Category: 3. Business

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Appendix I: President Trump’s Executive Orders on Critical Minerals

Appendix II: The Mineral Technology Valleys of Death

05/02/2026

Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
President: Norio Nakajima

 

Fukui Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture), a manufacturing subsidiary of Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd., began constructing the Ceramic Capacitor R&D Center, a new research and development base, in November 2023. The construction is now completed, and a completion ceremony was held on Thursday, February 5, 2026. The center is scheduled to open on Monday, March 30, 2026.

The establishment of the Ceramic Capacitor R&D Center is aimed at improving Murata’s technological capabilities in the development and manufacturing of ceramic capacitors, its core business. By creating a cutting-edge environment dedicated to research and development, Murata aims to facilitate higher-level R&D activities and nurture engineers. The center will also collaborate with other Murata sites and partner companies to strengthen Murata’s manufacturing capabilities across the entire manufacturing process from product development to mass production.
Going forward, Murata will continue to pursue the enhancement of its technological capabilities in order to provide innovative products and technologies to society and contribute to further growth in the electronics market.

Overview of completion ceremony

Date/Time:	10:00 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. on Thursday, February 5, 2026
Location:	Ceramic Capacitor R&D Center Fukui Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
Guests:	Mio Washizu, lieutenant Governor of Fukui Prefecture Yoichi Koizumi, Acting Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Echizen City  (And others)
Attendees from Murata:	Nagato Omori, Executive Vice President, Ceramic Capacitor Business Unit, Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Naoya Hatao, President and Representative Director, Fukui Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (And others)

Overview of facility

Address:	Oyacho, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture  *To be appended at a later date due to registration of land-parcel consolidation currently in progress
Structure/size:	Steel-framed construction, five stories above ground
Site area:	54,450 square meters
Floor area:	41,709 square meters
Purpose:	Research and development of ceramic capacitors
Total investment:	Approx. 35 billion yen (land and building costs)

Fukui Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Address:	13-1 Okamotocho, Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture
Founded:	February 1951
Capital:	300 million yen
Representative:	Naoya Hatao, President and Representative Director
Number of employees:	5,991 (as of January 31, 2026)
Business:	Development and manufacture of capacitors, noise-suppressing components, etc.

 

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Murata in Brief

Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sale of ceramic-based passive electronic components & solutions, communication modules and power supply modules. Murata is committed to the development of advanced electronic materials and leading edge, multi-functional, high-density modules. The company has employees and manufacturing facilities throughout the world.

For more information, visit Murata’s website

As the world decarbonizes, what happens to the coal plants left behind? Some countries are reimagining them to serve a new role in a low-carbon future.

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For more than a century, coal powered industrial growth. Entire towns and regional economies were built around coal mines and power stations. Today, as the world shifts to clean energy and decarbonizes, many of these coal-dependent regions face economic decline. The challenge is no longer only how to close coal plants safely, but what comes next for workers, infrastructure, and local communities.

The pressure to transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels is already underway in many parts of the world. In the United States, coal capacity is down by around 60% since 2010, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). In the European Union, countries including Germany, Spain and the Netherlands have set legally binding coal phase-out deadlines before 2030. The Global South is also facing mounting pressure to cancel new coal financing.

Without planned transition strategies, retired coal sites risk becoming abandoned industrial zones, driving job losses, population outmigration, and shrinking municipal tax bases. However, emerging techno-economic pathways show that former coal regions can be repurposed into clean energy industrial hubs, turning stranded fossil fuel assets into engines of the green economy.

The solution? There are various ways that have been employed throughout the world, some of which are discussed below.

Hidden Value of Existing Coal Infrastructure 

Coal plants exist on strategically valuable industrial land. They already have grid interconnections, transmission capacity and industrial zoning permits that make it easier for these sites to host utility-scale solar farms, wind farms, and grid-scale battery storage. 

Building new renewable energy projects typically requires lengthy approval processes and costly grid upgrades. Repurposing former coal sites avoids these barriers. This approach accelerates renewable roll-out while preserving grid reliability and local employment opportunities.In the Eastern US, for example, retired coal plant sites in Appalachia are being redeveloped into solar and battery projects, supported by the Biden administration’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act.

Coal mining leaves behind land that offers larger flat areas. Once reclaimed, this land can be suitable for solar panel assembly plants or wind turbine blade manufacturing or green hydrogen electrolysis facilities. 

Germany is a great example of this. The Ruhr region transitioned from coal mining to advanced manufacturing and clean tech research parks over two decades through coordinated industrial policy and public investment – proof that long-term planning can convert declining fossil-fuel regions into innovation centres rather than economic dead zones.

