MALAYSIA
Jobless rate falls to 3.5%
The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent in February, as growth in all sectors of the economy led to increased labor demand, the Department of Statistics said. Labor force participation in the Southeast Asian nation climbed to 69.9 percent, the highest in records going back to 2010, causing the overall unemployment rate to drop to the lowest since February 2020, the data show. The labor market’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is expected to continue in line with the broad economy, which is forecast to grow between 4 to 5 percent this year.
TURKEY
Balance stays in red
The country’s current-account balance stayed deep in the red in February, a key vulnerability for the economy as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government tries to keep the lira and inflation in check ahead of elections next month. The shortfall in the broadest measure of trade in goods and services was US$8.78 billion, the central bank said in a report yesterday, more than forecast by economists. That compares with a record deficit in January that was revised to US$10 billion and a gap of US$5.3 billion in February last year. The two main drivers of the deficit have been purchases of energy and gold, especially as households increasingly turned to bullion to shield themselves against inflation that climbed over 85 percent last year.
INDIA
New Delhi ends UK talks
The government has “disengaged” from trade talks with Britain after accusing it of failing to condemn the Sikh extremist group that attacked the Indian High Commission in London last month, The Times reported yesterday, citing British government sources. The incident occurred on March 19, when protesters with “Khalistan” banners staged a demonstration at the High Commission and took down an Indian flag from the building’s first-floor balcony to denounce recent police action in Punjab. “Indians don’t want to talk about trade until they get a very public demonstration of condemnation of Khalistan extremism in the UK,” a Whitehall source told The Times.
INVESTMENT
Berkshire selling yen bonds
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc has started sounding out investors about the sale of yen bonds, having already established itself in recent years as one of the biggest foreign issuers of debt in the Japanese currency. Early guidance for pricing of the three-year portion of the debt is about 70 basis points over mid-swaps, people familiar with the matter said. Multiple tranches are up for sale, with early guidance for the 30-year maturity at roughly 125 basis points, the people said. The deal, if it proceeds, might price on Friday.
ELECTRONICS
Huawei mulls Riyadh HQ
Huawei Technologies Co (華為) is looking to make Riyadh its headquarters for the Middle East amid a push by the Saudi Arabian government to position itself as a regional business hub and growing diplomatic and business ties with China, people familiar with the matter said. The Chinese company, which already has offices in the Saudi capital and other cities across the Middle East, is in talks with Riyadh authorities to upgrade its presence in the country, the people said. The company has headquarters for the region in Dubai and Bahrain.
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
NVIDIA PLATFORM: Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and a Taiwan site is to enter production next month, Nvidia wrote on its blog Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, yesterday said it is expanding production capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) servers based on Nvidia Corp’s Blackwell chips in Taiwan, the US and Mexico to cope with rising demand. Hon Hai’s new AI-enabled factories are to use Nvidia’s Omnivores platform to create 3D digital twins to plan and simulate automated production lines at a factory in Hsinchu, the company said in a statement. Nvidia’s Omnivores platform is for developing industrial AI simulation applications and helps bring facilities online faster. Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and the
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
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