MACHINERY
Orders beat expectations
Japan’s core machinery orders, a leading indicator of corporate capital spending, rose by a bigger-than-expected 5.7 percent in April from the previous month, data showed yesterday in a positive sign for the nation’s hard-hit economy. The core private-sector data, which exclude volatile demand from power companies and for ships, turned up after a 2.8 percent drop in March, according to official data from the Cabinet Office. The market had expected a rise of 1.5 percent in April.
SOUTH KOREA
Unemployment drops
The unemployment rate declined last month mainly because of more new jobs in the service sector, official figures showed yesterday. Statistics Korea said the figure was 3.1 percent last month compared with 3.5 percent in April. Seasonally adjusted, last month’s figure was 3.2 percent compared with 3.4 percent the previous month. The number of employed people rose by 472,000 last month from a year earlier, slightly better than April’s 455,000 increase, to 25.133 million.
SINGAPORE
GDP expected to hit 3%
Singapore’s central bank says a survey of analysts shows the economy will likely grow 3 percent this year, more than the previous estimate. The survey of 21 analysts released yesterday by the central bank showed that growth would likely be led by construction expanding 6.2 percent and manufacturing up 3 percent. Analysts had expected the economy would grow 2.5 percent this year in a March survey. The government expects GDP to expand between 1 percent and 3 percent this year, down from 4.9 percent last year. The survey predicts the inflation rate will probably fall to 4.2 percent this year from 5.5 percent last year.
GERMANY
Inflation drops below 2%
Inflation in Europe’s biggest economy slowed to 1.9 percent last month, the first time since December 2010 that it has been below the key level of 2 percent, final data showed yesterday. Inflation stood at 2.1 percent in April and slowing fuel prices were the main reason for the slowdown last month, the national statistics office Destatis said in a statement. On a monthly basis, the cost of living in Germany declined 0.2 percent last month from April.
AVIATION
AirAsia moves to Indonesia
Budget carrier AirAsia is moving its strategic planning center to Indonesia from its Malaysian headquarters, it said yesterday, as it looks to expand its regional operations. Asia’s largest budget airline has only 18 planes in Indonesia — which has a population of 240 million — compared to 24 in Thailand and 58 in Malaysia, the firm said in a statement. The Jakarta base will also help it lobby the 10-member ASEAN, whose secretariat is in the Indonesian capital, it said.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda recalls 50,000 cars
Honda plans to recall about 50,000 Civic sedans in the US to fix a problem with the driveshaft, the Japanese automaker said on Tuesday. Honda said the drive shaft in certain models from last year were not properly assembled and could come loose. The automaker will cover the cost of all repairs. No crashes or injuries have been reported related to the defect, Honda added.
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)