CHINA
PBOC injects less cash
The government injected the least amount of medium-term cash into the banking system since November last year, a sign that policymakers are watching the effects of past easing steps as the nation’s economic recovery appears to be on track. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) offered 170 billion yuan (US$24.74 billion) of funds to banks through the medium-term lending facility. That resulted in a 20 billion yuan net injection this month, the smallest since November. It also left the interest rate unchanged at 2.75 percent, the eighth month for it to stand pat, as expected by a majority of economists and analysts in a Bloomberg survey.
UNITED KINGDOM
BOE reviews deposit scheme
The Bank of England (BOE) is considering an overhaul of its deposit guarantee scheme after the recent global banking crisis, the Financial Times reported, citing people briefed on the central bank’s plans. Reforms under consideration include raising the amount covered for businesses from the current ￡85,000 (US$105,250) limit, as well as forcing banks to pre-fund the system to a greater extent to speed up payouts, the newspaper reported. The report did not have details on what the new limit could be. The US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp guarantees deposits up to US$250,000.
INDIA
Adviser pushes back on ESG
The country needs to resist efforts by some western ratings companies to push environmental, social and governance (ESG) norms on emerging markets even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is committed to zero emissions by 2070, a key economic adviser said. “The issue is not so much about the need for some norms, but about who will be monitoring these targets,” Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of Modi’s economic advisory council said in an interview. “The existing credit rating ones already have serious biases and failures. Allowing the emergence of a new bunch of exclusively western agencies to monitor ESG targets is problematic.”
SINGAPORE
Home sales rise
Home sales rose to a six-month high last month as appetite for homes remained strong. Purchases of new private apartments increased to 492 units last month, according to figures released yesterday by the Urban Redevelopment Authority. That is the third month of gains following the plunge to a 14-year-low in December last year when a lack of project launches held back buyers. “The general market view is still quite positive,” OrangeTee & Tie Pte (橙易產業) senior vice president of research and analytics Christine Sun (孫燕清) said. The lack of supply compared to demand will continue to support the market, Sun added.
AUTOMAKERS
Renault reviews EV pricing
French automaker Renault SA is reviewing its pricing policies of electric vehicles (EV0 worldwide to ensure it stays competitive after a wave of price cuts by US rival Tesla Inc, a top executive said yesterday. After slashing prices several times in the US, Tesla on Friday cut prices in Europe — including on Renault’s home turf of France — as well as Israel and Singapore, expanding a global discount drive it began in China in January. “We will analyze country by country, market by market, which level of competitiveness we need to have to stay in the game,” Renault chief executive Fabrice Cambolive said.
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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