Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party won 316 of 465 seats in Sunday’s general election, securing a two-thirds supermajority in the lower house of parliament for the first time since the party’s founding in 1955. Combined with the 36 seats won by coalition partner Nippon Ishin no Kai, the ruling bloc controls 352 seats,…
Japan’s 12-day general election campaign officially began on Tuesday, following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s dissolution of the lower house on January 23. The February 8 vote will be the culmination of the shortest period between parliamentary dissolution and election day in Japan’s postwar history, a compressed timeline that has given opposition parties limited runway to…
Samsung Electronics is preparing to commence mass production of its sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory chips at its Pyeongtaek campus, with initial shipments to Nvidia and AMD expected as early as the third week of February. The milestone, reported by multiple Korean industry sources and corroborated by TrendForce, would make Samsung the first company globally to deliver…
Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority unveiled the Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 22, establishing what the government described as the first comprehensive governance guide for autonomous AI systems published by any national authority. The framework, announced by Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine…
SK Hynix announced on Wednesday that it will establish a new U.S.-based artificial intelligence solutions company, committing at least $10 billion in capital as the South Korean memory giant moves to extend its reach beyond chip manufacturing into the broader AI value chain. The new entity, tentatively named “AI Company” or “AI Co.,” will be…
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company reported fourth-quarter net income of NT$505.7 billion ($16 billion), a 35% increase year-over-year that exceeded analyst expectations and established a new quarterly profit record for Asia’s most valuable listed company. Revenue for the quarter reached NT$1.05 trillion ($33.7 billion), up 20.5% from the prior year, driven by sustained demand for the…
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced on Monday her intention to dissolve the lower house of parliament on January 23, setting in motion a snap general election scheduled for February 8. The decision, made public at a press conference in Tokyo, places Takaichi’s political future and the governing Liberal Democratic Party’s fiscal agenda squarely before…
China closed 2025 with a trade surplus of nearly $1.2 trillion, a record for any country and a 20% increase over the prior year, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Wednesday. The figures landed with force across Asian markets and in Washington, where policymakers have spent the better part of…
SK Hynix announced on Tuesday that it will invest 19 trillion won ($12.9 billion) to build a new advanced chip packaging facility in Cheongju, South Korea. Construction is set to begin in April, with completion targeted for the end of 2027 and full operations expected by 2028. The investment, one of the largest single commitments…
The VAT Law was adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in December 2024 after extended public consultation. While the government has emphasized that the new framework is designed to maintain the existing tax burden rather than increase it, the implementation regulations introduce several adjustments that multinational finance teams are reviewing carefully….
