■AUTOMOBILES
No electronics flaw: Toyota
Toyota Motor has submitted a letter to the US Congress denying there was a fault with the electronics in millions of vehicles it has recalled because of problems with the accelerator, reports said yesterday. In its letter submitted to the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating the Toyota recalls, the automaker said it “is convinced that there is no problem” with the electronics in its vehicles, the Japanese dailies Yomiuri and Nikkei reported, without disclosing sources. Toyota also referred to its plans to expand the number of vehicles equipped with computerized brake override systems designed to prevent unintended acceleration, stressing its drive to improve safety measures on its vehicles, the Yomiuri said.
■RETAIL
Caracas eyeing Cativen
Venezuela hopes to acquire majority control of a French-owned company that operates hypermarket and supermarket chains in the South American nation, President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday. Chavez said the French company Casino Guichard Perrachon SA has offered to sell 80 percent of its shares in the corporation Cadena de Tiendas Venezolanas, or Cativen, during negotiations that began after he ordered the expropriation of a hypermarket chain that Cativen operates in Venezuela. The conglomerate’s minority shareholders include the Colombian company Almacenes Exito and the Venezuelan company Empresas Polar. The Venezuelan government began negotiations with the French retailer last month, after Chavez ordered the expropriation of the Casino-owned Exito hypermarket chain, accusing its owners of raising prices inordinately following a monetary devaluation earlier this year.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Group calls for deficit plan
Leading economists warned yesterday that Britain lacks a credible plan to cut its budget deficit, in a damaging attack on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government just months before a tough election fight. In an open letter to the Sunday Times newspaper, a group of academics and policymakers said that whoever wins the forthcoming vote must cut the deficit faster than Brown’s finance minister, Alistair Darling, has so far envisaged. “In order to minimise this risk and support a sustainable recovery, the next government should set out a detailed plan to reduce the structural budget deficit more quickly than set out in the 2009 pre-budget report,” the letter said. It said the timing of cuts should be “sensitive to developments in the economy” and mindful of harming the most vulnerable, but added that the aim should be to start reducing spending in the 2010-2011 fiscal year.
■STEEL
Rio Tinto wants PRC ties
Rio Tinto said yesterday it wanted to grow ties with China despite four employees being charged with bribery and industrial espionage, as rival BHP Billiton looked to the Asian giant to underpin growth. The biggest shareholder in Rio Tinto, the world’s third-largest mining company, is Chinese aluminium maker Chinalco. “We would like to build relationships with China and I think that can take place over a number of different areas,” Rio’s chief financial officer Guy Elliott told Sky News. Elliott’s statement comes after China said last week that Rio Tinto executive and Australian passport-holder Stern Hu (胡士泰) faces trial in Shanghai along with three Chinese colleagues on bribery and industrial espionage charges.
■MINING
NFC reinstates workers
Chinese-owned NFC Africa Mining reinstated 79 miners suspended for suspected sabotage at its Chambishi copper mine, a Zambian newspaper reported yesterday. More than 17 miners were admitted to hospital last week in Kitwe, 330km north of Lusaka, for treatment of smoke inhalation after an electric cable caught fire underground. Chambishi officials said they suspected sabotage. Workers have previously rioted over poor pay at Chambishi and industry officials said that despite improved wages and conditions, employees remained unhappy with salaries averaging US$400 per month.
■AUTOMOBILES
Nissan looks to Middle East
Nissan Motor Co, Japan’s third-largest automaker, is seeking to double its market share in the Middle East, chief executive Carlos Ghosn told reporters in Abu Dhabi yesterday. Ghosn said Nissan is “No. 2” in terms of sales in the Middle East. He said recalls by Toyota Motor Corp could only offer a “short-term advantage” for Nissan and wouldn’t change the “ball game.” Ghosn, who is also chief executive of Renault SA, said France’s second-biggest carmaker was in talks to build a factory in Algeria. He did not elaborate.
■METALS
Iron ore prices double: BHP
BHP Billiton Ltd, the world’s largest mining company, said spot iron ore prices are about double year-ago benchmark values, pointing to the level of increase required for contracts this year. “The market price is what the benchmark price is supposed to be,” BHP chief executive officer Marius Kloppers said on Australian Broadcasting Corp’s Inside Business program. “I don’t know what the price settlement will be when we get to that point. What I do know is that today’s price is almost double what last year’s benchmark — which was set in the depths of the financial crisis — was,” he said. Talks to set prices this year have begun between mills and suppliers, including BHP and Rio Tinto Group, the China Iron & Steel Association said last week.
■EQUITIES
DFM falls to three-week low
Dubai stocks retreated the most in three weeks as Zawya Dow Jones said Dubai World, the state-owned holding company seeking to restructure US$22 billion in debt, may offer creditors US$0.60 on the dollar after seven years. Dubai’s DFM General Index lost 4.2 percent, the biggest intraday drop since Jan. 26, to 1,605.48 at 1:40pm. “The sizable haircut and the length of the deferral” as reported “is a disappointment,” said Julian Bruce, director of equity sales at EFG-Hermes Holding SAE, the biggest publicly traded Arab investment bank. Dubai World’s debt deal may be guaranteed by the government and may not offer interest payments to creditors, Zawya Dow Jones reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the plans.
■
BANKING
Chinatrust to add branches
The Financial Supervisory Commission said it had approved Chinatrust Commercial Bank’s (中國信託商銀) application to set up two more branches in India. Chinatrust Commercial is the nation’s biggest credit-card issuer and a banking unit of Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控). The Taiwanese bank already operates a branch in New Delhi and is seeking to open new branches in Chennai and Ahmedabad to expand its business in India, the commission said in a statement. Chinatrust has 72 overseas outlets, including branches in Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo and Ho Chi Minh City.
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
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
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],”
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