TRADE
Next US-China visits set
A US delegation headed by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is scheduled to visit China on Thursday and Friday next week for the next round of negotiations, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said yesterday. Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴) is to travel to Washington early next month for more talks, ministry spokesman Gao Feng (高峰) said. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said that the US might leave tariffs on Chinese goods for a “substantial period” to ensure that Beijing complies with any trade agreement.
CRIME
Counterfeiting gang nabbed
Chinese police have arrested 32 members of a group they said made and sold up to 100 million yuan (US$15 million) of counterfeit luxury goods from brands such as Louis Vuitton and Loewe, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Police in Shanghai also closed two assembly lines used to make the counterfeits and seized more than 4,000 bags, clothes and accessories.
CRIME
Fraud suspect pleads guilty
A Lithuanian man on Wednesday pleaded guilty to US charges that he helped orchestrate a scheme to defraud Facebook Inc and Google out of more than US$100 million. Evaldas Rimasauskas, 50, entered his plea to one count of wire fraud before US District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan. He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison at his sentencing in July. He also agreed to forfeit about US$49.7 million he obtained from the scheme.
BRAZIL
Interest rates unchanged
The central bank on Wednesday on left interest rates unchanged after holding its first monetary policy meeting under new Governor Roberto Campos Neto. The bank’s unanimous decision — only the second since pro-business President Jair Bolsonaro took power in January — to keep rates at 6.5 percent was in line with market expectations.
INVESTMENT
Levi Strauss IPO a success
Levis Strauss & Co raised $623.3 million in its US initial public offering (IPO), pricing shares above the marketed range. The iconic blue jeans maker sold 36.7 million shares at US$17 apiece on Wednesday, according to a statement. It had marketed them for US$14 to US$16 apiece. The stock started trading yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange. The offering valued Levi Strauss at US$6.55 billion, based on the number of shares outstanding after the IPO.
CRIME
S Korean firms plead guilty
South Korean oil refiners S-Oil Corp and Hyundai Oilbank Co have agreed to plead guilty to criminal and civil charges of rigging bids to supply fuel to the US military, the US Department of Justice said on Wednesday. Hyundai is to pay US$83.1 million in criminal and civil fines, while S-Oil would pay US$43.58 million to settle the allegations, the department said.
AVIATION
India hopes to save jobs
The Indian government is mulling options to save jobs at Jet Airways India Ltd, including asking low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd to consider taking over some of the debt-laden company’s aircraft, people with knowledge of the matter said. The proposal involves SpiceJet acquiring as many as 40 of Jet Airways’ grounded planes that are owned by lessors, one of the people said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
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