AUSTRALIA
Wine exports to China rise
Wine exports to China rose to a new high as the world’s second-largest economy developed its palate for premium labels. The value of exports to the country’s biggest customer increased 7 percent to A$1.2 billion (US$845 million) in the 12 months to June 30, Wine Australia said yesterday. Local labels grew in popularity on US wine lists, with export values rising 2 percent to A$432 million. The total value of wine exports grew by 4 percent to A$2.86 billion, some way off last year’s 20 percent surge.
STEELMAKERS
Court halts Essar buyout
The Indian Supreme Court yesterday temporarily put ArcelorMittal SA’sUS $6.1 billion purchase of Essar Steel India Ltd on hold, after the mill’s lenders sought to annul a lower court ruling that split sale proceeds proportionately among all creditors. The court admitted financial lenders’ appeal against a bankruptcy court ruling that put secured creditors, such as banks, at par with operational creditors, or suppliers to the plants. It also said it would resolve issues arising from the Essar verdict expeditiously and fix an early date for hearing the case.
PAKISTAN
IMF urges tax mobilization
The country needs to mobilize domestic tax revenue to ensure funds for social and development programs, while reducing debt, IMF acting director David Lipton said on Sunday after a meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan. The IMF and other international partners were working closely with the government to support the reforms, Lipton said. Economic growth, which reached 5.5 percent in the fiscal year to June last year, is expected to slow to 2.4 percent this financial year, according to IMF estimates.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai banks on SUVs
Hyundai Motor Group saw net profit pick up by almost 25 percent in the second quarter of this year, thanks to its sport utility vehicles (SUV) and weak won. Net profit during the period rose 23.3 percent annually to 999 billion won (US$847 million), South Korea’s largest automaker said in a statement, sustaining its earning streak from the first three months of the year. The reading for the first quarter marked a recovery for the company after it posted its first quarterly loss in eight years.
AVIATION
Cathay buys budget carrier
Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd (國泰航空) completed the acquisition of Hong Kong’s only budget carrier as it expects to lift its market share amid growing competition from mainland Chinese airlines. Hong Kong Express Airways Ltd (香港快運航空), which was previously owned by HNA Group Co (海航集團), would continue operating as a standalone airline under the low-cost model, Cathay said in a statement on Friday. In March, Cathay said it agreed to pay HK$2.25 billion (US$288 million) in cash for the purchase and pledged to repay HK$2.68 billion of debt held by Hong Kong Express.
TECHNOLOGY
Interswitch revives IPO plan
Interswitch Ltd, a Nigeria-based payments firm, has hired advisers to resurrect plans for a stock-market listing in London and Lagos later this year, people familiar with the matter said. JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc and Standard Bank Group Ltd are among the firms working on an initial public offering (IPO), which might value the financial technology company at US$1.3 billion to US$1.5 billion, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private.
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