KUWAIT
Low oil prices cause deficit
Lower oil prices have pushed the country into a rare budget deficit, ending 16 straight years of surpluses, Minister of Finance Anas al-Saleh said. The government recorded a budget shortfall of 4.6 billion dinars (US$15.23 billion) in the fiscal year that ended on March 31, al-Saleh said in a statement. It was the first shortfall since the fiscal year to March 1999. Revenue dropped by 45 percent to US$45.2 billion, while spending was cut by 14.8 percent to US$60.5 billion, the minister said. Oil income was US$40.1 billion, a slump of 46.3 percent from the previous year, he said. Oil accounted for 89 percent of total revenue, down from 95 percent in previous years.
GERMANY
Trade surplus falloff slows
The country’s trade surplus beat expectations to shrink only slightly in June after a return to growth in exports, official figures showed yesterday. The trade surplus is watched closely as a gauge of an economy’s strength, and had shrunk unexpectedly in May as the country sold less abroad. The nation in June sold 21.7 billion euros (US$24.1 billion) more in goods than it bought abroad, a slight decrease from May’s 22.2 billion euros, the Federal Statistical Office reported. Analysts had expected the surplus to shrink much more quickly to 17.5 billion euros. Compared with the previous month, exports grew by 0.3 percent to 99.8 billion euros in seasonally-adjusted terms in June. Meanwhile, imports grew faster, by 1 percent, to 78.2 billion euros as Germans bought more from abroad.
SOFTWARE
Oracle confirms Micros hack
US business software giant Oracle Corp on Monday confirmed that hackers infected software in Micros credit card scanners used at hotels and restaurants around the world. “Oracle Security has detected and addressed malicious code in certain legacy Micros systems,” Oracle said in a letter to customers. “Oracle is requiring Micros customers to change the passwords for all Micros accounts.” Oracle bought Micros Systems Inc two years ago in a deal valued at US$5.3 billion. At the time of the acquisition, Micros technology was used in more than 330,000 restaurants, shops and hotels in about 180 countries. Oracle did not reveal the extent or severity of the attack, which computer assault news Web site KrebsOnSecurity.com attributed to a Russian organized crime group with a reputation for hacking banks and shops. Oracle said in the letter that its internal systems and other cloud services were not breached.
HUMAN RESOURCES
Randstad to buy Monster
Randstad Holding NV agreed to buy US jobs Web site Monster Worldwide Inc for US$429 million, extending the Dutch staffing provider’s online reach in the US. Randstad is to pay US$3.40 per share in cash for Weston, Massachusetts-based Monster, the companies said in a statement yesterday. That was 23 percent more than Monster’s closing price on Monday. The purchase is to bolster Amsterdam-based Randstad’s position in the US. Monster will continue to operate as a separate entity under the Monster name, according to the statement. The acquisition will immediately add to Randstad’s earnings per share. The buyer plans to begin a tender offer, and aims to complete the transaction in the fourth quarter of this year. Randstad’s acquisitions over the past nine months will add about 2 billion euros on an annualized basis to revenue, the company said, adding that it will now slow the pace of purchases to focus on integration.
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
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
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