CHINA
Crude oil imports increase
Beijing increased crude imports last month to a record high as refineries raised processing rates and oil prices declined. The country bought a net 25.3 million tonnes, or 5.98 million barrels a day more than it exported last month, according to data published yesterday by the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs. That compares with the previous high of 5.87 million barrels a day in February. “International crude oil prices have fallen over the past two months, so more crude was probably shipped in to fill commercial and state emergency stockpiles” as prices could rise again, Gong Jinshuang (龔金雙), a Beijing-based senior engineer at China National Petroleum Corp (中國石油天然氣), the nation’s biggest oil company, said by telephone.
CHINA
Vehicle sales jump 16%
The nation’s auto market revved to life last month despite the weakening economy, with vehicle sales jumping nearly 16 percent from a year earlier to 1.61 million units, industry figures showed on Saturday. Total auto sales in the first five months of the year inched up 1.7 percent to 8.02 million units, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported. Passenger car sales continued to outstrip sales of commercial vehicles, with 1.28 million passenger cars sold last month, up 23 percent from a year earlier, the association said. It said 6.33 million passenger cars were sold from January to last month, up 5.48 percent year-on-year.
AVIATION
Budget airline starts service
Budget carrier AirAsia’s Philippine unit on Saturday began its international operations with its first daily flight to Malaysia, the company said. The airline’s Airbus A320 plane departed on its inaugural foreign flight from Clark International Airport, a sprawling former US airbase almost two hours’ drive from Manila, for Kuala Lumpur’s low-cost terminal. The airline, which is 60 percent owned by Filipino investors and 40 percent by Malaysia’s AirAsia International Ltd, aims to tap the growing tourism market between the two countries, company chief executive Marianne Hontiveros said.
JAPAN
SESC calls for fine
The securities industry watchdog has called for the Financial Services Agency to slap a fine on US brokerage house First New York Securities for alleged insider trading. This is the first time the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC) has recommended an overseas financial institution be fined over alleged insider trading tied to stock offerings. It is the third time since March that the SESC has called for a fine in a case of insider trading linked to stock offerings managed by the nation’s biggest brokerage Nomura Securities, whose internal controls are the focus of an ongoing investigation.
RAIL
Russian firm eyes expansion
OAO Russian Railways, the country’s rail monopoly, is planning to make a bid for a US$2 billion contract to build rail projects in Abu Dhabi as it expands in Persian Gulf states, where it will also seek contracts to build light metro links, RIA Novosti reported, citing the head of Zarubezhstroytechnology, an engineering and construction unit of Russian Railways. The company is also discussing projects in Kenya valued at about US$450 million, according to the Russian news service.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS