Beijing buys fewer chip-making machines

Latest sanctions: Pedestrians walk along the streets of Shanghai. The US is stepping up its bid to curtail Beijing’s chip ambitions with new restrictions that saw Chinese firms import US$2.4bil of semiconductor manufacturing machinery last month. — Bloomberg

BEIJING: China’s purchases of machines to make computer chips fell 27% last month from a year earlier as the United States imposes new, sweeping sanctions to try and derail the country’s chip ambitions.

Chinese firms imported US$2.4bil (RM11bil) worth of machinery used in semiconductor manufacturing last month, the lowest amount in more than two years after Washington broadened restrictions on the sale of the gear to the world’s No. 2 economy.