Bolivia has created a new Cabinet-level ministry to defend the country from legal battles sparked by Bolivian President Evo Morales’ drive to nationalize key sectors of the economy.
To be led by Hector Arce, a 37-year-old lawyer and former government coordination minister, the new agency will back state efforts to reclaim control of petroleum, mining, telecommunications and other companies that were privatized during the 1990s, Morales said late on Thursday.
Details on the ministry’s powers and responsibilities were not immediately available, but it appears set to lead often testy takeover talks with foreign companies, now handled by the foreign ministry.
PHOTO: AP
Morales has sought control of many privatized industries, boosting state ownership of Bolivia’s oil and gas sector in 2006 — a so-called “nationalization” that grabbed headlines but allowed most foreign companies to continue operations.
This year he fully nationalized several natural gas producers and logistics companies, including subsidiaries of the Spanish company Repsol YPF and British Petroleum. He nationalized Bolivia’s few railroads last year.
Some companies have threatened to challenge the takeovers in international court, prompting Bolivia to withdraw last year from a World Bank tribunal that hears disputes between governments and foreign businesses. The court’s rulings are often biased, Bolivian officials said.
But still pending before the tribunal is an arbitration request from Italy’s Euro Telecom International, which is disputing Bolivia’s move to nationalize its subsidiary, Entel. The company was Bolivia’s state telephone company until it was privatized in 1995.
Swiss mining company Glencore International has also disputed Morales’ nationalization of a Bolivian tin smelter last year, citing an investment treaty between the two countries.
The case will likely be resolved in ongoing talks over two other Glencore mines, said a mining ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the talks.
At the urging of the World Bank and IMF, Bolivia underwent sweeping privatizations in the mid-1990s, selling state-owned oil and gas, water, power, railroad and telecommunications companies, along with the national airline and state pension plan.
But the policy’s mixed results largely failed to spur the economic growth the international creditors had hoped for, instead prompting the anti-privatization sentiments that drive Morales’ economic policies.
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