China Slashes Purchases of Chipmaking Equipment as U.S. Restrictions Bite

Employees assemble an ASML Twinscan XT1000 lithography machine at the ASML Holding NV factory in Veldhoven, Netherlands, on June 5, 2014. Photo: Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — China’s purchases of machines to make computer chips fell 27% last month from a year earlier as the U.S. imposed new, sweeping sanctions to try and derail the country’s chip ambitions.

Chinese firms imported $2.4 billion 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.