■ Trade
No `magic wand:' Lamy
France's Pascal Lamy, who formally took over as WTO chief yesterday, warned he had no "magic wand" to conjure up a global trade deal by an end-year deadline. But the former EU Trade Commissioner, who replaces Thailand's Supachai Panitchpakdi as WTO director-general, promised to get down to work immediately, contacting the various heads of the negotiating bodies and trade ambassadors from the WTO's 148 member states. The Geneva-based WTO faces a massive task to agree a draft deal on lowering barriers to trade across the global economy -- its Doha Round -- at a meeting of trade ministers set for Hong Kong in mid-December. Trade negotiations failed in their attempt to reach a number of interim deals in July, which could have eased the way to Hong Kong, with divisions over world farm trade particularly deep.
■ Flat Panels
Fuji Photo to cut staff
Fuji Photo Film Co, the world's biggest maker of film used to make flat-panel displays, said it will reduce its workforce at two plants that make the material outside of Tokyo as it cuts costs and increases efficiency. The Tokyo-based company will reduce employees at its plants in Ashigara and Odawara to 2,200 by March from 2,600, Ken Sugiyama, a Fuji Photo spokesman, said. About 300 workers will move to a subsidiary. The company declined to say how much it expects to reduce costs with the move. Fuji Photo has said it will invest in production of film for flat-panel, or liquid crystal display, panels as profit from other operations declines.
■ Energy
China Resources upbeat
China Resources Power Holdings Co (華潤電力控股) said yesterday it expects to benefit from strong domestic demand for electricity in the second half of the year. The company, which supplies power to the wealthy Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, expects added capacity from its new plants will help meet the demand, Chairman Song Lin (宋林) said in a statement. "A number of our power plants are planned to commence commercial operation in the second half of 2005," Song said, without giving a figure for the increase in capacity. "Demand for electricity will continue to be strong," he said. Song said coal prices have stabilized since the second quarter as supply of the raw material increased. In the first half, China Resources Power reported a 21.8 percent rise in unit fuel cost. China Resources Power said its first-half attributable operational capacity rose 1.74 times from a year earlier to 4,663 megawatts.
■ Electronics
Samsung, TV station in deal
Samsung of South Korea said yesterday in Berlin it had linked with Discovery, the US television company best known for its nature documentaries, to jointly promote high-definition television (HDTV). Describing itself as the world's largest manufacturer of plasma displays, with 411,000 produced in the first quarter of this year, Samsung said it would show Discovery programs on 30,000 TVs and other entertainment devices in showrooms round the world. Don Baer of Discovery told reporters at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin that Discovery was the most-chosen channel when Americans invited over neighbors to boast about their new HDTV sets. Discovery began HDTV broadcasts in 2002. HDTV is just catching on in Europe, with Germany's first broadcasts set to start next month.
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