Another pathway is underground mines serving as long-term energy storage facilities. To ensure reliable power supply, grids require storage technologies capable of delivering electricity for several hours or days. Decommissioned mines offer natural cavities that can store pumped hydro energy, where water is pumped uphill using excess electricity and released to generate power when needed – or compressed-air energy storage, where air is pressurised underground and later released through turbines. Pilot projects in Spain and the UK are testing mine-based gravity and compressed-air storage.

Transition for Coal Workers

Coal workers already possess transferable skills like electrical maintenance skills, heavy machinery operation experience, and safety training. Short retraining programs can shift them into solar installation, wind turbine maintenance, and grid operations. Retraining initiatives, wage insurance programs, and regional investment funds are increasingly being adopted to support a “just transition” – a policy framework ensuring that workers and communities benefit from the shift to clean energy rather than bearing its costs alone.

Final Thoughts 

With strategic reinvestment moving forward, regions can gain new industries with higher long-term job stability and local ownership of energy assets. Community investment schemes and clean-tech innovation clusters further increase regional resilience.

The transformation is not automatic. It requires coordinated policy, public-private financing, workforce planning, and long-term political commitment. However, the examples emerging across Europe and North America demonstrate that coal’s decline does not have to mean regional decline.

As the world decarbonizes, the future of former coal regions will depend on whether governments and industry treat plant closures as endings or as opportunities to build the next generation of clean energy industrial hubs.

Photo: Tom Grundy/hongkongfp.com.

Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:

• Chinese trading firm wins big from silver route

• Can Takaichi govern Japan on star power alone?

• Indian leaders duck Trump’s Russian oil claim

• Where to stay in Hong Kong

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We have an exclusive story today on Chinese trading firm Zhongcai Futures, which has emerged as a big winner from the recent rout in silver.

Rare silver bear: Zhongcai has booked profits of more than Rmb3.6bn ($519mn) since Friday morning after building up short positions in silver in late January, according to FT calculations based on disclosures to the Shanghai Futures Exchange. Founded three decades ago by Bian Ximing as a manufacturer of PVC pipes before branching into futures trading, Zhongcai stands out as a rare silver bear in mainland China, even as a blistering rally in the metal gathered pace through January.

Why it matters: Zhongcai’s profits highlight the recent wild volatility in precious metals trading, particularly in China, where regulators have been working to tamp down on speculative activity. It also underscores how the centre of gravity for gold and silver trading is gradually shifting towards Asia, where a frenzy of retail investment in bullion was central to driving January’s historic price surge.

Read more about Zhongcai’s aggressive bets.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: January inflation data is due from Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines. Indonesia reports fourth-quarter GDP and Singapore publishes December retail sales.

• Results: Sony, Tata Motors, Nippon Steel, Amazon and Shell report earnings.

• Ask an Expert Q&A: Are US markets and the economy as strong as Trump claims? Take part in a live Q&A today with US managing editor Brooke Masters and financial commentator Robert Armstrong.

Five more top stories

1. Donald Trump said he had spoken to Xi Jinping about the Ukraine war, Taiwan and other issues, in a call that came two months before the Chinese leader is expected to welcome the US president on a state visit in Beijing. The call took place after Xi spoke to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, according to Chinese state media.

• More US-China news: Nvidia’s sales of H200 AI chips to China are still awaiting final approval from Washington as the US government conducts a national security review.

• Panama ports deal: CK Hutchison has taken Panama to arbitration after the Central American country’s top court ruled to kick out the Hong Kong-based conglomerate from ports on its canal.

2. The US has launched an effort to form a trade zone for critical minerals with allies including Japan and the EU. The initiative marks a rare instance of global trade co-operation from the Trump administration, as it works to reduce western reliance on China for a wide range of critical minerals. Here are more details.

• Related: Beijing’s dominance of rare earths has sparked a rush among buyers to source the metals elsewhere, with more than 30 projects set for production this decade.

3. Companies linked to Indonesia’s richest man have announced share buybacks after a market rout triggered by a downgrade warning from index provider MSCI helped wipe out more than a quarter of his net worth. Billionaire Prajogo Pangestu has lost $11.7bn of his wealth since the start of the year amid Indonesia’s worst stock sell-off since the Asian financial crisis of 1998, according to Bloomberg data.

4. Google said it plans to spend at least $55bn more on capital expenditure this year than Wall Street had forecast, as it doubles down on its huge spending on AI. The search giant increased its forecast for capex in 2026 to a range of $175bn to $185bn, far exceeding analysts’ expectations for about $120bn.

• Markets: US tech stocks were hit by a fresh wave of selling yesterday, adding fuel to a sell-off sparked by concerns about the impact of AI on software businesses.

• Anthropic’s new AI tools: The start-up’s advances have rattled markets this week, amid fears of disruption across sectors from publishing and advertising to law.

