INDONESIA
Inflation jumps to 8.36%
The nation’s inflation rate jumped to 8.36 percent year-on-year from 6.23 percent in November and its trade balance swung to a deficit after the country’s new president hiked fuel prices by 30 percent a month earlier, data showed yesterday. Transportation cost adjustments last month that pushed up food prices during the holiday season were the main reason for the higher-than-expected inflation, the Statistics Agency said. The trade balance also suffered, as it swung to a deficit of US$425.7 million from a small surplus of US$20 million in October as prices of commodities, the resource-rich country’s key exports, slumped.
AUTOMAKERS
GM vehicles recalled
General Motors Co (GM) on Thursday announced a recall of more than 92,000 additional vehicles over ignition switch problems blamed for 42 deaths. The latest recall affects about 83,572 trucks in the US from the 2011-2012 model year, as well as vehicles from 2007 to last year that were repaired with faulty parts. Including vehicles in Canada and Mexico, the total number of recalls comes to 92,221. Models affected include the Chevrolet Silverado, Avalanche, Tahoe and Suburban, as well as the Cadillac Escalade and the GMC Sierra and Yukon.
AVIATION
Dubai overtakes Heathrow
Heathrow has lost its crown as the world’s busiest airport for international passenger traffic. Dubai has knocked London off the top spot, figures from the Airports Council International show. A total of 68.9 million passengers had passed through Dubai International compared with 67.8 million at Heathrow as of Dec. 22, despite a late slowdown in traffic with one important destination, trouble-hit Russia. “Given the traffic achieved in the first 11 months, together with some of the busiest days on record in December, we are confident of ending the year above the 70 million mark and confirming our position as the world’s busiest international airport,” Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths said.
ENERGY
Egypt repays debts
Britain’s BG Group yesterday said it had received a US$350 million payment from the Egyptian government following the country’s decision to repay outstanding debts to the energy industry. Egypt has delayed payments to oil and gas firms, as its economy has been hammered by almost four years of instability since a popular uprising ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. It said on Wednesday that it had paid US$2.1 billion of its debt to foreign energy companies, in a bid to ease the country’s worst energy crisis in decades. BG said the payment reduced the company’s domestic receivables balance in Egypt to about US$920 million and it was working with the government to reduce it further.
STEEL
Iron ore mine restarted
Tata Steel Ltd restarted one of its biggest iron ore mines in India, four months after the nation’s top producer was ordered to suspend operations pending lease renewal. The company on Thursday began mining at its Noamundi tenement in the eastern state of Jharkhand, spokesman Chanakya Chaudhary said. Mumbai-based Tata Steel expects to reach the mine’s capacity by start of next week, he said. The shortage resulting from mine closures in the state and in neighboring Odisha had prompted the company to boost iron ore imports in the year ending March 31, raising input costs of the key steelmaking ingredient.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
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