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The US semiconductor industry urged President Donald Trump to make good on his promise to ease the ban on sales to China’s Huawei Technologies Co.

“We encourage prompt action to issue approvals for sales that do not implicate national security concerns, particularly where there is foreign availability for competing products,” the Semiconductor Industry Association said in a letter dated Sept. 11 to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, which was seen by Bloomberg News. Intel Corp., Qualcomm Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. and are among members of the association.

Delays in awarding the special licenses could weaken the US semiconductor industry because it will lead to lower profits, forcing some companies to cut research and eroding their dominance in the global market, the association said.

Read more:
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3027316/us-semiconductor-companies-urge-trump-hurry-huawei-licenses

Exports grew for the fourth straight month, narrowing the trade deficit as imports continued to move in the negative territory, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority show.

The PSA said exports increased 3.5 percent in July to $6.17 billion, on the back of higher shipments of gold, fresh bananas, machinery and transport equipment and electronics.

Merchandise imports declined 4.2 percent in July to $9.57 billion. This reduced the trade deficit in July to $3.39 billion from $4.02 billion deficit a year ago.

Pernia said the effects caused by the long-standing trade tensions between the United States and China were beginning to show as global manufacturing sentiment continued to falter with manufacturing purchasing manager indexes for powerhouses like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan sustaining declines in July.

Read more:
http://manilastandard.net/business/economy-trade/304616/exports-posted-fourth-straight-month-of-growth.html

In its recent Asia Pacific Sovereign Credit Overview for the third quarter of the year, Fitch Ratings said the slowing growth momentum, along with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’s (BSP) 175 basis points cumulative rate cut in 2018 have lowered overheating risks. Fitch noted that among the indicators of dissipating overheating risks is inflation, which continued to slow down for the first eight months of 2019 to an average of around 3.1 percent compared with the 4.7 percent during the same period last year. The slower growth for the Philippines will also not be the new normal for the country, as the credit watcher said the economy will recover, albeit modestly in the second half of the year.

Read more:
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/09/11/no-more-overheating-risks-for-phl-fitch/