■ Automobiles
Suzuki plans US campaign
Japanese carmaker Suzuki Motor aims to triple its vehicle sales in the US within about two years by boosting dealerships and product line-ups to woo customers, an official said yesterday. Suzuki aims to lift annual US sales to about 200,000 vehicles in 2005, compared with slightly below 70,000 estimated for this year, the official said. In order to achieve the sales goal, the company will boost the number of dealerships by some 30 percent to 600 by the end of next year, he said. Suzuki incurred an operating loss of ?3.5 billion (US$33 million) in its North American business in the six months to September with large sales to corporate customers yielding only slim profit margins.
■ Trade
China drops steel tariffs
China has lifted its steel import tariffs, responding to a US decision earlier this month to drop tariffs on steel imports, a news report said yesterday. "In view of the latest developments in the steel trade, the Ministry of Commerce has decided to terminate its safeguard steps starting Dec. 26," the ministry said in a statement, according to the official news agency Xinhua. China, the world's largest steel importer, slapped tariffs of up to 26 percent on five steel products in November last year. The move followed a decision by the US to impose tariffs of up to 30 percent on steel imports in March last year, which violated international trade law, according to a WTO ruling last month. The US dropped the safeguards after the WTO decision.
■ Toys
FAO Schwarz sells assets
Bankrupt US toy retailer FAO said Friday it had signed a deal to sell its assets to an investment group, which averts a shutdown of its famed FAO Schwarz store on New York's Fifth Avenue. The company said the sale, for about US$20 million, to VGACS Acquisition, a subsidiary of DE Shaw Laminar Portfolios, was subject to approval of the supervising bankruptcy court. Under the deal, the investment group, backed by financier David Shaw, would acquire FAO's New York and Las Vegas store leases, as well as its catalog and Internet assets. But FAO Inc was to sell the remaining inventory in these stores before temporary closings after which they would be turned over to the new owners for re-opening next year. FAO, which is based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, said it would ask the court to approve the deal or accept a better bid by Jan. 22.
■ Internet
Hermit Kingdom goes online
A Berlin entrepreneur said Friday that he had signed a deal with North Korean officials to bring Internet access to the country beginning in mid-February, a date chosen to coincide with leader Kim Jong-Il's birthday. Jan Holtermann, a former banker and one-time employee of the North Korean embassy in Berlin, told reporters that the project would involve the use of filtering software similar to that in place in Chinese and Cuban networks. "We started from the assumption that the North Korean government would be very selective in granting access to the Internet," he said. A select group of handpicked users will be allowed to send e-mail, and only a few will be able to view information on the web. Holtermann said that the company he founded for the project, KCC Europe, had signed a contract on Jan. 17 after negotiating with North Korean officials.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure