■STOCK MARKET
TWSE chief visiting US
Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE, 台灣證交所) president Samuel Hsu (許仁壽) is scheduled to leave for the US today on a mission to persuade high-tech businesses in the Silicon Valley to list in Taiwan, the company said. Hsu will hold a seminar on the subject in San Francisco on Tuesday and visit some businesses that had signaled their intention to list in Taiwan, a TWSE statement said. The trip follows a series of similar overseas promotional events that have been held by TWSE in China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand.
High-tech stocks make up more than half of the publicly traded companies on the TWSE, the stock exchange said.
■INVESTMENT
PRC bank calls for easing
China should relax industry and administrative restrictions to encourage private investment and lower high savings ratio, People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) said. The limited choices for investment, especially in the service sector, have led companies to retain earnings or pour money into available industries, such as manufacturing, leading to overcapacity, the central bank chief said at a seminar in Beijing late on Friday. Postal, telecommunications, financial services and education are areas that now limit foreign and private investment, he said.
■GAMING
Las Vegas Sands plans IPO
Las Vegas Sands Corp plans to file with Hong Kong regulators as soon as next month for an initial public offering of shares in its Macau casinos, a person with knowledge of the plans said. The Las Vegas-based casino operator, controlled by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, is also seeking amendments to its Macau bank loan, including covenant relief and permission to issue as much as US$1.5 billion in new debt, said the person, who declined to be identified because the plans aren’t public. Las Vegas Sands is seeking funds to restart work on its US$12 billion, 20,000-room complex of hotels and casinos on Macau’s Cotai Strip.
■AUTO PARTS
Goodyear to cut jobs
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co said on Friday it would cut 500 jobs by closing its tire plant in the Philippines as part of a strategy to reduce manufacturing capacity that the biggest US tiremaker believes is no longer competitive. Goodyear opened the Las Pinas plant in 1956. The closure is to be completed by Sept. 30 and will affect most of the company’s 600 employees in the Philippines. Its sales and marketing operations there remain. Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear wants to transfer some tire production to lower-cost plants in the company’s Asia-Pacific Region, but did not specify where within the region.
■NETWORKING
Cisco to lay off hundreds
Cisco Systems Inc laid off 600 to 700 workers this week, bringing the world’s largest maker of computer networking gear closer to its goal of reducing its work force by about 2,000 positions. The cuts, reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal, were made at Cisco’s San Jose, California, headquarters on Thursday, adding to the 447 California workers Cisco had already laid off since the end of February, according to notices filed with the state. As of the end of April, Cisco employed about 66,560 people. The company said in February that it planned to cut 1,500 to 2,000 jobs “in the near term.”
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
FACTORY SHIFT: While Taiwan produces most of the world’s AI servers, firms are under pressure to move manufacturing amid geopolitical tensions Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) started building artificial intelligence (AI) servers in India’s south, the latest boon for the rapidly growing country’s push to become a high-tech powerhouse. The company yesterday said it has started making the large, powerful computers in Pondicherry, southeastern India, moving beyond products such as laptops and smartphones. The Chinese company would also build out its facilities in the Bangalore region, including a research lab with a focus on AI. Lenovo’s plans mark another win for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who tries to attract more technology investment into the country. While India’s tense relationship with China has suffered setbacks