• CNOOC Ltd (883)

CNOOC raises its production target and CAPEX budget for 2023. Net production target is 650m to 660m barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), of which, production from China and overseas accounts for approximately 70% and 30%, respectively. Net production is expected to reach 690m-700m BOE in 2024 and 730m-740m BOE in 2025. The company's total CAPEX for 2023 is budgeted at CN¥100bn-CN¥110bn (RM64bn-RM70bn), of which, CAPEX for exploration, development, production and others will account for approximately 18%, 59%, 21% and 2% of the total CAPEX, respectively.

In 2023, 9 new projects are expected to come on stream during the year, including projects in China such as Bozhong 19-6 Condensate Gas Field Phase I Development Project, Lufeng 12-3 Oilfield Development Project and Enping 18-6 Oilfield Development Project and overseas projects such as Payara Project in Guyana, Buzios5 Project and Mero2 Project in Brazil.

• Baidu Inc-A (9888)

China's Baidu Inc said it would complete internal testing of a ChatGPT-style project called "Ernie Bot" in March, joining a global race as interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) gathers steam. Ernie, meaning "Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration," is a large AI-powered language model introduced in 2019, Baidu said. It has gradually grown to be able to perform tasks including language understanding, language generation, and textto-image generation, it added.

• Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd (175)

Geely said it has raised US$750m in new funding round for sustainable future development. The second external funding comes from five investors. The company has entered into an investment deal with partners including Amnon Shashua, Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd, Yuexiu Industrial Fund, Tongshang Fund, and Xin'an Intelligent Manufacturing Fund.

The proceeds from the investment will support the continued technology research and global expansion of the Zeekr brand. Zeekr will use the funds to explore and grow a global sales network. Zeekr, which develops proprietary technologies built around safety, sustainability, user-experience, and new mobility services, is now valued at US$13bn after the completion of its Series-A funding round.

• Meituan Class B (3690)

Wang Huiwen, co-founder and former senior vice president of Meituan, wrote on Monday that he wants to build a Chinese version of OpenAI, the company behind chatbot tool ChatGPT. Wang will invest US$50m for a 25% stake in the company, offering the remaining 75% shareholding to research and development talent he plans to hire.

Wang’s Beijing-based Guangnian Zhiwai Tech Co. Ltd. was originally founded in 2018 with registered capital of CN¥1m and is currently 100% owned by the former Meituan exec, according to the corporate registry database Qichacha. In Wang’s personal post, he claimed that a “top VC” had already subscribed, pledging US$230m to the company. Wang has changed his social media signature from “learning crypto” to “learning artificial intelligence”, as last year’s Web3 craze gives way to this year’s AI frenzy. Wang’s announcement comes after a flurry of Chinese tech majors declared plans to launch their own equivalents of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

• Tencent Holdings Ltd (700)

Tencent Holdings is planning to launch a Valorant e-sports league when the hit shooter title debuts in China this year, one of the strongest signs yet that the country’s Internet giants are getting back to business after a two-year industry crackdown. Tencent unit TJ Sports has held discussions with top Chinese e-sports players in the past few days about setting up the competition, people familiar with the matter said.

A Tencent representative said in a message the company was making preparations related to Valorant and had not confirmed a launch date for the game.

Source: Rakuten Research - 15 Feb 2023

To sign up for an account: http://bit.ly/40BNqKI
[Youtube Tutorial] Account Opening & Enable Foreign Equity: http://bit.ly/3I5Jzxo