INDUSTRY
German production falls
German industrial production fell more than expected in March, partly due to a weak performance by the automotive sector, spurring recession fears in Europe’s largest economy. Production decreased by 3.4 percent on the previous month following a slightly revised increase of 2.1 percent in February, the Federal Statistical Office said yesterday. “After a buoyant performance by industrial production at the beginning of the year, there was an unexpectedly sharp decline in March,” the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action said. The manufacture of motor vehicles and automotive parts fell by 6.5 percent on the previous month. Production in machinery and equipment fell by 3.4 percent, and output in the construction sector decreased by 4.6 percent from a month earlier. In the first quarter, production was 2.5 percent higher than in the final quarter of last year, the statistics office said.
DEBT
Chinese ratio hits 279.7%
The Chinese economy’s debt ratio reached a record high in the first quarter of this year, with bank loans to companies surging as the nation emerged from its “zero COVID-19”policy. The macro leverage ratio — or total debt as a percentage of GDP — soared to 279.7 percent in the first quarter, Bank of China and National Bureau of Statistics data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That was an increase of 7.7 percentage points from the previous quarter, the biggest jump in three years. The debt ratio held by non-financial corporates rose 5.8 percentage points. Leverage ratios for the household and government sectors were each up by about 1 percentage point. The data does not include bank loans to local government financing vehicles.
MINING
Plant gets rules extension
Malaysia granted a six-month extension to Australian miner Lynas Rare Earths Ltd to get its rare earth plant in line with environmental requirements. The deadline for the plant to be radiation-free has been extended to January next year, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Chang Lih Kang (鄭立慷) said. The Lynas rare earths refinery in Malaysia is the largest outside China, but has been dogged by environmental concerns and community opposition. The government in February issued a new three-year license to Lynas’s plant in the state of Pahang, with one of the conditions requiring that “cracking and leaching” of lanthanide concentrate move to an area outside of Malaysia by July 1. The business unit generates radioactive waste, authorities said.
FINANCE
Venture announces funds
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc plans to start two debt funds alongside Liquidity Capital with as much as US$400 million to provide financing for middle and later-stage start-ups in Japan and Europe. The funds would be established under Mars Growth Capital Pte, a joint venture between Japan’s largest bank and the Israeli tech lender, the companies said in a statement. The Japan fund would have a maximum of ￥20 billion (US$14.8 million) and the European fund up to US$250 million, they said. The move is the latest by Japan’s biggest banks to ramp up start-up finance, where they increasingly see potential for new business. Mars Growth Capital, based in Singapore, launched in 2021 and has been providing debt finance to start-ups in Asia and elsewhere.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS