■ ENERGY
TNK-BP sees end to dispute
The head of British-Russian oil giant TNK-BP yesterday said a dispute within the company seen as a test of Russia’s investment climate would be resolved soon. “I am sure the dispute will be resolved within days,” Robert Dudley was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying on the sidelines of an economic forum in Saint Petersburg. TNK-BP is Russia’s third-largest oil producer and is jointly held by British oil major BP and three Russian billionaires, who have called for Dudley to step down, accusing him of working solely in BP’s interests. Dudley was also summoned this week by Russian authorities in a tax investigation.
■AUTOMOBILES
Toyota plans more hybrids
Toyota Motor Corp plans to produce hybrid cars in Australia and Thailand as demand for fuel-efficient vehicles surges along with oil prices, Japan’s top business daily said yesterday. Toyota, the world’s second-biggest automaker by annual vehicle sales, will roll out the hybrid version of the popular Camry sedan in Thailand at the end of next year and in Australia as early as 2010, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said. Officials at Toyota could not be reached for comment. Toyota is hoping to sell 1 million hybrids a year sometime after 2010.
■FINANCE
Credit card borrowing slows
Americans relied a lot less on their credit cards in April with debt in that area rising at the slowest pace in nearly three years. The Federal Reserve said on Friday that consumer borrowing increased at an annual rate of 4.2 percent in April, slower than the 6.2 percent increase of March. The slowdown reflected the fact that borrowing in the category that includes credit cards rose at an annual rate of just 0.4 percent, the weakest performance since borrowing in this area actually declined at a 1.8 percent rate in May 2005.
■AUTOMOBILES
Firms take state to court
General Motors Corp and other automakers said California was trying to enforce carbon-reduction rules not yet approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and asked a judge for an order blocking the regulations. Without an injunction, automakers will have to spend billions of dollars by the end of this year, said the filing to the federal court in Fresno, California. The companies are seeking a court order that would prevent California from requiring companies to take any steps toward compliance before 2017. In December the EPA blocked California’s efforts to require cuts in greenhouse gas exhaust starting with next year’s models, saying a nationwide regulation was needed. It was the first time the EPA rejected a California pollution program.
■AGRICULTURE
Farmers to end strike
Argentine farm leaders said they would end their latest strike against a new export tax plan tomorrow in order to enter talks with the government and calm fears of food shortages. Argentina’s four biggest farming groups said on Friday that they were willing to enter talks aimed at ending the dispute, which started when the taxes were introduced on March 11. Farmers will remain “on alert” along roadsides as talks begin, said an e-mailed statement drafted after an eight-hour meeting in Buenos Aires. Blockades by truck drivers, who are protesting the farmers’ actions, have raised the threat of food shortages in the South American country for the second time since March.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by