By Reuters-China’s first-quarter economic growth beats expectations, sources say Nvidia kept some China customers in the dark about a US chip clampdown, and the UK’s top court rules that the definition of woman refers to biological sex under equality legislation.Plus, India offers cheap loans for arms, targeting Russia’s traditional customers. This chart depicts China’s GDP (year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter) in each quarter.
China’s first-quarter economic growth outstripped expectations, underpinned by solid consumption and industrial output, but analysts fear momentum could shift sharply lower as US tariffs pose the biggest risk to the Asian powerhouse in decades. Chinese sellers have taken to the social media platform Redone to generate sympathy purchases, telling domestic consumers they are offloading stock at bargain prices amid the tariff turmoil. Nvidia said it would take $5.5 billion in charges after the US limited exports of its H20 chip to China.
The company did not warn at least some major customers in advance about new US export rules it was told about a week ago, requiring it to obtain licenses to sell its China-focused AI chip, sources said.
US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs could cost US semiconductor equipment makers more than $1 billion a year, according to industry calculations discussed with officials and lawmakers in Washington last week, two sources said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid to transform India into a global factory floor has produced billions of dollars of low-cost iPhones and pharmaceuticals. Now he hopes to add missiles, helicopters and battleships to the shopping carts of foreign governments. British inflation slowed to its weakest in three months in March and other measures watched by the Bank of England cooled too, but higher bills and employer costs will pressure prices soon against the backdrop of Trump’s trade war.