INDONESIA
Growth slows as exports dip
The Indonesian economy grew slower than expected in the first quarter, official data showed yesterday, as exports contracted for the first time since 2016 owing to softer demand for key commodities. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy expanded 5.07 percent in January to March, nearly flat from a year earlier and missing market estimates of 5.18 percent. An uptick in government and household spending buoyed growth, but imports and exports fell from a year ago, the statistics agency said.
ENERGY
Occidental revises offer
Occidental Petroleum Corp, which is in a bidding war with Chevron Corp to buy oil company Anadarko Petroleum Corp, on Sunday revised its offer and said it has found a buyer for Anadarko’s African investments if the deal goes through. Occidental is still offering US$76 a share for each share of Anadarko, the same as its bid from last month, but more of it is now in cash. The company said Total SA has agreed to buy Anadarko’s African assets for US$8.8 billion if the takeover happens.
SERVICE
India’s April PMI weakens
Expansion in India’s dominant services sector weakened last month ahead of an election, a private survey showed yesterday, suggesting a delayed recovery to Asia’s third-largest economy. The Nikkei India services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to a seven-month low of 51 from 52 in March on the back of slower increases in new business and output growth. A survey last week showed that manufacturing also weakened last month.
CORPORATE
UK plans registry change
The UK plans to change the corporate registration system to increase the transparency of company ownership and management information while protecting personal data to prevent fraud. Directors will be able to suppress personal details such as addresses under planned changes to the 170-year-old Companies House register published on Sunday. The register includes more than 4 million limited-ownership companies. The measures would help combat economic crime by making it easier to identify owners and managers of companies, the government said in a statement.
MONETARY
Baqir to head central bank
The Pakistani Ministry of Finance has appointed an IMF economist to head its central bank amid ongoing talks with the international lending agency over a key US$8 billion bailout package. The ministry late on Saturday named Reza Baqir as governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, hours after firing Tariq Bajwa. The head of a tax collection body, Jahanzeb Khan, was also dismissed. Bajwa and Khan were part of the team holding talks with the IMF in Islamabad.
MOROCCO
Fair tax measures mulled
The government is mulling the introduction of new measures to increase the tax base to alleviate fiscal pressure on the middle class and increase funding for social services, Moroccan Minister of Finance Mohamed Benchaaboun said. The measures are aimed at making the rich pay their “fair” share of taxes, as well as fighting tax evasion and fraud, Benchaaboun said late on Saturday. Income tax is disproportionately collected with 73 percent of revenue coming from taxing wages, ministry data showed.
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