AUTOMOBILES
Hyundai sales soaring
Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea’s largest carmaker, expects to exceed its target of 670,000 vehicle sales in China this year, thanks to the popularity of new models, the company said yesterday. The introduction of Hyundai’s ix35 sport-utility vehicles and Verna subcompact cars this year helped the company sell 73,122 vehicles in China last month, the highest monthly total since it entered the local market in 2002, the Seoul-based automaker said in an e-mailed statement.
FINANCE
World Bank aids project
The World Bank said yesterday it had agreed to lend US$75 million in additional financing for an ongoing cyclone recovery and restoration project in Bangladesh. The bank earlier provided US$109 million emergency support including a grant of US$2.96 million following the 2007 Sidr cyclone that killed about 3,000 people and caused huge losses to crops and infrastructure.
REAL ESTATE
Jabal Omar raising money
Jabal Omar Development Co, a real estate developer in Saudi Arabia, said it is in the process of raising 5 billion riyals (US$1.3 billion) from a 10-year syndicated loan by December. The loan, being arranged by Al Rajhi, will help the company repay a 1.35 billion riyal bridge loan facility, according to a company statement to the Saudi bourse yesterday. The bridge loan was arranged by Al Rajhi, National Commercial Bank, Saudi Hollandi and Bank Al-Jazira and Saudi British Bank, it said.
AVIATION
Airbus to research in India
Airbus SAS will increase the amount of engineering work it conducts in India because of a shortage of specialists in the UK, Germany and France, the Sunday Telegraph said, citing chief executive officer Tom Enders. The company’s board may decide this week to proceed with the development of a new engine for the A320 aircraft, the newspaper said.
ENERGY
Dolphin plans shutdown
Dolphin Energy Ltd, the Abu Dhabi state-controlled venture transporting natural gas to the United Arab Emirates, is planning a month-long maintenance shutdown at its two offshore platforms in Qatar next February. The company is seeking two offshore accommodation rigs to support work at the seaborne platforms in Qatari waters starting on Feb. 1, according to an advertisement carried in the Dubai-based newspaper Gulf News yesterday. Dolphin Energy issued the tender to hire the rigs for 28 days, with possible extensions of as much as two months.
LABOR
French protest retirement cut
Hundreds of thousands of protesters young and old demonstrated in France on Saturday, waving union flags and pressing conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy to drop plans to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. It was the third day of protests in a month. Unions tried a new tactic, scheduling the protest for a Saturday instead of a weekday to draw families, youths and private-sector employees who don’t show up during the workweek. Pockets of students marched among the unions and some parents carried children on their shoulders. France, one of many indebted European countries trying to scale back spending, says its money-losing pension system will collapse without reform.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six