CHINA
US firms cut investments
US businesses in China are slashing investments and lowering revenue projections as COVID-19 lockdowns affected operations and supply chains, a survey showed. More than half of the 121 companies polled by the American Chamber of Commerce in China have either reduced or delayed investment in the country, while nearly 60 percent of them lowered their income forecasts for this year following the latest virus outbreaks, a chamber statement said. More than 15 percent of the US companies with operations in Shanghai — which has been placed under lockdown for more than a month — reported their business there remains fully shut, the survey, conducted from April 29 to Thursday, showed. Nearly 60 percent of the respondents, who have operations throughout the country, said that production capabilities were slowed or reduced due to a lack of employees, difficulty in obtaining supplies or government-ordered lockdowns.
AIRLINES
Qantas expands points sales
Qantas Airways Ltd is making every seat on more than 1,700 flights purchasable with air miles, allowing customers to burn through a mountain of loyalty points built up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Passengers are to be able to use points on all flights in August on more than 30 routes in Australia, Qantas said yesterday. The almost 130,000 seats would be available on mostly regional routes from cities including Melbourne and Sydney. Airlines normally set aside only a certain number of seats for points redemptions, and offering every seat on so many flights is unusual. So-called points planes have emerged since COVID-19 as a way to tap pent-up travel demand among frequent flyers who accumulated air miles while stuck on the ground.
CARBON TRADING
Firm to trade offsets
A Singapore carbon exchange is teaming up with Germany’s main bourse to launch futures trading for carbon offsets as early as this year to meet the growing demand from companies to hedge their risks from greenhouse gas emissions. The futures contracts would be created by Deutsche Boerse AG using carbon credits sourced by Singapore-based AirCarbon Pte. The plan would be to trade the contracts on the European Energy Exchange, AirCarbon cofounder and chief executive officer Thomas McMahon said. BloombergNEF, a clean energy research group, estimates that the market for offsets could either skyrocket past US$100 billion or crumble if there are little improvements in quality.
MALAYSIA
IPO stream to stay strong
The pipeline for initial public offerings (IPOs) is likely to remain robust for the rest of the year, as excess cash buoys demand, the chief of the stock exchange operator said yesterday. “Our lead stream is strong, we have pent-up availability, the market support for IPOs this year has been very good,” Bursa Malaysia Bhd chief executive officer Muhamad Umar Swift said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “There is still a lot of liquidity in the Malaysian market chasing new offerings.” Malaysia topped its Southeast Asian peers in IPO proceeds raised in the first three months of this year, with five firms netting US$362 million through first-time share shares, Ernst & Young LLP said. Dairy producer Farm Fresh Bhd and its shareholders raised about 1 billion ringgit (US$228.1 million) in March in the nation’s largest IPO since July.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
PRECEDENTED TIMES: In news that surely does not shock, AI and tech exports drove a banner for exports last year as Taiwan’s economic growth experienced a flood tide Taiwan’s exports delivered a blockbuster finish to last year with last month’s shipments rising at the second-highest pace on record as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and advanced computing remained strong, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Exports surged 43.4 percent from a year earlier to US$62.48 billion last month, extending growth to 26 consecutive months. Imports climbed 14.9 percent to US$43.04 billion, the second-highest monthly level historically, resulting in a trade surplus of US$19.43 billion — more than double that of the year before. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) described the performance as “surprisingly outstanding,” forecasting export growth
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