 22 percent to 6.05 billion euros (US$7.97 billion) after it set aside 3.2 billion euros to cover its exposure to debt-stricken Greece. BNP said its performance was also affected by financial market volatility toward the end of the year, driven by concerns the eurozone debt crisis could lead to a recession. The lender said it would pay shareholders a dividend of 1.20 euros per share, unlike its peers Societe Generale and Credit Agricole, which decided against any payout. The bank said it was still able to meet the new capital requirement of 9 percent set by regulators in the fallout from the global financial crisis, putting its level at 9.2 percent.
INVESTMENT
Berkshire adjusts portfolio
Warren Buffett’s company boosted its already sizeable stake in Wells Fargo & Co last year, while selling shares of Johnson & Johnson and Kraft Foods. Berkshire Hathaway Inc revealed a number of adjustments in its US$66.2 billion stock portfolio in documents it filed on Tuesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. By the end of last year, Berkshire added new investments in Liberty Media Corp and kidney dialysis firm DaVita Inc, while selling a small stake in Exxon Mobile. It increased investments in CVS Caremark, DirectTV, General Dynamics Corp, Intel and Visa. Berkshire officials did not immediately respond to a message on Tuesday.
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