5. A top Senate Republican has said Fed chair Jay Powell has not “committed a crime”, in a strong rebuke of the Trump administration’s probe into the central bank chief from a senior member of the president’s own party. Read the remarks from Tim Scott, chair of the powerful Senate banking committee.

The Big Read

Sanae Takaichi, the arch-conservative and populist, is on course for a possible landslide in the shortest election campaign in postwar Japanese history. But if the prime minister wins this week’s vote, she will face harsh realities.

We’re also reading . . . 

Chart of the day

When Trump announced a long-awaited US-India trade deal on Monday, the president claimed a commitment by New Delhi to stop buying Russian oil had made the agreement possible. But the reluctance of Indian leaders to confirm such a pledge is fuelling deep scepticism among analysts that any substantial cut is imminent.

Take a break from the news . . . 

Looking for a place to stay in Hong Kong? FT Globetrotter has you covered, from the city’s grandes dames to new design classics.

Atherosclerosis begins early and progresses silently. Patients requiring secondary prevention have already accumulated decades of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) exposure resulting in some potentially irreversible arterial aging and injury. LDL-C should be conceived of as a marker of cumulative risk rather than a single assessment at a point in time. As Shapiro and Bhatt described, cumulative exposure to LDL-C functions much like pack-years for smoking, predicting not only the likelihood but also the timing and severity of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD).¹ For true primary prevention of ASCVD, when it comes to LDL-C levels, lower is better for longer.

Decades of genetic, epidemiologic, and clinical evidence summarized in recent meta-analyses and guidelines demonstrate a linear, causal, and cumulative relationship between lifelong elevated LDL-C levels and ASCVD risk.^1,2 Recent data reveal that timing of elevated LDL-C exposure matters as much as the degree of elevation. Domanski et al. demonstrated that both total cumulative LDL-C exposure and the time-weighted mean LDL-C levels were independently predictive of future cardiovascular (CV) events.³ Specifically, exposure prior to 50 years of age may increase risk of CV events more than exposure later in life—a concept consistent with the life-course framework, which emphasizes the ways timing of exposure shapes long-term disease trajectories.⁴ Specifically, lowering LDL-C levels in young adults has a more potent effect in reducing ASCVD incidence than does starting later.

These findings complement recent findings from Wilkins et al. that a single LDL-C or non–high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) measurement obtained between 18 and 30 years of age predicts an individual’s cumulative exposure through 40 years of age with excellent precision.⁵ Participants in the top quartile of early-life non–HDL-C levels >135 mg/dL had a 4.5-fold greater risk of ASCVD after 40 years of age than did those in the lowest quartile. Thus, a single lipid panel in young adulthood can predict decades of risk. For many adults who are open to preventive statin therapy, the questions should be how early and how intensively to start. The 2025 Focused Update of the 2019 European Society of Cardiology/European Atherosclerosis Society (ESC/EAS) Guidelines for the Management of Dyslipidaemias reinforces a proactive approach that calls for consideration of earlier, more aggressive LDL-C lowering in primary prevention rather than waiting for the disease to manifest.²

If cumulative exposure to atherogenic lipoproteins drives ASCVD, it would make sense that earlier LDL-C reduction would yield greater benefit than waiting until moderate atherosclerosis is present. Every 1 mmol/L LDL-C reduction yields approximately 20-25% relative major adverse CV events reduction over 5 years, with absolute risk reduction dependent on baseline risk.² Long-term follow-up of the WOSCOPS (The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study) participants demonstrated a persistent legacy benefit of early statin therapy and lower coronary and CV mortality up to 20 years later despite similar LDL-C levels in follow-up.^6,7 A similar legacy effect was observed in the FOURIER-OLE (FOURIER Open-Label Extension) study, an open label extension of the FOURIER (Further Cardiovascular Outcomes Research With PCSK9 Inhibition in Subjects With Elevated Risk) trial. These findings highlight that earlier LDL-C control forestalls atheroma formation and reduce risk of recurrent events, and, thereby, highlight how preventive pharmacotherapy supports healthy vascular aging.

Traditionally, lipid management followed a sequential, stepwise approach. Most patients would start a statin, LDL-C levels would be rechecked months later, and, if targets were unmet despite concomitant efforts at lifestyle improvement, ezetimibe or, more rarely, a proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 inhibitor was considered. In contrast, both the 2025 ESC/EAS focused update on dyslipidemia and the 2022 American College of Cardiology (ACC) Expert Consensus Decision Pathway on the Role of Nonstatin Therapies for LDL-C Lowering in the Management of ASCVD Risk now recommend consideration of more rapid, intensive lipid-lowering strategies from the start, especially for patients with CV risk–enhancing factors such as elevated lipoprotein(a) levels, elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels, and health-related social needs.^2,8 Implementation of such guidelines may help overcome the low use of combination lipid-lowering therapy in both Europe and the United States (US).

