USD/CHF rose to a 13-month high of 0.8199.

The Hong Kong SAR government and China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) signed a cooperation agreement on 28 July at the SAR government headquarters to jointly establish a national manufacturing innovation center in Hong Kong. Hong Kong’s fiscal budget proposal has proposed reserving funds to build the first overseas national manufacturing innovation center, aimed at driving key technology breakthroughs, accelerating commercialization of results and attracting international talent. The government has backed the Hong Kong Microelectronics R&D Institute to lead operation of the center, aligning the project with national technology and industrial priorities and leveraging Hong Kong’s existing semiconductor ecosystem.

TSMC (TSM.N) says the building structure at its Kumamoto fab is intact.