CHINA
Food prices boost inflation
Inflation accelerated to 2.3 percent last month, driven by a jump in food prices, but stayed below the government’s official target for the year. The consumer price rise reported yesterday was up from January’s 1.8 percent. Food prices surged 7.3 percent, up from the previous month’s gain of 4.1 percent. Inflation is forecast to edge higher this year, though analysts say it is unlikely to reach levels that would hamper plans by Chinese leaders to boost government spending to shore up slowing economic growth. Meanwhile, producer prices, which have fallen for more than three years, dropped 4.9 percent last month from the previous year, a slight improvement over the previous month’s decline of 5.3 percent.
GERMANY
Falling exports dent surplus
The nation’s trade surplus contracted slightly in January, dragged down by falling exports, official data showed yesterday. Exports declined by 0.5 percent to 98.2 billion euros (US$108 billion) in seasonally adjusted terms in January, the federal statistics office said. At the same time, imports — a measure of domestic demand — increased by 1.2 percent to 79.4 billion euros. That meant that the trade surplus shrank slightly to 18.8 billion euros in January from 20.3 billion euros in December last year, the office said. On a 12-month basis, exports fell by 1.4 percent in January, while imports grew by 1.5 percent.
VENEZUELA
New FX controls unveiled
The nation announced a new system of foreign-exchange (FX) controls on Wednesday, including a 1,400 percent increase in the rate that citizens traveling abroad have to pay for US dollars. In an effort to shore up its foreign cash supply, the socialist government announced that US dollars for travelers — previously available at the rate of 13.5 bolivars — would be sold at a fluctuating rate, to be set initially at 206.92 bolivars to the US dollar. The official value of the bolivar is 10 to the US dollar, but the black-market rate is more than 1,000 to the US dollar.
INDIA
Oil and gas sector targeted
The government announced steps to attract investment in the nation’s oil and gas sector yesterday to help meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of cutting import dependence. The Cabinet approved measures, including giving pricing freedom to explorers for natural gas extracted from deep-sea fields, a government statement said. Modi has made energy security a priority for the nation, which imports most of its oil and gas. The initiatives might attract companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp, Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell PLC that have stayed away from the nation’s exploration-block auctions since they began in 1999.
RETAILERS
Carrefour posts higher profit
Carrefour SA, France’s largest retailer, reported an increase in full-year profit as a revival in Europe helped drive the fourth straight year of revenue growth. Recurring operating income rose 2.4 percent to 2.45 billion euros, Boulogne-Billancourt-based Carrefour said yesterday. Adjusting for exchange rates and excluding some items, such as the integration of the DIA discount stores Carrefour bought back in France, earnings rose 12 percent. Rival Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA on Wednesday reported a 35 percent drop in profit, hurt by price cuts in France.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by