SOUTH KOREA
Exports slip slightly
Early trade data showed exports this month falling, driven by fewer working days, while daily average shipments continued to recover on resilient tech demand. Exports fell 5.8 percent in the first 20 days of the month from a year earlier, according to Customs Service data released yesterday. The value of average daily shipments still rose 5.9 percent, as the period had 1.5 fewer business days compared with last year. Semiconductor exports increased 12 percent, while overseas shipments of vehicles fell 7.6 percent and oil products decreased 42 percent. Sales of computer devices rose 11 percent.
MALAYSIA
Price drop continues
The consumer price index fell for the seventh straight month last month, declining 1.4 percent from a year earlier, government data showed yesterday. The drop was more than the 1.3 percent decline forecast by 10 economists in a Reuters poll. In August, the index fell 1.4 percent. Last month’s decline was driven largely by the transport sector index falling 9.9 percent year-on-year, and lower housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel prices, the Statistics Department said in a statement. Meanwhile, the government would exempt as much as 10 percent of workers in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Sabah, Labuan and Putrajaya from its work-from-home order, Trade Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali said in a statement yesterday.
UNITED KINGDOM
Debt highest since 1960
Government borrowing in the first half of the year was more than six times higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, official figures showed yesterday, taking public debt to its highest since 1960. Public borrowing last month totaled £36.101 billion (US$47.16 billion), above all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists, although August’s figure was revised down by more than £5 billion to £30.113 billion. The increased borrowing took total public debt further above the £2 trillion mark to £2.060 trillion, or 103.5 percent of GDP, the Office for National Statistics said.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan raises Thai staff
Nissan Motor Co plans to hire more than 2,000 new workers in Thailand as the company seeks to shore up its last remaining large-scale production base in Southeast Asia. Its subsidiary in the country would begin taking on new employees at its plants in Samut Prakan Province, south of Bangkok, the company said yesterday. Nissan employed 4,171 workers in the country as of March 31, according to figures from the Japanese automaker, meaning that the new hires would increase the division’s workforce by about 50 percent. Earlier this year, the Yokohama-based group announced that it would end vehicle manufacturing at its plant in Indonesia.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Qualcomm eyes Indian 5G
Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Platforms Ltd is working with Qualcomm Inc to develop 5G solutions and accelerate efforts to bring the high-speed network to the world’s No. 2 mobile market by users. Jio, which includes the tycoon’s wireless operator, and its wholly owned US-based unit Radisys Corp are partnering with Qualcomm Technologies to “fast track the development and roll out of indigenous 5G network infrastructure and services in India,” according to a joint statement on Tuesday. Jio is the nation’s biggest carrier with about 400 million users.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last