JAPAN
Prices see small increase
Japan’s consumer prices rose for the ninth straight month last month, but inflation remained well below the Bank of Japan’s 2 percent target, official data showed yesterday. Prices rose 0.7 percent from a year earlier after stripping out volatile prices for fresh food, buoyed by a rise in energy costs such as fuel, light and water charges, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said. However, excluding fresh food and energy, prices edged up just 0.2 percent compared to the same month the previous year.
CHINA
Industrial profits surge 28%
Chinese industrial profits jumped the most since 2011, underscoring resilience in the economy, as authorities intensify their efforts to cut excess capacity and reduce pollution. Industrial profits increased 27.7 percent last month from a year earlier to 662.2 billion yuan (US$99.54 billion), compared with a 24 percent pace a month earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. From January to last month, total profits increased 22.8 percent year-on-year to 5.58 trillion yuan, the bureau said.
REAL ESTATE
Vietnam sees biggest IPO
Vincom Retail JSC’s existing investors raised 16.1 trillion dong (US$708 million) after pricing an initial public offering (IPO) of the Vietnamese mall operator at the top end of a marketed range. Existing shareholders, including Warburg Pincus and Credit Suisse Group AG, priced 396.5 million shares at 40,600 dong apiece, according to terms for the deal obtained by Bloomberg. The stockholders initially offered 380.2 million shares at 37,000 dong to 40,600 dong each, earlier terms for the sale show. The deal from the arm of Vietnam’s largest developer Vingroup JSC is the country’s biggest-ever first-time share sale, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
DIARY
Saputo buys Murray Goulburn
Canadian dairy giant Saputo Inc on Thursday said it had agreed to buy Australian rival Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co Ltd for C$1.3 billion (US$1.01 billion). Dairy processing cooperative Murray Goulburn has about 2,300 employees and operates 11 facilities in Australia and China. Saputo, one of the 10 largest dairy processors in the world and already active in Australia, said it would finance the acquisition through a new bank loan.
SPACE
Saudi backs Virgin Galactic
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund on Thursday announced a US$1 billion investment in British billionaire Richard Branson’s space tourism company, Virgin Galactic. Branson said the investment would enable the company to develop the next generation of satellite launches and accelerate its program for point-to-point supersonic space travel. He added that Virgin Galactic was “months away” from going into space with people on board and his other company, Virgin Orbit, placing satellites around the Earth.
LABOR
Tesla accused by union
The United Auto Workers union on Thursday said it had lodged a formal complaint against Tesla Inc, accusing it of firing and harassing employees involved in union activity. The move follows last month’s decision by the National Labor Relations Board to begin proceedings against Tesla for allegedly infringing on workers’ rights by requiring extremely broad confidentiality from employees, which could prevent complaints about working conditions and safety. Teslas denied the allegations.
AI SPLURGE: The four major US tech companies have lost more than US$950 billion in value since releasing earnings and outlooks, while equipment makers were gaining Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that would reach about US$650 billion this year — a flood of cash earmarked for new data centers and all the gear within them. The spending planned by Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp, all in pursuit of dominance in the still-nascent market for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is a boom without a parallel this century. Each of the companies’ estimates for this year is expected either near or surpass their budgets for the past three years combined. They would set a high-watermark for capital spending
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Bank of America Corp nearly doubled its forecast for the nation’s economic growth this year, adding to a slew of upgrades even after a rip-roaring last year propelled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI). The firm lifted its projection to 8 percent from 4.5 percent on “relentless global demand” for the hardware that Taiwanese companies make, according to a note dated yesterday by analysts including Xiaoqing Pi (皮曉青). Taiwan’s GDP expanded 8.63 percent last year, the fastest pace since 2010. The increase “reflects our sustained optimism over Taiwan’s technology driven expansion and is reinforced by several recent developments,” including a more stable currency,
COLLABORATION: Taiwan and the US could jointly find solutions to weaknesses in supply chain resilience for critical materials, focusing on mining and initial refinement Taiwan is likely to purchase rare earths from the US in the future, and is also in talks with Australia and Canada to strengthen global rare earth supply chain security, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Taiwan and the US last month concluded the sixth Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, during which both sides signed a joint statement endorsing the principles of the Pax Silica Declaration, pledging to deepen cooperation in areas including critical minerals. At the time, Kung said the two sides would establish working groups to advance cooperation in areas including artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, critical materials and
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