BANKING
Yuan deposits at six-year low
Chinese yuan deposits held by banks operating in Taiwan last month fell to the lowest level in more than six years as the currency’s slumping interest rates made it less attractive, the central bank said on Friday. The balance of yuan deposits totaled 246.01 billion yuan (US$34.64 billion), down about 6.11 billion yuan from the end of March, central bank data showed. That is the lowest level since February 2014, when yuan deposits totaled 247.05 billion yuan. The decline in yuan deposits came after institutional investors allocated yuan-denominated funds to investments, or as payments for purchases, central bank Department of Foreign Exchange specialist Chen Wan-ning (陳婉寧) said, adding that retail investors also moved their deposits to buy yuan-denominated insurance policies.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai aids Japan, Israel AI
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) has teamed up with semiconductor firms in Japan and Israel to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) image solution. In a statement on Wednesday, Hon Hai said that it has formed a partnership with Japan-headquartered system-on-chip solution provider Socionext Inc and Israel-based AI chip designer Hailo to launch next-generation AI processing solutions for video analytics. The results would be used in diverse segments, such as smart cities, smart medical care and smart retail development, as well as the industrial Internet of Things, Hon Hai said, adding that it is combining its high-density, fan-less and edge computing solution — BOXiedge — with Socionext’s high-efficiency parallel processor — the SynQuacer SC2A11 — and Hailo’s deep learning processor — the Hailo-8 — in the development.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
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