Humour: News in Cartoon

Chart: Copper’s Super-contango Sends Warning Signal Over Global Economy

Source : Bloomberg and Trading Economics

Chart: Continuing Low Container Shipping Fees Reflect the Weak Demands of U.S. and Europe

Source : Nikkei

China Homegrown Automaker Gain Local Market Share

Source : Caixin

Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Completed a Deal to Make Supply Chains More Resilient and Secure

The 14 partners of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) –Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United States, and Viet Nam – announced the substantial conclusion of the negotiations of a first-of-its-kind international IPEF Supply Chain Agreement at the IPEF Ministerial Meeting in Detroit, Michigan. The proposed Agreement aims to increase the resilience, efficiency, productivity, sustainability, transparency, diversification, security, fairness, and inclusivity of their supply chains through both collaborative activities and individual actions taken by each IPEF partner.

Following the launch of IPEF in Tokyo, Japan on May 23, 2022, and since the release of the IPEF Ministerial Statements on September 9, 2022, the IPEF partners have worked constructively, including through four rounds of in-person negotiations, several virtual intersessional meetings, and numerous bilateral meetings. The IPEF partners will undertake the necessary steps, including further domestic consultations and a legal review, to prepare a final text of the proposed IPEF Supply Chain Agreement. Once finalized, the proposed Agreement will be subject to IPEF partners’ domestic processes for signature, followed by ratification, acceptance, or approval.

The IPEF partners are committed to working towards early realization of the cooperation envisioned under the proposed IPEF Supply Chain Agreement. This includes engaging with businesses and utilizing technical assistance and capacity building to increase investment in critical sectors, key goods, physical and digital infrastructure, transportation, and workforce projects.

Under the proposed IPEF Supply Chain Agreement, the IPEF partners seek to:

• provide a framework to build their collective understanding of significant supply chain risks, supported by each partner’s identification and monitoring of its own critical sectors and key goods;
• improve crisis coordination and response to supply chain disruptions and work together to support the timely delivery of affected goods during a crisis;
• ensure that workers and the businesses, especially micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises, in the economies of IPEF partners benefit from resilient, robust, and efficient supply chains by identifying disruptions or potential disruptions and responding promptly, effectively, and, where possible, collectively;
• better prepare businesses in the economies of the IPEF partners to identify, manage, and resolve supply chain bottlenecks, including by strengthening supply chain logistics and infrastructure;
• facilitate cooperation, mobilize investments, and promote regulatory transparency in sectors and goods critical to national security, public health and safety, or the prevention of significant or widespread economic disruptions;
• respect, promote, and realize, in good faith, labor rights in IPEF partners’ supply chains, in recognition of the essential role of workers in achieving greater supply chain resilience;
• ensure the availability of a sufficient number of skilled workers in critical sectors and key goods, including by upskilling and reskilling workers, promoting inclusivity and equal access, and increasing comparability of skills credentials frameworks;
• identify opportunities for technical assistance and capacity building in strengthening IPEF partners’ supply chains; and
• respect market principles, minimize market distortions, including unnecessary restrictions and impediments to trade, and protect business confidential information.

In support of these efforts, the proposed IPEF Supply Chain Agreement contemplates the establishment of three new IPEF Supply Chain bodies to facilitate cooperation among the IPEF partners on supply chain issues:

• The IPEF Supply Chain Council: The proposed Agreement would establish a mechanism for the IPEF partners to work collaboratively to develop sector-specific action plans for critical sectors and key goods to enhance the resilience of IPEF partner’s supply chains, including through diversification of sources, infrastructure and workforce development, enhanced logistics connectivity, business matching, joint research and development, and trade facilitation.
• The IPEF Supply Chain Crisis Response Network: The proposed Agreement would establish an emergency communications channel for the IPEF partners to seek support during a supply chain disruption and to facilitate information sharing and collaboration among the IPEF partners during a crisis, enabling a faster and more effective response that minimizes negative effects on their economies.
• The IPEF Labor Rights Advisory Board: The proposed Agreement would establish a new advisory board, consisting of government, worker, and employer representatives, as well as a subcommittee composed of government representatives, to support the IPEF partners’ promotion of labor rights in their supply chains, promotion of sustainable trade and investment, and facilitation of opportunities for investment in businesses that respect labor rights.

The IPEF partners are committed to operationalizing this landmark Agreement as soon as practicable, including starting preparatory work, to bolster resilient supply chains while recognizing the different economic and geographic characteristics of the partners.

Source : U.S> Department of Commerce

China’s Semiconductor Developers Eye Shift to RISC-V Architecture

Che Pan wrote . . . . . . . . .

China’s growing demand for semiconductors used in electric vehicles, high-end servers in data centres and artificial intelligence applications provides a vast opportunity for RISC-V processors to flourish, according to a proponent of the open-source, royalty-free chip design, even as integrated circuits (ICs) built on proprietary Arm and x86 architectures continue to dominate the global market.

That assessment was made by Peng Jianying, chief executive of Shanghai-based RISC-V intellectual property (IP) vendor Nuclei System Technology Co, before an audience of custom auto chip designers at a RISC-V semiconductor event in Beijing on Wednesday.

RISC-V is an open-standard instruction set architecture (ISA), based on established reduced instruction set computer principles, that represents the fifth generation of cooperative projects done by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Their research on this ISA design was published in 2010.

