Canada’s federal government and Ontario’s provincial government have set a deadline of Friday for struggling US-based automakers seeking financial support to provide detailed financial information and a restructuring plan for their Canadian subsidiaries.
The letter, signed by federal Industry Minister Tony Clement and Ontario Economic Development Minister Michael Bryant, was sent on Friday to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
All three automakers have pleaded to the US and Canadian governments for substantial financial aid to stave off bankruptcy and avert the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Their chief executives are heading back to Washington on Tuesday to show their restructuring plans to US lawmakers. Congress is expected to vote on whether to give them US$25 billion in government-backed loans the following week.
Clement and Bryant’s letter asks the Canadian subsidiaries to reveal their production plans, including how they will “ensure” that energy efficient cars are being made in Canada.
“Taxpayers deserve that these companies detail solid plans for a prosperous future in Ontario, and I’m confident we’ll get that,” Bryant said.
An analysis of “Canadian and Ontario competitiveness vis-a-vis your global operations, including each major component of your cost structure, and how it can be adjusted to ensure our competitive position going forward” is required, the letter states.
“Before we consider committing taxpayer dollars, the government needs to see solid, sustainable plans from the automakers as they pertain to Canadian operations,” Clement said.
The automakers must also provide an analysis of its Ontario pension liability, it said.
Clement and Bryant were in Detroit and Washington last week to meet with auto executives to discuss a possible US bailout for the battered industry.
Should the North American auto industry collapse, hundreds of thousands of jobs in both the US and Canada would be threatened.
GM said on Friday it would sell and lease back some of its non-manufacturing operations in Europe as part of its efforts to raise cash quickly.
The company’s European division has retained real estate agent Jones Lang LaSalle to help identify potential buyers. The company has the potential to raise about US$257 million.
“Investigations are under way as to what would be viable,” said Denis Chick, spokesman for GM’s United Kingdom and Ireland division in an e-mail on Friday.
According to Chick, properties in the UK that could be sold include its headquarters in Luton, a parts warehouse in Luton and an engineering site in Millbrook.
GM has also delayed multiple projects, including new vehicles and engines, in order to cut costs. Earlier this month the company said it would sell its 3.02 percent stake in Suzuki Motor Corp for US$230 million.
The company is burning through cash more rapidly than it is making money, and may be at its minimum cash levels by the end of the year. GM is banking on swift congressional approval of taxpayer-backed bridge loans. Company executives are currently preparing a viability plan to present to Congress by Tuesday.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts