MAYASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK8JPY HITS ITS LOWEST LEVELS IN 34 YEARSSK HYNIX TO ALLOT KRW 5.3T TO SETUP A NEW DRAM MANUFACTURING UNITOn Wednesday, the yen dipped to its lowest levels against the dollar since 1990, prompting market speculation about potential intervention by Japanese authorities to support their currency. The dollar surged to 155.17 yen, marking its strongest performance since 1990, before retracting amid volatile trading, reflecting market jitters around the 155 threshold. It last stood at 154.97, up 0.09 percent.This yen depreciation follows robust U.S. inflation figures that propelled the dollar to five-month highs, reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve will refrain from cutting interest rates this year. The yen's decline against the dollar has reignited speculation about currency intervention. Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki and other policymakers have emphasized their vigilance over currency movements and readiness to take action as necessary.The dominance of the strong dollar was evident at the recent International Monetary Fund/World Bank Spring meetings in Washington, where the United States, Japan, and South Korea jointly addressed the issue in a rare statement. Following the Group of 20 (G20) finance leaders' gathering in Washington, Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda suggested that the central bank might consider raising interest rates if significant yen depreciation substantially drives up inflation. This underscores the challenge the weakening currency poses for policymakers. On Wednesday, South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix announced its plans to invest 5.3 trillion won ($3.86 billion) in constructing a chip factory for a new dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip production base in South Korea. The company, known as a supplier to Nvidia, intends to commence construction at the end of April on the chip factory, named M15X, aiming for completion by November 2025 to begin mass production.SK Hynix disclosed in a statement that, including a planned gradual increase in equipment investments, the total investment in the new production base is anticipated to exceed 20 trillion won in the long term.SK Hynix is a significant South Korean supplier of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips and flash memory chips. It ranks as the world's second-largest memory chipmaker and the sixth-largest semiconductor company globally. Among its major customers are prominent tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple, Asus, Dell, MSI, HP, and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (formerly Hewlett-Packard). Furthermore, Hynix memory is utilized in a diverse range of products, including DVD players, cellular phones, set-top boxes, personal digital assistants, networking equipment, and hard disk drives. NEWSROOM
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