AGRICULTURE
Some US-PRC sales still on
US soybean exporters sold several cargoes to Chinese state-run buyers, according to people familiar with the matter, showing that some transactions are still going through even after officials in Beijing ordered a pause in some purchases. Shippers sold as many as four cargoes of US soybeans from the new crop, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private. State-run stockpiler China Grain Reserves Corp Group Ltd (中儲糧集團) was bidding earlier for Pacific Northwest cargoes, the people said.
BANKING
ANZ selling USD Finance
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) yesterday agreed to sell its New Zealand-based asset finance unit for NZ$762 million (US$479 million) to Japanese financial institution Shinsei Bank Ltd. Australia’s fourth-largest lender said the sale of UDC Finance provides about A$439 million (US$298.08 million) of Level 2 Group CET1 capital. Shinsei Bank said that its consolidated capital adequacy ratio is expected to decline about 0.4 percentage points once it acquires UDC Finance. The sale is expected to be sealed in the second half of the year.
AUSTRALIA
RBA holds rates steady
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) yesterday kept its interest rate and yield objectives unchanged as an abatement of COVID-19 outbreak allows the economy to begin reopening. Bank Governor Philip Lowe maintained both the cash rate and three-year yield targets at 0.25 percent, as expected. The bank sharply tapered bond buying last month as financial markets calmed and COVID-19 infections dwindled. Meantime, a gauge of consumer confidence advanced yesterday for a ninth straight week.
REAL ESTATE
UK house prices plunge
Britain’s house prices last month fell by the most in more than 11 years as the COVID-19 pandemic hammered the market, mortgage lender Nationwide said yesterday. Prices fell by 1.7 percent last month from April, the biggest monthly decline since February 2009, it said. In annual terms, prices rose by 1.8 percent, slowing from 3.7 percent in April. A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a monthly fall of 1 percent and an annual rise of 2.8 percent.
INDIA
Moody’s downgrades rating
The nation’s credit rating moved one step closer to junk after Moody’s Investors Service yesterday downgraded it to the lowest investment grade level and surprised economists by keeping it on a negative watch. Moody’s reduced the long-term foreign-currency credit rating from “Baa2” to “Baa3,” with the outlook implying it could cut the rating further. The nation’s growth and credit profile were deteriorating even before the pandemic and those risks would become more pronounced, Moody’s said. The negative outlook reflects strong downside risks from deeper stresses in the economy and financial system, it said.
VIETNAM
Power plant sales planned
Hanoi plans to sell some state-owned power plants to foreign investors to raise funds for urgently needed new projects and ease pressure on public debt, local media reported yesterday. State-owned Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) and the Commission for the Management of State Capital at Enterprises are drafting the plans for the sales, the Kinh Te Saigon reported.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts