News & Reviews:   trade

Shares of Qualcomm fell sharply this week after the company issued weaker financial guidance for the current quarter, warning that a global memory chip shortage is weighing on the smartphone market and constraining demand for its mobile chips. The outlook disappointed Wall Street following Qualcomm’s fiscal first-quarter earnings release, triggering a sell-off in after-hours trading as investors absorbed the supply chain challenges.

In a significant trade policy shift, the U.S. government has halved additional tariffs on Chinese imports that heavily impact Apple and its supply chain. The extra duty, previously set at 20%, has been reduced to 10%, following high-level discussions between U.S. and Chinese officials.

It has been a few years since the US government banned Huawei from using any Google Mobile services. Besides Huawei, other Chinese telecommunications companies such as ZTE also got listed in the trade restrictions. Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will again launch another investigation on the companies if they have been violating the ban.

Earlier, Xiaomi had been blacklisted by the United States as former President Donald Trump designated the company as a “Communist Chinese military company". As a result, US citizens and companies were barred from investing or dealing with Xiaomi. Until now, it is reported that the Chinese tech company is finally removed from the blacklist following a lawsuit to US courts.

Recently, the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs has recently announced that the ceiling price of 3-ply face masks has been reduced from RM2.00 to RM1.50. The change will take effect starting from 1 April 2020 and all outlets that are distributing face masks are required to adjust their prices according to the new price ceiling.

About 223000 three-ply face masks had recently been seized by the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry from a Facebook Seller in Kota Damansara. This is due to the fact that they were selling each mask at RM3.50 a unit, instead of the ceiling price of RM2.00, which was set on 20 March 2020.

In an attempt to reduce reliance on Samsung, Apple had been working closely with Chinese display manufacturer BOE Technology Group to have their displays certified for future Apple devices. Not only that, but they have also noted that Apple had also been rigorously testing the manufacturer’s flexible OLED panels as well based on a statement by nikkei.com.

During the G20 Summit, which was held in Osaka, Japan. The United States President Trump, as well as Chinese President Xi Jinping, had agreed to resume trade talks between China and the United Sates of America. After a rather lengthy 80-minute discussion between the two leaders, the US President confirmed that the US would not impose the USD300 billion(~MYR1.2 trillion) tariffs on China for now.