CHINA
Factory gate prices down
The country’s factory gate prices last month fell for the sixth consecutive month, but at a slightly slower-than-expected rate, official data showed yesterday, as economic activity normalized after the country’s COVID-19 outbreak. The producer price index fell 2.4 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement, compared with a 3 percent drop in June. The consumer price index rose 2.7 percent, compared with a 2.5 percent increase in June.
EGYPT
Urban inflation slows
Consumer prices in urban parts of the country grew at the slowest annual level since November last year as food costs fell, data provided by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics showed. The annual rate last month decelerated to 4.2 percent from a year earlier, compared with June’s 5.6 percent, defying some analyst expectations for a moderate acceleration. Food and beverage prices, which comprise the largest single component in the inflation basket, fell 1.5 percent. Monthly inflation sped up, rising to 0.4 percent from 0.1 percent the previous month.
FRANCE
Recovery loses steam
The pace of the country’s economic recovery is slowing, the central bank said, confirming expectations of a prolonged period before output catches up with pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. In its monthly report, the Bank of France said that economic activity was 7 percent below normal levels last month after a 9 percent gap in June. For this month, business leaders in services and most industrial sectors expect stability, the bank said. In construction, activity is expected to improve slightly to almost reach normal levels.
TURKEY
Lending rules scrapped
The government is rolling back rules that forced lenders to extend credit to businesses as it looks to slow loan growth in response to last week’s upheaval in financial markets that sent the lira to a record low against the US dollar. The banking regulator yesterday said in a statement that its asset ratio formula would be reduced by 5 percentage points to 95 percent for commercial lenders, and to 75 percent for Islamic lenders. The regulator also fine-tuned some rules for calculating the ratio and allowed banks to use average levels of the foreign-exchange rate for the previous month.
TOURISM
Accor to expand resort
Saudi Arabia has agreed with Europe’s biggest hotel group, Accor SA, for the group to expand and operate a resort at the US$20 billion Al-Ula tourism project in the kingdom’s northwestern region, the Royal Commission for the project said on Sunday. The agreement would see Accor operate an expanded Ashar Resort under the Banyan Tree brand, with 47 new units bringing the resort’s total capacity to 82 high-end villas, along with a spa and several gourmet restaurants, a commission statement said.
EQUIPMENT MAKERS
Roper eyes Vertafore
Roper Technologies Inc is in talks to acquire Vertafore Inc for close to US$5.5 billion, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter who were not identified. The acquisition would be the biggest ever for the Sarasota, Florida-based maker of industrial equipment, Reuters said, and has been competing with private equity firms for the deal.
Taiwan’s technology protection rules prohibits Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) from producing 2-nanometer chips abroad, so the company must keep its most cutting-edge technology at home, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks in response to concerns that TSMC might be forced to produce advanced 2-nanometer chips at its fabs in Arizona ahead of schedule after former US president Donald Trump was re-elected as the next US president on Tuesday. “Since Taiwan has related regulations to protect its own technologies, TSMC cannot produce 2-nanometer chips overseas currently,” Kuo said at a meeting of the legislature’s
GEOPOLITICAL ISSUES? The economics ministry said that political factors should not affect supply chains linking global satellite firms and Taiwanese manufacturers Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) asked Taiwanese suppliers to transfer manufacturing out of Taiwan, leading to some relocating portions of their supply chain, according to sources employed by and close to the equipment makers and corporate documents. A source at a company that is one of the numerous subcontractors that provide components for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet products said that SpaceX asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan because of geopolitical risks, pushing at least one to move production to Vietnam. A second source who collaborates with Taiwanese satellite component makers in the nation said that suppliers were directly
Top Taiwanese officials yesterday moved to ease concern about the potential fallout of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, making a case that the technology restrictions promised by the former US president against China would outweigh the risks to the island. The prospect of Trump’s victory in this week’s election is a worry for Taipei given the Republican nominee in the past cast doubt over the US commitment to defend it from Beijing. But other policies championed by Trump toward China hold some appeal for Taiwan. National Development Council Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) described the proposed technology curbs as potentially having
TECH WAR CONTINUES: The suspension of TSMC AI chips and GPUs would be a heavy blow to China’s chip designers and would affect its competitive edge Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, is reportedly to halt supply of artificial intelligence (AI) chips and graphics processing units (GPUs) made on 7-nanometer or more advanced process technologies from next week in order to comply with US Department of Commerce rules. TSMC has sent e-mails to its Chinese AI customers, informing them about the suspension starting on Monday, Chinese online news outlet Ijiwei.com (愛集微) reported yesterday. The US Department of Commerce has not formally unveiled further semiconductor measures against China yet. “TSMC does not comment on market rumors. TSMC is a law-abiding company and we are