28/04/2026

BIZ & FINANCE TUESDAY | APR 28, 2026

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China vows countermeasures if EU enacts ‘Made in Europe’ plan BEIJING: Beijing slammed yesterday an EU plan aimed to bolster the bloc’s industries against fierce competition from China, vowing countermeasures if it is enacted. The EU unveiled in March new “Made in Europe” rules for companies trying to access public funds in strategic sectors including cars, green tech and steel, obliging firms to meet minimum thresholds for EU-made parts. The proposal, held up for months by wrangling over the measures, is a key part of a European Union drive to regain its competitive edge, reduce its industrial decline and stave off hundreds of thousands of job losses. Beijing’s Commerce Ministry said yesterday that it had submitted comments to the European Commission on Friday, expressing China’s “serious concerns” regarding the act it called “systemic discrimination”. “If the EU ... presses ahead with the legislation, and thereby harms the interests of Chinese companies, China will have no choice but to take countermeasures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of its enterprises,“ it warned in a statement. European businesses in many of the sectors concerned by the proposal have long lamented they face unfair competition from heavily subsidised Chinese rivals. The EU proposal, formally known as the “Industrial Accelerator Act”, implicitly targets Chinese makers of batteries and electric vehicles by requiring foreign firms to partner with European firms and pass on technological know-how when setting up shop in the bloc. – AFP COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s government issued a call on Sunday for investments in a currently loss-making airport, after a 30-year lease agreement with an Indo-Russian joint venture had failed to take off. Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, built with Chinese loans near a wildlife sanctuary on the island’s southern coast, has no regular flights. The small airport has failed to generate enough revenue to cover even electricity bills since opening in 2013, and has been a running sore on state coffers. Calling for expressions of interest from investors, the government said the facility offers “untapped potential for growth opportunities ... for exotic tourism development and strategic investment”. Two years ago, the Sri Lankan government announced it had awarded a 30-year lease to a joint venture between India’s Shaurya Aeronautics and Russia’s Airports of Regions Management Company, but the plan never materialised. The airport is named after former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who borrowed heavily from China for infrastructure projects that quickly became commercial failures. The Mattala airport is located on a migratory bird route, with several aircraft forced to ground after striking airborne fowl. At one point, Sri Lanka’s military deployed hundreds of troops to remove deer, wild buffalo and elephants from the runway so operations could continue. The airport is regarded as an alternate destination in case of bad weather at the country’s main international gateway in the capital Colombo, a half-hour flight away. Several cargo carriers and some charter aircraft operate via Mattala, but the revenue is insufficient for the facility’s upkeep, according to official reports. – AFP Sri Lanka seeks buyers for white elephant airport

Japan’s Nikkei closes above 60,000 for first time TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei closed above the key 60,000 mark for the first time yesterday as optimism over corporate earnings overshadowed concerns about the Middle East conflict. Keyence and industrial robot maker Fanuc surged by their daily trading limit, nearly 16%, to lead gains in the Nikkei after both firms reported better-than-expected profit after the bell on Friday. A man walks past a screen, displaying the Nikkei share average and a graph showing its recent movements, outside a brokerage in Tokyo. – REUTERSPIC

The Nikkei fell into negative territory shortly after the open, but then rallied sharply following an Axios report that Iran has given the United States a new proposal to end their war. Discussions to settle the two-month-long conflict were stalled over the weekend. There were 94 advancers in the Nikkei index against 130 decliners. SMC was among the top gainers, rising 7.1%, after Reuters reported that activist fund Palliser Capital had made a “significant” investment in the factory automation company. Rohm was among the steepest decliners, down 9.19%, after auto parts maker Denso Corp said it was considering withdrawing its takeover offer for the firm. – Reuters

“Stocks related to earnings announcements, as well as AI and semiconductor-related shares, led the market higher at the open,“ said Maki Sawada, an equities strategist at Nomura Securities. “This week will see a steady stream of earnings reports from major companies in both Japan and the US, so market attention will naturally gravitate toward those results.” “Since 60,000 is a psychological milestone, many investors are likely keeping an eye on that level, so profit-taking could manifest around that range,“ she added.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index rose 1.38% to finish the session at an unprecedented 60,537.36. The broader Topix climbed 0.5% to 3,735.28. The Nikkei has gained 18.6% so far this year. Major indexes on Wall Street closed at record highs on Friday after Intel beat its earnings estimate, helped by surging demand in the artificial intelligence sector. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index extended its record run of gains to 18 consecutive sessions. Shares of factory automation provider

DeepSeek’s new AI model fails to wow markets

startup delivering unexpectedly strong results. Those conditions are no longer present. “The expectation that new players will emerge is now baked into valuations,” Su said, adding that markets have become more realistic about both the capabilities and limits of AI. At the same time, competition within China has intensified, with multiple firms releasing increasingly capable models, eroding DeepSeek’s relative lead. On Monday, stock markets in South Korea and Taiwan hit new highs, buoyed by broad optimism for AI-related stocks. Alfredo Montufar-Helu, managing director at Ankura China Advisors, said the significance of V4 lies less in market impact and more in the US-China race for tech supremacy. He pointed to DeepSeek’s adaptation of V4 to run best on Huawei chips, as tightening U.S. export controls are designed to cut off the Chinese market’s access to cutting-edge U.S. chips that power AI model development. “The ‘wow factor’ was last year – that’s already priced in. What matters now is whether China can continue advancing on AI development, and potentially do so with its own chips – the geopolitical implications would be significant.” – Reuters

highlights how quickly those assumptions have shifted. Markets and industries have grown accustomed to low-cost, highly efficient models developed under computing constraints, reducing the element of surprise. “This announcement followed a rather predictable path,” said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at Omdia, noting that advances in model architectures and efficiency have since been widely explored across industry and academia. Benchmark data support that view. According to Artificial Analysis, DeepSeek-V4 Pro shows significant improvement over previous versions but overall ranks among leading open-weight models rather than clearly surpassing rivals, with competitors such as Kimi and Qwen narrowing the gap. That contrasts with last year, when DeepSeek appeared to leap ahead of domestic peers, driving rapid adoption in China and amplifying its global impact. Analysts say the earlier shock was driven by a convergence of factors: lofty valuations of US tech firms, expectations of continued dominance by a handful of players, and the emergence of a relatively unknown Chinese

o Reaction muted as rapid AI advances, new entrants expected

BEIJING: Market reaction to DeepSeek’s preview of its long-awaited next-generation artificial intelligence model has so far been subdued compared with the Chinese startup’s outsized global breakthrough last year after the launch of its low-cost AI models. The release and overseas reception of DeepSeek-V3 and R1, which the Hangzhou-based company said were trained with a fraction of the computing power used by American rivals, triggered a global tech share selloff as investors questioned the logic behind massive spending on AI infrastructure. That moment was widely viewed by analysts as a “black swan” event that forced a sudden repricing of assumptions about cost, competition, and China’s ability to innovate under US chip restrictions. But the muted reaction so far to DeepSeek-V4, launched on Friday,