Under the European model, treatment initiation should be considered when LDL-C levels exceed 100 mg/dL in individuals at moderate risk and 70 mg/dL in those at high risk, with targets of <70 mg/dL for those at moderate risk and <55 mg/dL for those at high risk.² The 2025 ESC/EAS focused update on dyslipidemia elevates bempedoic acid to a class I recommendation on the basis of the CLEAR Outcomes (Cholesterol Lowering via Bempedoic Acid, an ACL-Inhibiting Regimen) trial results and recognizes inclisiran as an alternative.²

Similarly, the 2022 ACC expert consensus decision pathway on LDL-C lowering recommends reassessment within 6 weeks and immediate addition of nonstatin lipid-lowering therapy if LDL-C targets are unmet (<70 mg/dL for individuals at high risk, <55 mg/dL for those at very high risk).⁸ This guidance encourages clinicians to anticipate the need for combination therapy from initiation in patients at high risk.

Beyond clinical benefit, earlier LDL-C lowering is economically optimal. Cost-effectiveness analyses support earlier initiation of lipid-lowering therapy: Statins are cost-effective in adults <40 years of age with LDL-C levels ≥130-160 mg/dL, and starting 10 years earlier likely prevents more events than intensifying therapy later.⁹ In an accompanying editorial, Heidenreich et al. urged the US societies to relax the 40-years-old age threshold and to adopt lifetime risk-guided pharmacologic LDL-C lowering to align with the European prevention principles.¹⁰ Early testing enables earlier treatment rather than delayed reaction. Even modest LDL-C reduction begun early yields exponential economic benefit, which may be thought of as a legacy effect.

Atherogenesis is a cumulative vascular aging process. Every decade of elevated LDL-C levels compounds lifetime risk, whereas each year of earlier LDL-C lowering confers protection. The 2025 ESC/EAS focused update on dyslipidemia emphasizes early prevention by lowering initiation thresholds to 100 mg/dL in groups at moderate risk and to 70 mg/dL those at high risk. By reframing lipid management as lifelong exposure reduction to promote healthy vascular aging rather than reactive correction, clinicians can shift from managing disease to effectively preventing it.

References

1. Shapiro MD, Bhatt DL. “Cholesterol-years” for ASCVD risk prediction and treatment. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020;76(13):1517-1520. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2020.08.004
2. Mach F, Koskinas KC, Roeters van Lennep JE, et al. 2025 focused update of the 2019 ESC/EAS guidelines for the management of dyslipidaemias. Eur Heart J. 2025;46(42):4359-4378. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehaf190
3. Domanski MJ, Tian X, Wu CO, et al. Time course of LDL cholesterol exposure and cardiovascular disease event risk. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2020;76(13):1507-1516. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2020.07.059
4. Zheutlin AR, Handoo F, Luebbe S, et al. Cumulative exposure to atherogenic lipoprotein particles in young adults and subsequent incident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Eur Heart J. 2025;46(41):4302-4312. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehaf472
5. Wilkins JT, Ning H, Allen NB, et al. Prediction of cumulative exposure to atherogenic lipids during early adulthood. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2024;84(11):961-973. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2024.05.070
6. Mhaimeed O, Burney ZA, Schott SL, Kohli P, Marvel FA, Martin SS. The importance of LDL-C lowering in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease prevention: lower for longer is better. Am J Prev Cardiol. 2024;18:100649. Published 2024 Mar 18. doi:10.1016/j.ajpc.2024.100649
7. Ford I, Murray H, McCowan C, Packard CJ. Long-term safety and efficacy of lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol with statin therapy: 20-year follow-up of West of Scotland coronary prevention study. Circulation. 2016;133(11):1073-1080. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.115.019014
8. Writing Committee, Lloyd-Jones DM, Morris PB, et al. 2022 ACC expert consensus decision pathway on the role of nonstatin therapies for LDL-cholesterol lowering in the management of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk: a report of the American College of Cardiology Solution Set Oversight Committee. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2022;80(14):1366-1418. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2022.07.006
9. Kohli-Lynch CN, Bellows BK, Zhang Y, et al. Cost-effectiveness of lipid-lowering treatments in young adults. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2021;78(20):1954-1964. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2021.08.065
10. Heidenreich PA, Clarke SL, Maron DJ. Time to relax the 40-year age threshold for pharmacologic cholesterol lowering. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2021;78(20):1965-1967. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2021.08.072

Opportunities for integrating AI in health care

Establishing relevant frameworks for enabling AI integration