SOUTH KOREA
Export gains cooling
Early trade data showed signs of cooling export gains this month as the global economy adjusts to fallout from the war in Ukraine and China’s COVID-19 lockdowns weigh on supply chains. While exports advanced 24.1 percent in the first 20 days of the month from a year earlier, helped by a rebound in auto shipments, figures for average daily shipments showed just a 7.6 percent increase, for the smallest gain in preliminary data since the end of 2020. Exports to China continued to show weakness. Overall imports rose 37.8 percent, resulting in a trade deficit of US$4.8 billion, as energy costs stay high.
SOLAR POWER
China triples investment
China tripled investment in solar power projects in the first four months, putting the nation on track to install record amounts of new clean energy capacity. Investment in solar was 29 billion yuan (US$4.35 billion) from January through last month, about 204 percent higher than in the same period a year earlier, a National Energy Administration statement said. That compares with 51.3 billion yuan invested in solar in the first 11 months of last year. The nation is forecast to add a record 220 gigawatts of total power capacity this year, the agency said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Inflation concerning: Clarke
The inflation picture is hugely concerning, but the British government has confidence in the Bank of England to get it right, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Simon Clarke said yesterday. Inflation surged last month to its highest annual rate of 9 percent since 1982. “The inflation picture is what is hugely concerning and is making waves across both America and Europe as well. And that’s because this is a truly global problem,” Clarke told LBC Radio. “We absolutely have confidence in the independent Bank of England to get this right and it’s vitally important that we don’t compromise their independence.”
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
CoinSwitch urges regulation
India must establish rules on cryptocurrencies to resolve regulatory uncertainty, protect investors and boost its crypto sector, CoinSwitch CEO Ashish Singhal said on Sunday. Although the Reserve Bank of India has backed a ban on cryptocurrencies over risks to financial stability, a federal government move to tax income from them has been interpreted by the industry as a sign of acceptance by New Delhi. “Users don’t know what will happen with their holdings — is government going to ban, not ban, how is it going to be regulated?” Singhal told Reuters at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Regulations will bring peace ... more certainty,” he added.
FOOD
Some Jif products recalled
J. M. Smucker Co is recalling some Jif peanut butter products sold in the US and Canada because of potential salmonella contamination. The Orrville, Ohio-based company on Saturday expanded its recall of the popular brand of peanut butter products to Canada, a day after announcing a voluntary recall in the US. Consumers who have various crunchy, creamy and squeeze products should dispose of them immediately, the company said. Salmonella is a bacterial disease that causes fever, diarrhea and vomiting, and J.M. Smucker is working with the Food and Drug Administration on the recall. The financial impact is not yet known.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by