TRADE
US, Seoul FTA to take effect
A long-delayed free-trade deal between the US and South Korea will go into effect on March 15 following months of technical-level talks, officials said on Tuesday, cheering business groups that have waited years for the day. South Korean Minister for Trade Park Tae-ho told reporters implementation of the deal would help exporters who have lost sales to Europe because of the debt crisis. The US-South Korea deal will eliminate Seoul’s duties on almost 80 percent of US industrial products and almost 67 percent of US farm goods on its first day of entry into force.
ELECTRONICS
SAP, Samsung cooperate
SAP AG and Samsung Electronics Co are teaming up to make mobile devices running Google Inc’s Android operating system safer to use as corporate tools, people familiar with the matter said. SAP, the largest maker of enterprise-management software, and Samsung will present their plans next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, said the people, who declined to be named because the details are not public. The cooperation will include e-mail encryption, as well as making handsets compatible with device-management systems that remotely update software and can operate phone functions such as switching the camera on and off, one of the people said.
AIRLINES
No extension for Kingfisher
Lenders to India’s Kingfisher Airlines have not agreed to extend further loans to the debt-crippled carrier, three banking sources said yesterday after reports that one state-owned creditor was close to offering a bailout loan package. Several newspapers reported that State Bank of India (SBI) would throw a lifeline to Kingfisher, which is majority owned by liquor baron Vijay Mallya, giving figures ranging from 2 billion to 16.5 billion rupees (US$40 million to US$335 million). However, banking sources said the airline’s consortium of 16 lenders, which includes SBI, were still studying a debt-restructuring proposal put forward last week.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford to raise compensation
Ford Motor Co boosted annual compensation for board members by 25 percent and will pay 29 percent more to Edsel Ford II, its founder’s great-grandson, for his work as a director and consultant. Ford will pay its board members an annual retainer of US$250,000, up from US$200,000, the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker said in a regulatory filing yesterday. Edsel Ford, a director, will also receive US$650,000 a year in cash as a consultant, up from US$500,000.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is