■ECONOMY
Star industry list to expand
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) will expand the government’s list of new star industries to include the patterned innovation, green building, information and communications technology (ICT) and smart electric car sectors. Wu’s predecessor, Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), had already designated specialty agriculture, green energy, healthcare, tourism, cultural innovation and biotechnology as industries with outstanding potential. The four new sectors will be added to the list, Wu said on Friday as he attended the closing ceremony of a training course for local leaders sponsored by the southern branch of the Executive Yuan in Kaohsiung.
■DUBAI DEBT
Japan firms owed US$7.5bn
Japan’s non-financial firms had about US$7.5 billion in uncollected bills from the Dubai government and its affiliated firms as of the end of October, the Nikkei business daily reported yesterday. The data, excluding bank loans, were derived from a total of 18 projects worth about US$15 billion and involving Japanese general contractors, trading houses and electric machinery manufacturers, the daily said. The figures include public works projects commissioned by the Dubai government, it added.
■AUTOMAKERS
VW targets India growth
Volkswagen AG (VW), Europe’s biggest carmaker, said it aims to capture as much as 10 percent of India’s car market in four to six years as it boosts sales in emerging markets. The Wolfsburg, Germany-based company will sell cars under three brands, including Skoda and Audi AG, to achieve its targets, VW said in a statement in Chakan near Pune in western India. Production of its Polo compact car began yesterday at the plant, which opened earlier this year.
■CONSUMER GOODS
P&G buys Ambi Pur
Procter & Gamble Co (P&G), the world’s largest consumer-goods company, agreed to buy Sara Lee Corp’s Ambi Pur brand for about 320 million euros (US$468 million) to boost air-freshener sales outside the US. Ambi Pur will help Procter & Gamble expand in Europe, Australia, Africa and some countries in Asia. The sale is expected to close in the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30 next year.
■ECONOMY
OECD points to recovery
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said its leading economic indicator for member countries improved in October, led by increases in Germany, the UK and Russia. The indicator increased by 1 point from September to 101.4, the Paris-based organization said in a statement on Friday. That is 5.7 points higher than in October last year and the highest reading since April last year. The indicator “continues to point to a recovery,” the OECD said in a statement.
■INVESTMENT
Citigroup sued over EMI deal
Citigroup Inc was sued over the 2007 acquisition of EMI Group Ltd by private-equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners Ltd, which said the bank misrepresented that another firm was bidding on the record company. Terra Firma sued to recover “lost equity of billions of dollars” and obtain punitive damages from Citigroup, which stood to garner substantial fees from the deal as investment adviser and lender to EMI and sole financier to the private-equity company, according to a complaint filed on Friday in the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan.
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
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],”