ITALY
State assets to be sold
The government plans to start selling state-owned assets by the end of the year to reduce its debts, with a stake in oil and gas major Eni top of the list, two sources familiar with the matter said. “We want to start soon. We want to sell some of the assets by the end of the year to show we are doing something,” one source with direct knowledge of the matter said. According to the company’s Web site, the Treasury holds a 4.3 percent stake in Eni, the biggest company listed on the Milan stock exchange. The stake is worth about 2.8 billion euros (US$3.9 billion) at current market prices. A sale would be an easy and quick way for the government to pocket money to cut the country’s public debt, which is hovering stubbornly at about 133 percent of GDP.
MEXICO
Main interest rate slashed
The central bank slashed its main interest rate on Friday, the third cut this year to counter weakening growth in Latin America’s second-biggest economy. The bank reduced its interbanking rate from 3.75 percent to 3.5 percent, following a reduction last month and another in March, which had marked the first cut since 2009. However, the central bank said in a statement that it did not expect more cuts “in the foreseeable future.” The government has drastically reduced its growth forecast for this year, from 3.5 percent to 1.7 percent, following a disappointing economic performance in the first half of the year. The economy shrank by 0.74 percent in the second quarter compared with the first three months of the year, posting the first quarterly contraction since the 2009 global financial crisis. The central bank said the economy “started to show a budding recovery” in the third quarter, but “the risks for lower economic activity in Mexico, while lower than before, remain high.”
AFRICA
US$1bn a week lost: NEPAD
The continent loses nearly US$1 billion every week through illicit financial flows out of the continent, and chiefly through transactions by multinational companies, an African Union agency said on Friday. The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), an African Union policy wing, said in a statement that the world’s poorest region lost US$900 billion in the illegal financial flows between 1970 and 2008. Commercial transactions by multinationals accounted for 60 percent of the unlawful flows, followed by criminal activities, such as trade in drugs, weapons and people at 35 percent. Bribery and embezzlement made up 5 percent. Channels for the illegal flows were trade mispricing, investment-related transactions and offshore tax havens.
PETROLEUM
Pemex posts US$3bn loss
Mexico’s state oil giant Pemex Friday posted a massive US$3 billion third quarter loss, citing lower export volumes, falling fuel prices and a negative foreign exchange amid a controversial push for energy reform. The monopoly’s sharp loss compared to a profit of US$1.87 billion in the same period last year, according to a company filing with the Mexican stock exchange. Pemex, which funds about 40 percent of the government coffers, reported US$31.46 million in sales in the July to September period, a 0.1 percent increase from last year.
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