Chin’s Cabinet yesterday announced new measures to cut costs for companies as policymakers look to support growth amid an escalating trade war with the US that threatens exporters.
The Chinese State Council announced tax cuts that should reduce firms’ costs by more than 45 billion yuan (US$6.59 billion) this year, state radio reported.
Beijing is speeding up infrastructure spending and offering help to smaller companies as China’s economy cools and US trade tensions intensify.
Beijing has pledged to use a more proactive fiscal policy as economic growth slows and companies struggle with tight liquidity and weak demand.
“Cutting taxes and reducing costs are key initiatives in implementing active fiscal policy and ensuring a stable economy,” the council said.
At the meeting, chaired by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強), the council also said it would increase the rate of export tax rebates for some products, as well as increasing the amount banks can lend to small firms and not have to pay taxes on interest income.
Foreign investors will not have to pay enterprise or value-added taxes on interest income earned in the domestic bond market for three years, the council said.
In other news, China is to make economic changes at its own pace, regardless of US pressure, and their worsening dispute over technology policy can only be solved through negotiations as equals, Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng (高峰) said.
The comments reinforced Beijing’s rejection of US demands to scale back technology plans that Washington says breach China’s free-trade commitments.
Gao gave no indication of plans for more talks over the conflict.
“No matter what measures the United States takes to exert pressure, China will proceed with reform and opening up at its own pace,” he said.
Additional reporting by AP
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