SOUTH KOREA
Exports, inflation down
The country’s exports dropped 1.5 percent year-on-year to US$44.74 billion last month, largely as a result of the three-day Chuseok (Thanksgiving) holiday, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said yesterday. The trade surplus actually widened to US$3.71 billion, up from US$3.07 a year earlier, as imports fell 3.6 percent on-year to US$41.03 billion. Meanwhile, consumer prices grew at their slowest pace for 14 years last month, thanks to falls in farming costs, Statistics Korea said. The consumer price index rose 0.8 percent on-year, compared with a 1.3 percent gain in August.
BRAZIL
GDP forecast cut to 2.5%
The central bank on Monday trimmed its GDP growth forecast for this year for Latin America’s leading economy from 2.7 to 2.5 percent. In its monthly report, the bank said the GDP growth in the second quarter had come in at 1.5 percent — slightly above forecasters’ expectations — while adding it expected a strong showing in the fourth quarter. The Bank added it saw consumer demand would continue on an upward path — albeit at a more “moderate” rate amid strong investment and exports after falls in the real-dollar rate.
FRANCE
Jobseeker number revised
The Ministry of Labor on Monday cut in half the number of jobseekers it said had left the unemployment rolls in August, blaming a “malfunction” with a mobile phone company. The ministry announced last week that the number of registered jobseekers fell in August for the first time in more than two years, dropping by 50,000 to 3.23 million. However, in a fresh statement on Monday, the ministry said that after an investigation, it was revising the figure and the number of jobseekers had fallen by only between 22,000 and 29,000.
BANKING
Wells Fargo settles claim
Wells Fargo bank said it will pay US$869 million to Freddie Mac to settle claims of potential fraud in home loans it sold to the US government-controlled mortgage company. In a short statement issued on Monday night, the California-based bank said the agreement will allow it to substantially resolve liabilities on home loans it sold to Freddie Mac before 2009 and the emergence of the financial crisis.
COMPUTER GAMES
Ubisoft expands in Montreal
Video game maker Ubisoft announced on Monday the expansion of its Montreal operations with a US$373 million investment in online gaming and motion capture technologies, expected to create 500 new jobs. The earmarked monies will be spent and new staff will be hired over the coming seven years. The Paris-based company behind such video game hits as Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell said it expects to employ up to 3,500 people at its Montreal studio by 2020 — nearly half of its global production workforce in 29 countries.
PETROLEUM
Pacific Rubiales to buy firm
Canadian oil company Pacific Rubiales on Monday said it is acquiring the local firm Petrominerales for about C$1.6 billion (US$1.55 billion). The transaction is expected to be completed late next month. Pacific Rubiales is the largest private oil company operating in Colombia. Like Petrominerales, Pacific Rubiales operates in Peru and Brazil. The Canadian company is acquiring the Colombian firm’s estimated C$640 million in debt.
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)