ENTERTAINMENT
China box office sales surge
China’s box office sales surged 36 percent last year, reports in state-run media said yesterday, as the world’s second-largest film market added thousands of screens. Cinemas took in 29.6 billion yuan (US$4.77 billion) in ticket sales last year with domestic films accounting for a little more than half the total, a Xinhua news agency report said. Domestic productions made 16.15 billion yuan, or about 55 percent of the total, as China produced more than 600 movies, Xinhua reported.
MACROECONOMICS
S Korea sees record exports
South Korea saw record exports last year, data yesterday showed, despite slow economic growth in key market China and a sluggish recovery in Europe. For the whole of last year, overseas shipments grew 2.4 percent to US$573.1 billion and imports rose 2 percent to US$525.70 billion, the trade ministry said. As a result, South Korea’s trade surplus widened to a record high of US$47.41 billion, it said.
ISRAEL
Growth beats predictions
Israel’s economy expanded faster than previously estimated last year on accelerated consumer spending, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday, revising an earlier forecast. GDP increased 2.6 percent last year from 2013, the bureau said at a Jerusalem press conference. The figure compares with the bureau’s previous 2.2 percent estimate. Earlier this week, the Bank of Israel estimated growth of 2.5 percent last year, up from a September prediction of 2.3 percent. The economy expanded 3.2 percent in 2013. Exports inched up 0.6 percent last year, compared with an increase of 1.5 percent in 2013, the bureau said.
ENERGY
Finland uses Indian solar
Finland’s largest power utility Fortum Oyj has connected a 10-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant to India’s electricity grid. The plant, spread over 28 hectares in the Ujjain district of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, is set to begin operating early this year, according to a statement from the company’s Indian unit. In June 2013, Fortum purchased a 5-megawatt solar power plant in the state of Rajasthan.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai plans China plants
South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co said on Tuesday it would build two more plants in China, each with a production capacity of 300,000 vehicles, to expand its share of the world’s largest auto market. Hyundai, which already has three car plants in the nation, said it would complete construction of its fourth plant at Changzhou next year and of another plant at Chongqing in 2017. Hyundai with affiliate Kia Motors Corp is the world’s fifth-largest car producer. Its three current Chinese plants can produce a combined 1.05 million vehicles per year. Hyundai also has a commercial vehicle plant in China with an annual capacity of 160,000.
TOURISM
Cuba sees 3 million tourists
The country on Tuesday said it welcomed a record 3 million international visitors last year, a rare bit of good news for the moribund economy, which counts tourism as one of its mainstays. Tourism is the country’s third-largest hard-currency earning pillar, bringing in US$2.5 billion last year. That was far overtaken by the US$10 billion Cuba earns by exporting its medical staff services, mostly to Venezuela.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
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