OIL
Iran, China sign deal
Iran and China agreed to jointly invest US$12 billion over 10 years in developing Iran’s Azadegan oil field, state-run Press TV reported on its Web site. Azadegan, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, has 42 billion barrels in reserves and will add 600,000 barrels a day to the nation’s daily crude oil output, Press TV said, citing Petroleum Engineering & Development Co managing director Naji Sadouni. The first phase of the field’s development will take 52 months, during which 185 wells will be drilled, it said.
FINANCE
EU finances to improve
Chief Executive Officer of the European Stability Facility (EFSF) Klaus Regling believes the eurozone will overcome its current debt crisis by 2014. “One can justifiably expect the crisis to be over within two to three years,” he told Spiegel in the edition out yesterday. “In all eurozone countries the fundamentals are improving.” All eurozone countries have started putting their finances in order and already some of those worst affected by the crisis, such as Ireland, are back on their feet, he said. The EFSF was set up last year to help shore up debt-ridden countries. Its role is shortly to be expanded in line with measures agreed to by eurozone leaders last month. Regling believes the eurozone’s financial situation is better than that of the US. “The US deficit, for example, is three times as high as that of the eurozone,” he said.
INTERNET
Facebook to end Deals
Facebook is to end a Deals program launched in April which offered online bargains like Groupon, LivingSocial and other companies. “After testing Deals for four months, we’ve decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks,” the California-based social network said in a statement. “We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses ... We’ve learned a lot from our test and we’ll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses.” Facebook began testing Deals in five US cities in a bid to expand its revenue stream beyond advertising and carve out a niche in the growing online bargain space. Chicago-based Groupon, which offers subscribers discounts on a broad range of consumer goods and services, has enjoyed a spectacular rise since its founding in 2008 and rejected a reported US$5 billion takeover offer from Google last year.
AUTOMAKERS
Car boss makes donation
South Korea’s top automaker Hyundai Motor said yesterday that its chairman would give US$462 million to charity, partly fulfilling a pledge made in 2006 when he was being investigated for corruption. Chung Mong-koo will donate shares worth 500 billion won (US$462 million) in Hyundai Glovis — a Hyundai Motor subsidiary — to help children from poor families, the company said in a statement. The money will be donated to a charity group founded by Hyundai, it said, adding the sum was the largest personal donation ever made in South Korea. The move came amid calls for Chung, 73, to honor his promise to donate 1 trillion won. Chung was later convicted of embezzling 90 billion won in company funds through fraudulent accounting, with the intention of establishing a slush fund to bribe government officials and politicians in return for business favors.
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
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
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the