VIETNAM
Growth rate hits 7.38%
The economy grew at its fastest pace in a decade during the first quarter of the year, driven by a surge in electronics manufacturing and exports, data showed yesterday. The 7.38 percent expansion was sharply up from the rate of about 5 percent seen in the first quarter of last year, the Government Statistics Office said, and well above the government’s annual target of 6.7 percent. The figures are the best since a 7.4 percent growth reading in January to March 2008.
JAPAN
Declining retail sales rebound
Retail sales rebounded last month following a sharp decline a month earlier, with the increase being driven mostly by higher prices, particularly for energy and vegetables. The latest government data showed that retail sales rose 0.4 percent from January, compared with analysts’ forecast of 0.6 percent growth. Retail sales increased 1.6 percent from a year ago, with sales at department stores and supermarkets advancing 0.6 percent year-on-year, the data showed.
UNITED KINGDOM
House price momentum fades
House prices this month rose at the slowest pace in seven months, adding to signs of fading momentum in the market, mortgage lender Nationwide said yesterday. House prices rose 2.1 percent in the year to this month, weaker than all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists that had pointed to growth of 2.6 percent and slowing from a 2.2 percent increase last month. Prices fell on the month by 0.2 percent, following a 0.4 percent drop last month — again undercutting all forecasts in the Reuters poll that had pointed to growth of 0.2 percent.
UNITED STATES
Spending spurs GDP growth
The economy grew significantly faster at the end of last year than previously reported, as consumer spending hit a three-year high and business investment rose, the government reported on Wednesday. GDP grew 2.9 percent in the final three months of last year, 0.4 points higher than a previous estimate, the US Department of Commerce said. The growth rate for all of last year was unchanged at a modest 2.3 percent, although faster than the 1.5 percent posted in 2016.
THAILAND
Virtual currency rules coming
The nation is to impose rules on cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings from next month to bolster investor protection, the Securities and Exchange Commission said. The regulations are set to be enforced in about three weeks, commission Secretary General Rapee Sucharitakul said in an interview in Bangkok. Offerings of digital coins, as well as trading platforms, would fall under the regulatory framework, with more details to be unveiled once the legislation receives royal endorsement.
GERMANY
Unemployment down 88,000
Unemployment fell below 2.5 million this month amid a seasonable upswing. The Federal Labor Agency yesterday said the unadjusted rate fell to 5.5 percent from 5.7 percent last month, with the number of unemployed dropping by 88,000 to 2.46 million. Compared with the same month a year earlier, the number of people unemployed in Europe’s largest economy fell by 204,000. Adjusted for seasonal factors, the jobless rate fell 1 percentage point to 5.3 percent month-on-month. There were 778,000 vacancies this month, an increase of 86,000 from a year earlier, the agency said.
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