CHINA
Challenge filed with WTO
Beijing yesterday says it has filed a challenge to a US tariff hike on solar panels in the WTO, adding to its sprawling trade dispute with US President Donald Trump. The Ministry of Commerce said the 30 percent tariffs announced in January violate WTO rules and improperly help US producers. The Trump administration previously defended the tariffs on solar cells and modules as being in line with WTO rules. It said they were necessary to shield US manufacturers that were hurt by a flood of cheaper imports.
INDIA
Trade deficit dives
The trade deficit last month widened to the most in more than five years, worsening the outlook for the rupee that hit a record low on Tuesday. The gap between exports and imports reached US$18 billion, fanned by a higher oil import bill, data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed. The trade shortfall puts pressure on the current-account deficit, a key vulnerability for the economy and one of the reasons why the rupee has been among the worst-hit in Asia amid an emerging-market rout this year. The rupee dropped to as low as 70.08 per US dollar on Tuesday.
SINGAPORE
Buyers snap up homes
Private home sales last month soared to the highest in 16 months as buyers rushed to snap up properties hours before curbs aimed at quelling speculation came into effect. Developers sold 1,724 units, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said in a statement yesterday. That is more than double the 654 units sold in June and the highest since March last year. The total number of unsold units came in at 11,036, versus 11,148 a month earlier, authority data showed.
INDONESIA
Interest rate raised 0.25%
The central bank yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate a fourth time since May, moving swiftly to contain the volatility sweeping across emerging markets and curb a slide in its currency. The seven-day reverse repurchase rate was raised to 5.5 percent from 5.25 percent, as forecast by seven of 28 economists in a Bloomberg survey. The rest had predicted no change.
CRYPTOCURRENCY
Bitmain planning HK IPO
Bitmain Technologies Ltd (比特大陸), the world’s biggest producer of cryptocurrency mining chips, is planning a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) that could raise as much as US$3 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said. The company, which is backed by Sequoia Capital and IDG Capital, plans to file a listing application with the Hong Kong stock exchange as early as next month, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
AUTOMAKERS
Tesla probing privatization
Tesla Inc is forming a special committee to evaluate proposals to take the company private one week after CEO Elon Musk said he was considering it. The committee, made up of three independent directors, on Tuesday said that it has not received any formal proposal from Musk, who on Tuesday last week tweeted that he had “funding secured” to buy Tesla shares at US$420 per share. However, a blog post by Musk on Monday cast doubt on whether the funding has indeed been secured.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last