TRADE
Steel measures planned
The Canadian government is preparing new measures to prevent a potential flood of steel imports from global producers seeking to avoid US tariffs, according to people familiar with the plans. The measures are said to be a combination of quotas and tariffs aimed at certain countries, including China, the people said. The moves follow similar “safeguard” measures being considered by the EU aimed at warding off steel that might otherwise have been sent to the US. It comes alongside Canadian counter-tariffs on US steel, aluminum and other products set to take effect on Sunday.
BANKING
Lending growth picks up
Growth in lending to companies in the eurozone picked up last month, official data showed yesterday. Adjusted for some purely financial transactions, the pace of growth in credit to firms picked up to 3.6 percent year-on-year last month, up from 3.3 percent in April, the European Central Bank said in a data release. Growth in lending to households was flat at 2.9 percent. That meant firms accounted for most of the increase in the pace of credit growth last month, from 3 to 3.3 percent.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Renesas plans acquisitions
Renesas Electronics Corp, the world’s second-biggest supplier of semiconductors used in cars, is planning acquisitions to expand outside of the automotive industry. The pool of possible candidates includes about five or six companies outside Japan in aerospace, healthcare, industrial and general-purpose applications, Renesas chief financial officer Hidetoshi Shibata said in an interview. Companies offering analog and mixed-signal engineering talent and expertise are especially attractive, Shibata said.
BANKING
PT Bank Rakyat to sell stake
PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia, the country’s most profitable lender, is reviving a plan to sell a stake in its life insurance arm after scrapping a similar process more than two years ago, people with knowledge of the matter said. The state-controlled firm is asking investment banks to pitch for an advisory role in the next few weeks, the people said. The sale of a minority stake in the unit, known as PT Asuransi BRI Life, could fetch at least US$500 million, they said.
CHINA
Industrial profit rises
Profit growth at industrial companies held up, as factory inflation rebounded. Industrial profits advanced 21.1 percent last month from a year earlier, versus a 21.9 percent increase in April. Total profits for the month were 607.1 billion yuan (US$92.2 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. The gain was bolstered by a resurgence in producer prices, which accelerated more than expected last month as commodities, such as crude oil and metals, increased.
UNITED STATES
Consumer confidence wanes
Consumers lost a bit of their optimism this month, but are still feeling good by historical standards. The Conference Board on Tuesday said that its consumer confidence index slipped this month to 126.4, down from 128.8 last month, but up from 117.3 a year earlier. The index measures both consumers’ assessment of current economic conditions and expectations for the future. Their view of current conditions was almost unchanged from last month. Their outlook dimmed to the lowest level since December last year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts