BANKING
Philippine banks weigh risk
The Philippine central bank has ordered lenders to enhance the management of their liquidity risks, giving them 10 months to develop procedures based on new guidelines. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said the new rules emphasize the responsibility of a bank’s board of directors to define the tolerance for liquidity risk, which stems from the inability of a financial institution to meet its obligations when they come due. Meanwhile, senior management must develop funding strategies that are aligned with a set risk tolerance, it said.
ECONOMY
Ramaphosa urges planning
South Africa needs to do what other nations do during times of economic weakness and come up with a recovery plan that grabs the imagination of investors and its people, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said in an interview in Cape Town. In his first comments since the release of Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s mid-term budget last week, Ramaphosa described the South African economy as “moribund.” On Wednesday, Gigaba said the economy is set to expand 0.7 percent this year, down from 1.3 percent predicted in the February budget.
OIL
Crown prince supports limits
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince says his country supports extending an agreement by major oil producers to limit output beyond next March. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Saturday said that the OPEC-led agreement is necessary to balance supply with demand. The OPEC is expected to take up the agreement at its next meeting on Nov. 30. Brent Crude on Friday rose above US$60 for the first time since 2015, as traders grew increasingly confident that OPEC would continue to limit pumping.
REGULATORS
China to rout coal hoarders
China is to send inspection teams to coal-producing regions and ports to target “malicious” hoarding and “price monopoly” as regulators seek to ensure stable prices during peak winter demand. Regulators plan to closely watch price levels and stockpile changes to gauge potential manipulation aimed at boosting prices by market participants, including producers, the National Development and Reform Commission said on Friday. Violators are to be severely punished, it said.
RETAIL
UK sales flag amid worries
UK retail sales are falling at the fastest pace since the depths of the recession in 2009 and worries about the housing market could exacerbate the weakness in consumer spending seen this year. The Confederation of British Industry on Thursday said its measure of sales plunged to minus-36 this month — the lowest since March 2009 — from a positive-42 last month. Sales for the time of the year were slightly below the usual seasonal rates, it said.
LABOR
Spanish joblessness down
Spain’s jobless queue shortened once more in the third quarter, official figures showed on Thursday. Unemployment in the period from July to September stood at 16.4 percent, down from 17.2 percent in the previous quarter, the National Statistics Institute said. The number of people out of work fell to 3.7 million at the end of last month from 3.9 million at the end of June. In the third quarter, the services sector created the most jobs — 236,400 — as hotels, restaurants and other businesses took on extra staff.
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