JAPAN
Stimulus plans unchanged
Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda said he saw little need to alter monetary stimulus plans ahead of his first policy meeting as the bank’s chief, forecasting underlying inflation to weaken. “Our stance is to continue with monetary stimulus along with our price outlook,” Ueda said yesterday in response to questions in parliament. “Inflation is expected to cool to below 2 percent in the second half of this fiscal year” ending in March next year, he added. While some expect that some adjustments to the BOJ’s yield curve control policy, Ueda said the bank was not at a stage to discuss tweaking it. Data on Friday showed Japan’s consumer prices excluding fresh food and energy gained the most since 1981.
SEMICONDUCTORS
US pressures Seoul on China
The US has asked South Korea to urge its chipmakers not to fill any market gap in China if Beijing bans Micron Technology Inc from selling semiconductors, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Washington asked Seoul to encourage Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc to hold back from boosting sales to China if Micron is banned as a result of an investigation by Beijing, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the situation. The Chinese Cyberspace Administration last month said it would conduct a security review of Micron products sold in the country. The chipmaker said last month it was cooperating with the Chinese government, and its operations in the country were normal. The White House did not comment on the report, only saying that Washington and Seoul have made efforts to coordinate investments in the semiconductor sector, secure critical technologies and address economic coercion.
UNITED KINGDOM
Home sellers wary on pricing
British property owners are turning more cautious about asking for higher prices, according to a survey from online property analyst Rightmove. Average asking prices rose 1.7 percent from a year earlier to ￡366,247 (US$455,950), the slowest pace since December 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic and government tax breaks triggered a frenzy of buying. The monthly pace of increase slowed to 0.2 percent from 0.8 percent last month. The figures point to a stagnating market in which a shortage of new properties for sale is keeping prices aloft despite a jump in mortgage rates and double-digit inflation. While asking price growth slowed, first-time buyers faced record prices, and there were signs of improving confidence among buyers and sellers, Rightmove analyst Tim Bannister said in a statement yesterday.
ADANI GROUP
Bonds rise amid buyback
Adani Group bonds rose after a key company started the first debt buyback by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate since it was targeted by a short seller in January. Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Ltd plans to buy back as much as US$130 million of its July 2024 bonds and similar amounts in each of the next four quarters, as it tries to show that its liquidity position is comfortable, the firm said in a stock exchange filing. The buyback marks another effort by the group to regain investor confidence, including trimming capital spending, after a Hindenburg Research report pounded its bonds and shares. Adani Ports’ “measured pace” of repaying debt should enable it to maintain its revised capital spending target of about US$550 million in the fiscal year started this month, Bloomberg Intelligence reported.
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
‘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
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
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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