TRADE
Talks to resume next month
China and the US are to hold more talks on trade next month, Beijing said yesterday, following detailed discussions about the issues to be tackled in the negotiations. Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng (高峰) expressed confidence in a “successful implementation” of a consensus reached in Dec. 1 talks in Argentina between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The two sides have been in close contact since then, including a vice-ministerial level call on Wednesday, when they went over arrangements for more talks, and the issues of trade balances and the protection of intellectual property rights, Gao said. “The two sides will arrange consultations including meetings and calls at any time as needed to promote the implementation of the consensus of the heads of state,” Gao told reporters in Beijing. The potential for trade cooperation between the two countries is huge and the nature of win-win cooperation would not change, Gao said.
AUTOMAKERS
US driverless car bill strands
The US Congress will not vote on a bill to speed the introduction of self-driving cars before it adjourns for the year, a blow to companies like General Motors Co (GM) and Alphabet Inc’s Waymo unit, key senators said on Wednesday. Congress is also not to take up a proposal pushed by GM and Tesla Inc to extend or expand a US$7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, the aides said. US Senator Gary Peters said that the US could get surpassed on self-driving vehicles by China, South Korea and others who “are betting big on the technology and they are developing the regulatory framework to accommodate it.”
AUTOMAKERS
Ghosn could be released
A Tokyo court yesterday unexpectedly decided not to extend the detention of Nissan Motor Co’s ousted chairman, Carlos Ghosn, meaning that he could soon be released from jail, where he has been confined since his arrest for alleged financial misconduct. The Tokyo District Court said it also decided against extending detention for Greg Kelly, a former Nissan executive who was first arrested along with Ghosn on Nov. 19. Lawyers for both men were not immediately available for comment. It was unclear whether prosecutors would appeal the decision. Shin Kukimoto, deputy prosecutor at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors’ Office, only said that his office would respond “appropriately.” The 10-day detention period in the second instance ran out yesterday.
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
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],”
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
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