■ENERGY
Exxon finalizes gas deal
US-based energy giant Exxon Mobil said yesterday it had finalized financing and sales agreements for its US$15 billion gas project in Papua New Guinea and was ready to begin construction. “First deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2014, following a construction period of about four years,” Exxon said in a statement. The massive liquefied natural gas project, potentially the largest ever such deal for the impoverished Pacific country, will supply four major customers in Taiwan, Japan and China and is estimated to have a 30-year life.
■RECYCLING
Taiwan, PRC cooperating
Taiwan and China will cooperate to recycle the soaring volume of electronic waste in China, an official with the Industrial Development Bureau said yesterday. China’s program to promote sales of “home appliances in the countryside” is expected to trigger a buying spree of electronic gadgets to replace older items around the country, which will lead to increasing demand to recycle the discarded appliances, said Chu Hsin-hua (朱興華), head of the bureau’s Sustainable Development Division. The bureau estimated that the Chinese market for electronic waste recycling services would expand to between NT$400 billion (US$12.6 billion) and NT$500 billion a year, about 10 times the size of Taiwan’s market and one that’s big enough to be worth fighting for, Chu said.
■WINE
French in Taiwan honored
Dominique Levy, chairman of the Association of French in Taiwan, was honored by the French government on Friday for his efforts to promote French wine in Taiwan. Levy was presented with the insignia of Officier du Merite Agricole, an award for agricultural merit, by Patrick Bonneville, director of the French Institute in Taipei, on behalf of the French minister of agriculture. Levy, who has lived in Taipei for 28 years, has successfully introduced quality French wine to Taiwanese gourmets through his knowledge of French wine and his familiarity with Taiwan.
■AUTOMOBILES
UK to provide loan for GM
Britain said on Friday it would provide a £270 million (US$409.6 million) loan guarantee to General Motors (GM) Europe to help secure the company’s operations in Britain and the rest of Europe. “We need Vauxhall to thrive as part of Britain’s automotive manufacturing base, and following our negotiations with GM Europe I am confident it will do so,” Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said in a statement. Vauxhall is the UK operation of General Motors and has two plants in England, one north of London at Luton, and the other in Ellesmere Port in the northwest. They employ 4,700 people.
■SECURITIES
KKR plans NYSE listing
KKR & Co LP, the parent of private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, said on Friday that it planned to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). KKR originally sought a public listing in the US in July 2007, hoping to raise up to US$1.25 billion, after competitor Blackstone Group LP raised US$4.1 billion in an initial public offering. KKR shelved that plan because of the financial crisis. Instead, KKR merged with its European arm, now known as KKR Guernsey, and the combined company traded on the Euronext Amsterdam beginning last October. When KKR begins trading on the NYSE, KKR Guernsey will be dissolved and cease to trade in Amsterdam.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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