This architecture has since gained rapid popularity across the global semiconductor industry after its ISA specifications were made available to developers in 2015 under the non-profit RISC-V International, which promotes its development. Adoption in China has experienced fast growth since 2018, the same year when Nuclei – the country’s first RISC-V IP vendor – was founded, Peng said.

“Pricing is one of the biggest factors for chip designers to consider RISC-V IP,” Peng said at the Beijing event.

Peng, a former design engineer at US semiconductor developer Marvell Technology, indicated that many fabless IC design firms in China are looking to switch to RISC-V.

They are considering that move not only to help fast-track their projects, but mainly because of plans by British chip IP supplier Arm to change its decades-long pricing model to boost revenue ahead of its initial public offering in the US later this year, according to the Nuclei chief executive.

Most chip design start-ups rarely initiate projects completely from scratch, Peng said. They license ready-to-use IPs from third-party vendors such as Arm and US-based Synopsys and Cadence Design Systems. Peng pointed out that the global IP market is forecast to top US$10 billion by 2025, up from US$6.6 billion in 2022.

The increased adoption of RISC-V architecture in China reflects the urgency in the domestic semiconductor sector to reduce dependence on foreign IP suppliers and achieve self-sufficiency in chip design, where such reliance is greater than in manufacturing, as the US tightens trade restrictions covering advanced IC technologies and manufacturing equipment.

Some of China’s biggest technology companies – including Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings, Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp – are already members of RISC-V International. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

China has also set up an industrial association, the RISC-V Industry Consortium, to facilitate the architecture’s domestic adoption. This body is led by semiconductor industry veteran Wayne Dai Wei-ming, the founder and chief executive of Shanghai-listed industrial services and chip IP licensing firm VeriSilicon.

In December, a dozen Chinese semiconductor companies launched 11 new RISC-V chips – covering a wide range of applications such as for cars, computers, wireless communications, energy management and security – during a local RISC-V event.

The strong interest in RISC-V on the mainland has also given start-ups like Nuclei a role to help advance the development of home-grown IP based on that open-source architecture. Nuclei’s business model is similar to that of SiFive, a California-based provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP.

Still, Nuclei’s Peng said Intel Corp’s x86 architecture continues to dominate chip design for personal computers and servers. Arm, owned by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp, provides the default chip design for chips used on Android smartphones.

Source : SCMP

Infographic: The Cities with the Most Skyscrapers in 2023

See large image . . . . . .

Source : Visual Capitalist

Newly Launched Finnish Nuclear Plant Sees Electricity Prices Plunge by 75 percent

Thomas Brooke wrote . . . . . . . . .

The commencement of regular output from a much-delayed Finnish nuclear reactor in April saw electricity prices in the country decrease by more than 75 percent.

The Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear plant completed the transition from testing to regular output last month to become Finland’s first new nuclear plant in more than four decades. It is expected to produce up to 15 percent of the country’s power demand.

And while the plant’s production is still in its early days, its launch has had a considerable effect on Finland’s energy prices, lowering the electricity spot price in the country from €245.98 per megawatt-hour (MWh) in December to €60.55 per MWh in April, a reduction of more than 75 percent, according to physical electricity exchange, Nord Pool.

Energy prices had risen sharply in the Scandinavian country after the Finnish government banned electricity imports from neighboring Russia last year due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The utilization of nuclear power will be welcomed by Finnish consumers, particularly given the fact that Finland has the highest per-capita electricity consumption in the European Union.

“We have had more stability in the system because of OL3. It’s a huge nuclear plant, one of the biggest in the world, connected to a small system,” said Jukka Ruusunen, chief executive of Finland’s national grid operator Fingrid. “It has its own risks, which we are happy to follow up on,” he added.

Speaking to The National, Ruusunen explained that wind power is expected to be the largest source of energy production in Finland by 2027, with nuclear currently being a useful and reliable substitute.

He said that wind power is capable of attracting greater investment, with nuclear energy seemingly being blacklisted by a number of environmental investors.

“Nuclear, it seems, is not very attractive for the investors. This is what they say. But, it’s an option and I’m sure that our politicians would be in favor of these decisions,” he told the news site. There are also business concerns: “Who dares to put billions of euros into nuclear?” he asked.

Nuclear, however, continues to be an increasingly popular source of energy production in many EU nations with France, Sweden, Poland and Hungary all seeking to expand their nuclear energy output.

Last month, Poland secured $4 billion in U.S. funding to help build 20 small modular reactors across the country by 2029, while Hungary is focused on expanding its Paks nuclear power plant.

The Finnish example is a testament to how nuclear can play a part in solving the current energy crisis, with consumers still paying sky-high fees for energy in many European countries.

Germany, however, went the opposite way and controversially closed down its three remaining nuclear power plants last month. High inflation, high energy costs, and a sharp decline in industrial output have led to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicting a recession is in the cards for Europe’s powerhouse.

While German government officials say that energy prices are stabilizing, many will argue this is primarily because the federal government has spent around €26 billion in taxpayers’ cash on bailing out energy firms Sefe and Uniper, both of which incurred record losses by purchasing natural gas at hugely inflated prices to replace the banned supply from Russia.

As other European countries turn to alternative sources of energy production such as nuclear, some have ignored the benefits and chosen to plunge themselves into debt because of a notion that nuclear isn’t an acceptable energy source in the modern day.

Source : REMIX