TRADE
Japan surplus with US up
Japan’s politically sensitive trade surplus with the US edged up last month, government data showed yesterday, after Tokyo warned it might take retaliatory measures against US tariffs. Japan logged a surplus of ¥615.7 billion (US$5.6 billion) with the US, up 4.7 percent after a 0.3 percent decline the previous month, as demand for cars and construction machinery increased, Ministry of Finance data showed. The fresh data comes after Tokyo informed the WTO it had the right to impose tariffs worth ¥50 billion on US goods — equivalent to the impact of the US tariffs newly imposed on Japanese steel and aluminium products. Japan’s overall trade surplus
CONGLOMERATES
LG Group chairman dies
LG Group chairman Koo Bon-moo died on Sunday, South Korea’s fourth-largest conglomerate said in an e-mailed statement. Koo transformed a local producer of cheap appliances into a global tech and chemical powerhouse over two decades. Koo, 73, died at 9:52am in Seoul, as he did not seek extension of life after falling ill a year ago, LG Group said. He is expected to be succeeded by his adopted son, Koo Kwang-mo, 40, who was nominated to the board of LG Corp on Thursday pending the approval of shareholders on June 29. Chairman Koo underwent multiple brain surgeries in recent years, Yonhap News Agency reported earlier.
LIVESTOCK
Australian MP proposes ban
An Australian backbencher yesterday introduced legislation to parliament to ban the export of live sheep after the death of 2,400 animals on a ship bound for the Middle East, an incident that led to widespread criticism of the A$250 million (US$190 million) industry. The bill threatens to expose fractures within the ruling coalition government, which last week introduced tougher oversight of the shipments, but stopped short of banning them altogether. Backbench lawmaker Sussan Ley said the new rules did not go far enough. “A 60kg sheep will be allocated space equivalent to just under two A4 pieces of paper,” Ley told parliament in one of the world’s largest exporters of livestock. Emboldened by opinion polls that show nearly three quarters of voters support an end to the trade, two members of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberal Party have said they support Ley’s bill, joining forces with the opposition Labor Party. The rural-based Nationals, the junior member of the coalition government, opposes a ban, saying it could inflict widespread damage on the agricultural sector.
EQUITIES
Malaysia hit by selloff
Malaysia’s benchmark equity index rebounded last week, but that did not stop an acceleration of foreign selling to the highest level in four years after Mahathir Mohamad’s unexpected election upset. The nation’s stock market had a volatile start last week after the three-day holiday, but it closed 0.4 percent higher after five days of trading. Overseas investors sold US$625 million worth of equities last week, the nation’s biggest stock outflow since August 2013, according to stock exchange data. The selloff is pushing it to the brink of wiping out this year’s almost US$1 billion of foreign inflows. Mahathir’s attempt to soothe investor jitters by introducing a team of five advisers well-known in official and business circles in the nation, might have been in vain. For the year, foreign inflows stood at US$10.3 million as of Friday, down from US$937.8 million on April 30, data showed.
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