17/03/2026

BIZ & FINANCE TUESDAY | MAR 17, 2026

17

Vietnam braces for flight cuts from next month

China’s No. 2 chipmaker readies 7nm production

Chinh asked Thailand to help address the shortage during a meeting with the Thai ambassador in Vietnam, state media reported. The foreign ministries for Vietnam, China and Thailand did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Vietnam’s aviation authority noted in its document that “in the current context it is difficult to find new suppliers”. It added that Vietnam’s two refineries are under pressure to expand production of other oil products, making it hard for them to increase jet fuel output. Even if supply stabilises, soaring fuel prices are disrupting the industry, it also warned, noting many routes would become unprofitable. Local airline Sun PhuQuoc Airways plans to “adjust flight schedules over the next one to three months due to the volatility of fuel prices”, according to a document it sent to the aviation regulator in March. The company did not respond to a request for comment. Petrolimex and Skypec also flagged that the spike in jet fuel prices has meant they are quickly reaching limits on credit lines and urged banks to offer more flexible financing until market conditions normalise, the documents showed. Front-month jet fuel paper swaps in Singapore on a cost and freight basis are trading at around US$157 a barrel, more than one-and-a-half times higher than pre-conflict levels, LSEG pricing data shows. – Reuters

o Country relies on imports for over two-thirds of its jet fuel

BEIJING: China’s Hua Hong Group has developed advanced chip manufacturing technologies that can be used to produce artificial intelligence chips, four people familiar with the matter said, a major milestone in Beijing’s efforts to boost tech self-sufficiency. The group’s contract chipmaking business, Huali Microelectronics, is readying a 7-nanometre (nm) chipmaking process atits plant in Shanghai, the people said, which would make it the second Chinese chipmaker with such advanced technologies. Hua Hong is China’s second-largest chipmaker. China’s largest contract chipmaker, SMIC, is at present the only domestic producer capable of making chips with 7nm technologies. The development comes after Washington eased some of its tech export controls since last year, allowing Nvidia to sell its second-most-powerful AI chips to China. Despite the easing, Beijing has encouraged domestic firms to purchase homegrown alternatives, as it seeks to wean itself off foreign suppliers. Reuters could not determine how Hua Hong achieved the advanced manufacturing capability, its manufacturing efficiency and which major equipment suppliers were involved in the development. Hua Hong’s development of a 7nm chipmaking process has not been previously reported. But Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies has been in collaboration with the chipmaker for the 7 nm technologies, three of the sources said. All of the sources declined to be named, because the information is not meant to be public. Hua Hong Group, Huali, its sister company Hua Hong Semiconductor and Huawei did not respond to requests for comment. SMIC uses Dutch chip equipment maker ASML’s immersion machines to make 7nm chips, but production yields – the number of good chips made per silicon wafer – have remained weak, analysts have said. ASML said it does not comment on questions related to deliveries. Huali’s research and development on 7nm chips at its Hua Hong Fab 6 began last year, with support from domestic equipment suppliers including Huawei-backed SiCarrier, which tested its equipment at a facility in Shenzhen last year, a separate source said. SiCarrier did not respond to a request for comment. The development followed an announce ment by Hua Hong Semiconductor in December that it planned to acquire a controlling stake in Huali and raise a further 7.56 billion yuan (RM4.3 billion) to fund technological upgrades and research at the foundry.

HANOI: Vietnamese authorities have warned the country’s aviation industry to prepare for potential flight reductions from April after China and Thailand halted exports of jet fuel due to the Iran war, increasing the likelihood of shortages. Vietnam imports more than two-thirds of its jet fuel needs, with 60% coming from China and Thailand, according to documents from the aviation regulator and importers seen by Reuters. “There are risks of jet fuel shortages for Vietnamese airlines from the beginning of April and the following months,” the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said in a March 9 document sent to the ministry in charge of transport. It said airlines should review their plans, especially for domestic routes, and instructed airport operators to prepare additional parking space for Vietnamese carriers “in case they have to cut down on operations due to lack of aviation fuel”. Vietnam has also seen reduced supplies from Singapore, the document showed. In separate documents viewed by Reuters, major importers Petrolimex and Skypec said they could only guarantee jet fuel supplies for March, warning April contracts may not be fulfilled by suppliers.

Skypec urged the regulator to restrict air transport to essential domestic routes if the conflict drags on. All documents were issued after China urged its refiners not to agree to new exports early this month but preceded a hard ban on refined fuel exports from March 11. Thailand banned exports of fuel oil on March 6 to all countries except Myanmar and Laos. The regulator, the ministry and the two importers did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. Vietnam’s top airlines Vietnam Airlines and VietJet declined to comment. Vietnam was the third-largest buyer of aviation kerosene from China last year after Australia and Japan, according to Chinese customs data. The Southeast Asian country has taken up the issue with both China, its main supplier, and Thailand. On Sunday, Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung asked his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi for close coordination “to ensure energy security,” in a meeting in Hanoi that had been long planned, according to the Vietnamese government’s news portal. The topic of energy security was not mentioned in the Chinese readout of the meeting. On Friday, Prime Minister Pham Minh

Huali is planning initial 7nm chip production capacity of a few thousand wafers per month by the end of the year, with a goal to ramp up more later, two of the sources said. – Reuters Taiwan tech giant Foxconn posts 24% jump in annual net profit

An airplane of VietJet Airline taxis in front of the national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines airplane at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi. – REUTERSPIC

TAIPEI: The booming market for artificial intelligence servers brought Taiwan’s Foxconn a 24% jump in annual net profit, the company said yesterday, forecasting continued strong demand for the hardware. The world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer – also known by its official name Hon Hai Precision Industry – called AI the “core driving force” of its business. Foxconn has gone beyond assembling low-margin Apple iPhones to making AI servers for Nvidia along with electric vehicles and robotics. It is a move that is paying off as tech firms

the Middle East conflict appears largely manageable”. “As the region is not a major market for either AI hardware or smartphones, the main risk is more on costs than demand, driven by higher oil prices and some logistic disruptions. “Hon Hai’s cloud business, mostly driven by AI server growth, has become the largest revenue contributor, and should continue to outgrow the iPhone business over the next few years.” Analysts at J.P. Morgan gave a positive outlook for Foxconn in a note this month, saying AI server growth would “remain the main driver for Hon Hai in 2026”. – AFP

quarter-on-quarter growth” expected for AI rack shipments in the first quarter of 2026. Cloud and networking services accounted for 40% of Foxconn’s business portfolio in 2025, up from 30% in 2024. Meanwhile, smart consumer electronics declined from 46% to 38%. Volatility in energy markets caused by the war in the Middle East has raised questions about the impact on the strategic chipmaking industry, and other tech manufacturing. Ahead of yesterday’s earnings release, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Steven Tseng told AFP that for Foxconn,“so far the impact from

worldwide race to spend big on training and deploying rapidly evolving AI systems. In 2025, net profit came to NT$189.4 billion (RM23.2 billion), up from NT$152.7 billion in 2024, Foxconn said. Revenue jumped 18% on-year to NT$8.1 trillion, just beating the estimates of a Bloomberg survey of economists. Sky-high tech share results and valuations have fed concerns of an AI market bubble that could eventually burst, like the dot-com boom that imploded at the turn of the millennium. But Foxconn yesterday forecast a “strong AI server demand outlook” with “high double-digit