Asian stocks rose yesterday after China’s central bank cut its benchmark lending rate, stepping up efforts to cushion a deepening economic slowdown.
PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣股份有限公司) and liquor maker Kweichou Moutai Co (貴州茅台酒) were the biggest boosts to Shanghai’s benchmark gauge. Hitachi Ltd climbed 6.1 percent in Tokyo after lifting its profit forecast.
BlueScope Steel Ltd soared 11 percent in Sydney after Australia’s largest steelmaker agreed to buy the remaining 50 percent of its joint venture in the US with Cargill Inc for US$720 million, giving the producer full ownership of North America’s most profitable mill.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 0.5 percent to 136.45 as of 4:07pm in Hong Kong after closing on Friday at its highest-level since Aug. 19. The gauge climbed more than 10 percent this month as investors pushed back expectations for the first US interest-rate increase and central banks signaled further measures would be enacted aimed at boosting weak economic growth.
On Friday, China said it would cut rates for the sixth time in a year, and lowered the amount of deposits banks must hold as reserves.
The Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.5 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slipped 0.2 percent while the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index added 0.1 percent.
China’s one-year lending rate was cut to 4.35 percent from 4.6 percent, the People’s Bank of China said on its Web site on Friday, while the one-year deposit rate is set to fall to 1.5 percent from 1.75 percent. Reserve requirements for all banks were lowered by 50 basis points, with an extra 50-basis-point reduction for some institutions.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc estimated the easing would release between 600 billion and 700 billion yuan (US$94.45 billion and US$110.2 billion) into the financial system, helping keep borrowing costs down at a time of record capital outflows.
The US bank predicts reserve-requirement ratios would be lowered by another 50-basis-points by year-end, although policymakers would seek to prevent the yuan from weakening.
The rebound in Chinese equities spurred by the government’s efforts to boost growth are probably set to fade as the measures underscore fundamental weakness in the economy, according to Barclays PLC, Blackfriars Asset Management Ltd and BlackRock Inc.
The Chinese Communist Party met yesterday to map out a framework from next-year-to-2020 for an economy confronting an era of sub-7 percent growth for the first time since late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) opened the nation to the outside world in the late 1970s.
Japan’s TOPIX gained 0.7 percent. The Bank of Japan and the US Federal Reserve decide on monetary policy this week as central banks worldwide seek to revive slowing global growth and lackluster inflation. Traders see a 6 percent chance of a Fed rate increase this week, according to futures data compiled by Bloomberg.
South Korea’s KOSPI added 0.4 percent and Singapore’s Straits Times Index advanced 0.7 percent.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”