GOLD
India eases regulations
Leading gold buyer India has announced it has eased controls on imports of the yellow metal after its current account deficit narrowed sharply. India, the world’s second-biggest gold buyer after China, imposed the import restrictions last year to avert a trade deficit crisis that pushed the rupee to record lows. “Restrictions placed on import of gold ... stand withdrawn with immediate effect,” India’s central bank said in a statement on Saturday. The so-called 80:20 import rule meant 20 percent of all imported gold had to be exported before any new shipments could be brought in.
AVIATION
Malaysia Airlines apologizes
Malaysia Airlines apologized on Saturday for a year-end promotion tweet that sparked anger on Twitter after it inadvertently drew parallels with the still-missing Flight MH370. The airlines said the tweet “was intended to inspire travelers during this holiday period to explore destinations and deals” it was offering. It is the second time the carrier, which has been devastated by the loss of 537 people in two air tragedies this year, has run into criticism over its advertising recently. The airlines on Friday reported its third-quarter loss widened 54 percent year-on-year, the seventh straight quarterly loss for the airline.
FINANCE
Lazada raises 200m euros
Lazada, the Southeast Asian e-commerce company founded by Germany’s Rocket Internet, has raised 200 million euros (US$250 million) in a new funding round led by Singapore state-owned investment company Temasek. Rocket Internet said in a statement that Temasek had joined existing investors, including Rocket, Kinnevik and Verlinvest in the funding round, which valued Lazada at 1 billion euros. Rocket said it contributed 15.3 million euros, with its stake in the business slipping to 23.8 percent from 26.7 percent. It did not say how much the other investors had contributed to the 200 million euro total or detail their stakes.
BANKING
Focus on German lenders
Consolidation of the banking sector following the European Central Bank’s stress tests would probably concentrate on German lenders, according to Commerzbank AG chief executive officer Martin Blessing. “The question now is where consolidation will happen and I assume it’ll happen within Germany, and not within the private banking sector,” he said at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung Economic Summit in Berlin on Saturday. Germany’s banking system had about 2,000 institutions last year, according to the BdB Association of German Banks. About 300 of those are private banks, including Germany’s two largest lenders, Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank, while savings banks and cooperative banks accounted for the rest.
TRADE
Canada ups grain shipments
Canada extended an order that requires the nation’s two largest railways to ship a minimum amount of grain each week until March 28. The government said the measure is to ensure that the remainder of last year’s crop is moved along with this year’s and that normal operations of the grain supply chain are maintained, according to a statement. The new order sets new weekly quotas ranging from 200,000 tonnes to 465,000 tonnes depending on the week. Failure to do so could result in penalties of as much as US$100,000 per violation.
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