The ongoing decline of global crude oil prices is expected to prop up the nation’s GDP growth by between 0.2 and 1 percentage points this year, Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) said yesterday.
Deng’s comments are based on a forecast by global and domestic experts that global crude oil prices could stabilize at between US$60 and US$80 per barrel in the second half of this year.
“Taiwan’s GDP could grow 1 percentage point in the most optimistic scenario,” Deng said, citing estimatie by foreign institutions.
“I have not heard of any potential negative impact that falling oil prices might pose to Taiwan’s economy,” Deng said.
However, the continual decline in global oil prices is expected to have an adverse impact on state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan’s (CPC, 台灣中油) operations in the long term, Deng said.
The minister blamed falling oil prices for CPC’s losses of more than NT$30 billion (US$937.6 million) last year.
Deng said the company will propose a new oil-pricing formula by the end of this month, aiming to reflect its costs in a more precise and expedient way.
Deng also said it is a good time to review the nation’s policies for transportation subsidies to drivers of taxis and trucks, in light of the downward trend in global crude oil prices.
“To improve the nation’s finances, some unreasonable transportation subsidies should be canceled when oil prices decline,” Deng said, but refused to specify which transportation subsidies.
Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) yesterday said that the declining crude oil prices might lead to mixed results for the nation.
“The decrease in oil prices might have a positive effect on the domestic economy by lowering costs, but it might also have a negative impact for the financial part, such as currency volatility,” Tseng said during a question-and-answer session of the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday in Taipei.
Additional reporting by Amy Su
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