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.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
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