CANADA
Trade deficit expands
The trade deficit in goods in May widened from C$1.9 billion to C$2.8 billion (US$1.45 billion to US$2.14 billion) as imports rose while exports edged down, Statistics Canada said on Friday. Pushed by a 17.7 percent rise in orders of aircraft and other transportation equipment — the fifth consecutive monthly rise for that category — Canadian imports rose 1.7 percent to C$51.1 billion in May, it said. The year-on-year increase was 3.5 percent. Exports for the month slipped 0.1 percent to C$48.3 billion.
ETHIOPIA
‘Pro-poor’ budget passed
Parliament passed a 346.9 billion birr (US$12.58 billion) budget, about two-thirds of it poverty reduction programs involving health, education and food security. In televised comments, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed described the budget as “pro-poor” and said that the government still needs US$7.5 billion to finish so-called megaprojects, including sugar factories and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. As a result, it would not begin new projects in the 2018-to-2019 fiscal year, he said.
OIL AND GAS
BP to buy US shale basins
BP PLC has emerged as the front-runner to buy BHP Billiton Ltd’s onshore oil and gas operations in the US, a person familiar with the matter said. Reuters earlier reported that BP made an offer of more than US$10 billion. The assets up for grabs include about 323,749 hectares in four US shale basins, including the Permian Basin, one of the most productive oilfields in the world. The London-based firm has made the highest offer for the assets, which BHP would prefer to sell in a single package, the person said.
STOCK MARKET
Swiss bourse goes digital
SIX Group, the owner of Switzerland’s SIX Swiss Exchange securities exchange in Zurich, is creating a platform for trading digital assets, boosting a nascent industry that some countries are trying to suffocate. The new platform is to offer a “fully integrated, end-to-end trading, settlement and custody service,” the world’s first to do so, the bourse said in a statement on Friday.
MEDIA
Gawker blogs might be sold
Univision Holdings Inc is considering selling its English-language Web sites, including the former gawker.com blog properties, people with knowledge of the situation said. The move would put a group of sites including gizmodo.com, deadspin.com and jezebel.com on the block, the people said. Univision is working with financial advisers on the process, they said. Univision bought the former Gawker Media LLC Web sites for US$135 million at a 2016 bankruptcy auction.
TECHNOLOGY
Sonos plans initial listing
Wireless speaker maker Sonos Inc filed for a US initial public offering. The Santa Barbara, California-based company filed with an offering size of US$100 million, a placeholder amount that is likely to change. It plans to list on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol SONO, a regulatory filing on Friday said. Sonos, a pioneer in the market for Internet-connected speakers, is targeting a valuation of US$2.5 billion to US$3 billion in the initial listing, people said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by