■ Agriculture
Soya demand killing Amazon
The Amazon rainforest and savanna lands are being destroyed at a rate of 1.2 million hectares a year to feed Europe's insatiable desire for more soya bean production, according to a research report on Friday. The UK is one of the chief customers for South American soya production, and the report says that by 2020 an area the size of the UK will have been converted to grow the beans as the market grows by 60 percent. Soya oil appears in hundreds of processed foods such as ice cream, margarines, mayonnaise and lipsticks, but the biggest market is to feed farm animals. Adam Harrison, rural development officer for the conservation organization WWF Scotland, said: "The market has grown because feeding cattle animal protein was banned following the BSE crisis, and soya is the high-protein substitute." The report says that soya production has led to vast tracts of land being cleared in southern Brazil, and the near-disappearance of Brazil's Atlantic rainforest.
■ Patent rights
Procter & Gamble sues Coke
Procter & Gamble Co is suing its former partner, Coca-Cola Co, for allegedly infringing patents on preservatives in fruit drinks. The Cincinnati consumer products company said Coke's Minute Maid fruit drinks infringe several P&G patents on processes that control the growth of micro-organisms. P&G officials weren't immediately available for comment. Coca-Cola, of Atlanta, declined to comment on the suit, which was filed the suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. "We just received the filing. We are in the process of reviewing it and will comment on it when it is appropriate," Coca-Cola spokesman Ray Crockett said. P&G has another lawsuit pending against Coke's Minute Maid. That suit, filed in 2002, alleges infringement of a technology for adding calcium to orange juice.
■ Mining
Cambior to invest in Peru
Cambior Inc. has signed a deal to buy a majority stake in a Peruvian gold mining company in a cash-and-stock deal worth some US$31 million. The Canadian gold miner said on Friday it will acquire a 55.3 percent stake in Compania Minera Poderosa SA in a deal with a group of private shareholders. Under the deal, Cambior will pay US$25 million in cash and issue about 2.2 million common shares. The company may also pay up to US$6 million depending on the outcome of certain contingent liabilities. CMPSA owns and operates the Poderosa mine located in the Pataz province of northern Peru. The mine has produced 1.25 million ounces of gold since 1982, with an average of 75,000 ounces a year over the last five years.
■ Shipping
UPS expands in China
UPS Inc says the government has given it the green light to triple its number of flights to China, a key international market in the shipping giant's growth plans. The Atlanta-based company said on Friday that the US Department of Transportation has tentatively granted it six additional roundtrip flights to Shanghai, which will start next month, and six new roundtrip flights to Guangzhou next year. That would give it 18 roundtrip flights from the US to China per week. It currently operates six. The decision is subject to final approval by the DOT, and there is no set timetable for that to happen, UPS spokesman Norm Black said. The US and China negotiated a new bilateral agreement earlier this year that opened the door for expanded aviation rights. UPS formally applied for the new authority in July.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six