JAPAN
Confidence best in 10 years
Confidence among the country’s biggest manufacturers has jumped to its highest level in a decade, a key central survey showed yesterday, as the world’s No. 3 economy picks up pace. The Bank of Japan’s Tankan report — a closely watched quarterly survey of more than 10,000 companies — showed a reading of 22 among major manufacturers in its latest report, the highest since its September 2007 reading when the headline figure sat at 23. The latest survey handily beat market expectations for a reading of 18. The mood among major manufacturers has now risen for a fourth straight quarter. The upbeat survey underscores how Japan’s prospects have been improving on the back of strong exports, with investments linked to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics also giving the economy a shot in the arm.
EUROPEAN UNION
PMI reading improves
A purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the EU’s manufacturing industry last month rose to 58.1 from 57.4 the previous month, London-based IHS Markit said yesterday. That compares with a preliminary reading of 58.2 and is the highest level in more than six-and-a-half years. A gauge for employment rose at the fastest pace since the survey began in 1997. The bloc’s economy is on track to expand 2.2 percent this year, the strongest pace in a decade as global trade, central bank stimulus and political risks all combine to support growth.
QATAR
GDP growth loses steam
The country’s economic growth was slowing even before a Saudi Arabia-led bloc severed diplomatic and transport links in early June, as the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas felt the impact of lower energy prices. GDP grew 0.6 percent in the second quarter ended June 30 from a year earlier, the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics said on Sunday, compared with 2.5 percent in the January-to-March period. The data show the country was suffering due to lower oil prices, which weighed on growth across the region. The country’s non-oil economy grew 3.9 percent in the second quarter, the ministry said. Its mining and quarrying sector shrank 2.7 percent.
SINGAPORE
Home prices snap decline
Home prices rose for the first time in four years, snapping a record decline and adding to signs that the property market is rebounding. An index tracking private residential prices gained 0.5 percent in the three months ended Saturday from the previous quarter, according to preliminary data from the Urban Redevelopment Authority released yesterday. Before the latest data, a 15-quarter decline in prices was the longest since the index was first published in 1975.
UNITED KINGDOM
Brexit threatens sectors
A hard Brexit could be a lot more painful for the country than for the EU. The country’s automotive, technology, healthcare and consumer goods sectors might lose £17 billion (US$22.8 billion) a year in export revenues when the nation leaves the single market and customs union, according to a report released yesterday by Chicago-based law firm Baker & McKenzie LLP and consultancy Oxford Economics Ltd. The sectors account for 42 percent of the country’s manufacturing GDP. The report said that the British-EU trading relationship is sometimes heavily tilted in Europe’s favor.
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