AUTOMAKERS
Honda halts Taiwanese lines
Japanese automobile maker Honda Motor Co Inc said it decided to halt production at its Taiwanese factories because of disruption in component supply, stemming from severe floods in Thailand beginning in July, according to a company statement posted on its Web site on Friday. The resumption would depend on the situation of component supply, it said. Honda announced in October that it donated ¥280 million (US$3.59 million) toward Thailand flood relief and recovery efforts. Before that, Honda had donated 200 Honda GX160 engines to power small boats.
UNITED STATES
Unemployment falls to 8.6%
The unemployment rate, which has refused to budge from the 9 percent neighborhood for two-and-a-half frustrating years, fell sharply last month, driven in part by small businesses that finally see reason to hope and hire. Economists said there was a long way to go, but they liked what they saw. The rate fell to 8.6 percent, the lowest since March 2009, two months after President Barack Obama took office. Unemployment passed 9 percent that spring and had stayed there or higher for all but two months since then. The country added 120,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday.
IRELAND
Credit unions receive funds
The government allocated 250 million euros (US$335.12) to inject into the country’s credit unions for both this year and next year, according to a White Paper pre-budget report published yesterday. Finance Minister Michael Noonan said on Oct. 6 the state may need to inject between 500 million euros and 1 billion euros to recapitalize the country’s credit unions. A further 280 million euros has been earmarked for the country’s insurance compensation fund for this year and 396 million euros for next year, according to the paper. The cost of servicing the national debt will probably rise to 7.5 billion euros next year from 4.9 billion euros this year, assuming no new budget policy measures, the paper also showed.
UNITED STATES
ITC to probe solar imports
The International Trade Commission (ITC) took the first step toward imposing added tariffs on Chinese solar imports, saying subsidies for the products harm equipment makers such as SolarWorld AG. The trade panel voted unanimously in Washington on Friday in a preliminary ruling on the petition by Bonn-based SolarWorld calling for anti-dumping and countervailing duties. The commission will now proceed with a full investigation. The Chinese government uses cash grants, raw-materials discounts, preferential loans, tax incentives and currency manipulation to boost exports of solar cells, according to SolarWorld’s Oct. 19 complaint to the trade commission and the Commerce Department. SolarWorld is seeking duties.
ELECTRONICS
No extension for Olympus
Japanese regulators will not extend a deadline for Olympus to report its financial results, sources with knowledge of the matter said, leaving the scandal-hit company with less than two weeks to correct two decades of accounting and avoid delisting. Olympus and its auditors are scrambling to correct past earnings statements and submit its latest results after the company admitted to a cover-up of securities losses dating back to the 1990s. If they cannot meet the Dec. 14 deadline, Olympus will be automatically delisted under stock exchange rules.
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