SOUTH KOREA
Exports fall 1.2% monthly
Exports last month fell in the latest sign that a slowdown in China and a global trade dispute is weighing on global commerce. Shipments decreased 1.2 percent in the month from a year earlier, lower than the 2.5 percent increase forecast by economists. Shipments of semiconductors, which dominate the nation’s exports, fell 8.3 percent from a year earlier as large IT companies adjusted investment in data centers and memorychip supply shortage eased, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a statement yesterday. Exports to China dipped 13.9 percent compared with a 14.8 percent rise a year earlier, it said.
SINGAPORE
GDP grew 3.3% last year
The economy last year grew 3.3 percent, but major global economic uncertainties lie ahead, including US-China trade tension and nervous financial markets, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) said on Monday. The government had forecast GDP growth for last year to come in at between 3 percent and 3.5 percent versus a three-year high of 3.6 percent the previous year. Lee reiterated the government’s GDP growth forecast for this year to be between 1.5 percent and 3.5 percent. Some economists said that the trade-reliant economy’s growth is expected to slow.
QATAR
Steep alcohol tax begins
The FIFA World Cup 2022 host was to introduce a 100 percent tax on alcohol from yesterday, a government official said on Monday. The “sin” tax is being introduced just weeks after the nation announced in its annual budget statement that it would introduce a levy on “health-damaging goods.” The policy was revealed by Qatar Distribution Co, the country’s only alcohol store, in a 30-page list of new prices for beer, wine and spirits, citing the introduction of a 100 percent “excise tax.” The list was widely shared on social media and showed drinks doubling in price overnight. With the levy, a 1 liter bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin would cost 340 Qatari riyals (US$93) and a 750ml bottle of Shiraz wine from South Africa would be 86 riyals. A 24-pack of Heineken 330ml beers would cost 384 riyals.
LUXURY GOODS
Kors to become Capri
Having added a pair of high-end brands to its stable, Michael Kors Holdings Ltd is changing its name to Capri Holdings Ltd. The company has charged aggressively into the upper echelons of luxury fashion hoping to boost sales. It in September announced the acquisition of the Italian fashion house Gianni Versace SpA for more than US$2 billion, less than two years after acquiring Jimmy Choo, the shoemaker that rocketed to fame on the high heels of Sex and the City. Michael Kors remains the chief creative director at Capri, with US$8 billion in projected annual sales. Starting today, its New York Stock Exchange ticker symbol is to be CPRI.
TURKEY
Local HSBC head probed
A prosecutor started an investigation against the head of HSBC Holding PLC’s Turkish unit for allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Cumhuriyet reported. The investigation relates to HSBC Turkey chief executive officer Selim Kervanci’s retweet of a video during the biggest protests of Erdogan’s rule five years ago, the opposition newspaper reported. The video was from the 2004 German movie Downfall, set during Adolf Hitler’s last days and depicting the collapse of Nazi Germany, it said.
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