UKRAINE
GDP drop largest in 30 years
GDP fell 30.4 percent last year — the largest annual fall in more than 30 years — because of the war with Russia, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Yulia Svyrydenko said yesterday. Svyrydenko, who is also first deputy prime minister, said in a statement that the economy had suffered its largest losses since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, although the fall was less than initially expected. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade said Russian missile attacks on energy infrastructure continued to put pressure on business activity and sentiment. Ukraine’s GDP grew 3.4 percent in 2021.
UNITED KINGDOM
Sentiment remains sluggish
Business confidence is lingering near the lows it touched during the COVID-19 pandemic, as companies brace for falling profit during a recession this year, the British Chambers of Commerce said. The employers group said its quarterly survey of almost 6,000 companies, many of them small and medium-sized enterprises, showed that just one-third of them expected profits to increase this year, while 36 percent anticipated a decline. The group said business activity has not recovered since plummeting in the third quarter of last year, with 67 percent of firms reporting further declines or no change in the final three months of last year.
MALAYSIA
EV tax break may continue
The government is planning to extend tax breaks on electric vehicles (EV) in the federal budget due next month, as part of efforts to boost green mobility, Minister of Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Nik Nazmi bin Nik Ahmad said. The country aims to install 10,000 electric vehicle charging points by 2025, up from 900 at present, as it transits to low-emission vehicles to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the minister said at an event in Cyberjaya. “There will be a greater push from the government to ensure we reach the 10,000 target,” he said. The government is due to present its spending plan for this year in parliament on Feb. 24.
DEBT
HK sells US$5.8bn of bonds
Hong Kong sold US$5.8 billion of green bonds denominated in three currencies on Wednesday, as markets roared back to life amid a global rush of deals. The territory priced US$3 billion of sustainable US dollar bonds across four tenors, a 1.25 billion euros (US$1.33 billion) two-tranche note and a 10 billion offshore yuan (US$1.45 billion) portion, people familiar with the matter said. Investors sent in more than US$25 billion of bids for the US dollar notes, the people said. That has enabled the issuer to trim pricing on the bond, while it has also seen a strong reception to its new green notes in the other currencies.
UNITED STATES
Manufacturers report dip
Manufacturing activity contracted for a second straight month last month, remaining at the lowest levels since May 2020 as new orders and production slipped, survey data showed on Wednesday. The Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) manufacturing index dipped 0.6 points to 48.4 percent last month, firmly below the 50 percent threshold that indicates growth. The manufacturing purchasing managers index also remains at its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic recovery began, ISM manufacturing survey head Timothy Fiore said in a statement.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
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