ENERGY
India sells coal shares
India is set to launch its largest ever share sale in a public company this week as the government looks to raise US$3.5 billion with the divestment of 10 percent of Coal India. The group is the world’s largest coal miner, producing more than 80 percent of India’s coal through 471 mines across eight states. It also holds the largest extractable coal reserves in the world with more than 22 billion tonnes, ahead of rivals state-run China Shenhua Energy and the world’s largest private miner Peabody Energy in the US. Coal currently accounts for more than half of India’s energy use and consumption is set to increase as the country’s economic development accelerates in energy-intensive sectors such as steel and cement manufacturing.
MEDIA
News Corp to resume talks
News Corp and Cablevision Systems Corp planned to resume talks yesterday after the media company cut its Fox broadcast signal to Cablevision’s 3 million customers in New York and Philadelphia in a dispute over program fees. The two companies returned to the negotiating table in New York on Saturday, according to spokesman for both companies, after reaching an impasse on Friday night. Cablevision said in a statement that Fox failed to negotiate in good faith and called the decision to remove the programming “a black eye for broadcast television in America.”
CHINA
Strauss agrees deal
Strauss Group Ltd, Israel’s biggest maker of coffee and confectionaries, said a unit agreed with China’s Haier Whole Set Distribution Co to market water-purification products in China. Strauss Water HK Trading Co and Haier will each initially invest US$10 million in the 50-50 joint venture, Strauss Group said in a statement yesterday to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. “China is already the biggest market in the world for pure water,” Strauss Water chief executive officer Rami Ronen told reporters in Petah Tikva, Israel. “We are seeking to tap Chinese demand for higher quality water.”
TRANSPORTATION
HK airport volume rises
Hong Kong International Airport said passenger traffic and cargo volume rose last month as more tourists visited from China and exports to Europe and North America increased. Passenger traffic rose 17 percent to 4.1 million, while cargo volume increased 14 percent to 346,000 tonnes last month from the same period last year, according to an e-mailed statement. The airport said it handled 38 million passengers between January and last month, up 11 percent from last year. Cargo has risen 29 percent to 3 million tonnes for the first nine months of the year.
UNITED KINGDOM
Tax evaders targeted
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said he would put pressure on banks to sign up to a tax code that binds them to ending tax evasion. “Tax evasion is totally unacceptable at a time like this” he told BBC1 television. “It is unacceptable at the best of times; it is immoral at times like these.” Osborne also said tax authorities would pursue wealthy individuals evading tax. He said negotiations over government budget cuts in the Comprehensive Spending Review are complete. Osborne said a few “finishing touches” remain to be discussed with Prime Minister David Cameron before the report is presented on Wednesday.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by