SOUTH KOREA
WTO status to change
The government would no longer seek special treatment reserved for developing nations by the WTO in negotiations given its enhanced global economic status, its finance minister said yesterday. US President Donald Trump in July put pressure on the WTO to change how it designates developing nations, singling out China, with which the US is engaged in a trade dispute, for unfairly getting preferential treatment. South Korea’s developing-nation status was self-designated. “The government decided not to seek special treatment as a developing country from future negotiations at the WTO,” Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki said. The decision is “not to forgo developing-country status, but to not seek any special treatment from the negotiations going forward,” he said.
CHIP DESIGNERS
Huawei to get ARM tech
Chip designer ARM Holdings PLC is to continue to supply Huawei Technologies Co (華為) after the British company’s legal team ruled that its chip technology is of UK origin and would not breach US restrictions on supplying the firm. “ARM’s v8 and v9 are UK-origin technologies,” a spokeswoman said via e-mail yesterday. Huawei, the world’s No. 2 smartphone manufacturer, uses ARM blueprints to design processors that power its smartphones. Its proprietary chips, such as Kirin 990 mobile processors and the Ascend 910 AI chipset, are built on ARM’s design architecture and considered a major hallmark of the Chinese firm’s attempts to reduce its reliance on US technologies. While Huawei was granted a reprieve until next month, it remains set to lose access to some US technology.
MINING
Glencore revises forecast
Glencore PLC, the world’s biggest commodity trader, said it is to produce slightly less copper and zinc this year than previously forecast. Glencore now expects to produce about 1.01 million tonnes of copper from its non-African business, compared with an earlier forecast of about 1.025 million tonnes. It will aim to mine 1.11 million tonnes of zinc, down 7 percent. Crucially, Glencore’s African copper business, where it is implementing a turnaround plan, is on pace to achieve its latest annual production goal. Hitting the target in African copper is an important first step toward convincing the market that it can make the assets profitable. Glencore cited minor operational updates across its portfolio for the reduced copper target. Zinc was lowered because of a delayed restart of a Peruvian mine, the shuttering of a small Peruvian mine and poor ground conditions at its Tishinsky mine in Kazakhstan.
BANKING
HSBC Holdings to cut jobs
HSBC Holdings PLC is embarking on a fresh round of job cuts, targeting hundreds of employees in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey as the latest part of the lender’s cost-reduction program. The global banking and markets, and commercial banking units might bear the brunt of the reductions, which are due to start next month, people with knowledge of the firm’s plans said. HSBC employs 4 percent of its workforce in the region, or about 9,600 full-time staff. Acting HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn has planned a series of retrenchments as he has signaled he wants the top job on a permanent basis. The bank might partially exit stock trading in some developed markets and is attempting to sell its French retail bank, a move that could remove as many as 8,000 staff from the payroll.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure