AUTOMOBILES
Nissan unveils electric car
Nissan Motor Co showed a two-seater electric vehicle resembling a go-cart yesterday that isn’t ready for sale, but spotlights the Japanese automaker’s ambitions to be the leader in zero-emission cars. Nissan is planning to produce 250,000 electric vehicles a year, starting with the Leaf electric car set for delivery in Japan and the US next month, and next year in Europe. Its alliance partner Renault SA of France is planning to produce another 250,000 electric vehicles a year.
ECONOMY
Fed injection expected soon
US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is expected push ahead this week with up to US$1 trillion of quantitative easing to spur growth and cut unemployment. In a crucial week for the moribund US economy, Bernanke will override doubters and inject funds into the banking system to boost lending and improve the outlook for national income growth and jobs. Most analysts said they expected the Fed to spend about US$500 billion, although there have been suggestion the stimulus could reach US$1 trillion. This would be in addition to the US$1.7 trillion already spent, before considering further measures to boost the economy as it moves into next year.
UNITED KINGDOM
Young tapped as adviser
Prime Minister David Cameron said on yesterday he had appointed former Cabinet minister David Young as his adviser on enterprise, asking him to suggest how the government can help small businesses grow. Cameron’s coalition government has announced sharp cuts in public spending to rein in a record peacetime budget deficit. With the public sector set to shrink and lay off workers, the government is hoping the private sector can pick up the slack and keep the economic recovery going. Small and medium-sized businesses provide nearly 60 percent of the nation’s jobs and account for half the country’s economic output, Cameron said in a statement.
BANKING
Woori seeks governance
South Korea’s largest banking group Woori Finance Holdings Co needs a consortium of investors to establish a stable and independent governance structure, the head of its bank unit said yesterday. The state-run Public Fund Oversight Committee, which oversees government-held stakes, began accepting bids over the weekend for a 57 percent share, worth about US$6 billion, in Woori Finance. The agency aims to pick a preferred bidder in the first quarter of next year and complete the sale within the first half of next year. Woori Bank president Lee Chong-hwi said it would “actively” seek to establish a consortium of investors to buy the stake in its parent.
AUTOMOBILES
Indian firms post records
India’s two leading firms posted record sales last month as a strong economy brought consumers flooding into showrooms to buy new models ahead of the religious festival season. The country’s largest maker, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, said sales jumped almost 40 percent from a year earlier to hit a monthly record of 118,908 units last month, a company statement said. The high sales came as India readied for the religious period that peaks this month with Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, seen as an auspicious time to make new big-ticket purchases such as cars. Maruti is majority-owned by Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp and sells about one out of every two cars in India. It racked up its previous highest sales tally of 108,006 units in September.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure