EUROPEAN UNION
EU 2012 budget to rise 2%
The EU’s 27 national governments and the European Parliament yesterday agreed to limit expenditure to 129 billion euros (US$177.4 billion) in next year’s budget, up 2 percent over this year, the Polish EU presidency said. The agreement came as a defeat for European Parliament members who had voted on Oct. 26 for a free-spending budget of 133.1 billion euros, a year-on-year increase of 5.2 percent.
INVESTMENT
E Asian nations seek treaty
Leaders of Japan, China and South Korea yesterday agreed to seek a trilateral investment treaty by the end of this year as a way to speed up talks on a free-trade pact among the three countries, a senior Japanese official said. They also agreed to finish studies by their governments, industries and experts on the proposed free-trade agreement by the end of next month so that they could start formal negotiations on the trade pact. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told his Chinese and South Korean counterparts at a trilateral summit that it was time to seal the investment treaty as their four-year-long negotiations were getting close to bearing fruit. The official declined to give details on the investment treaty because it was still under negotiation. However, an investment treaty in general would boost legal stability for investment and help companies to have an enhanced predictability about their business environment.
EQUITY MARKETS
TSE, OSE agree on merger
Japan’s two major bourses have agreed to merge around January 2013, creating the world’s second-largest stock exchange, reports said yesterday. The presidents of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) and Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE) reached a basic agreement on Friday on the merger, the Nikkei Shimbun reported, citing unnamed sources. The two will integrate their operations within a few years after the merger by reorganizing into four units specializing in cash stocks, derivatives, settlement and self-regulation, the Nikkei and Yomiuri Shimbun reported. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is the biggest stock exchange in Japan, while the Osaka exchange serves as the nation’s largest market for derivatives trading. They have agreed to value the Tokyo exchange at about 1.7 times the value of the Osaka bourse, the reports said.
COMPUTERS
No profit from Kindle Fire
Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle Fire tablet, which started shipping this week, costs US$201.70 to make, a research firm said on Friday. That’s US$2.70 more than Amazon charges for it. The analysis by IHS indicates that Amazon is, at least initially, selling the tablet at a loss that it hopes to cover through sales of books and movies for the device. The manufacturing cost of a new gadget usually comes down over time as chips become cheaper. Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos told The Associated Press in September that the company’s goal was to make a small profit from the hardware, but as a retail company, Amazon was willing to live with a smaller margin than most electronics companies would. IHS’ estimate includes the cost of components and assembly, but not the costs of development, marketing or packaging. The most expensive part of the Kindle Fire is the 7-inch color touch screen, which costs US$87. Amazon kept the cost of the tablet low compared with Apple Inc’s iPad and similar tablets by making it smaller.
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