UNITED KINGDOM
PM warns on budget veto
British Prime Minister David Cameron threatened to veto the EU budget, telling the Sunday Telegraph newspaper he would not stand for “outrageous” attempts to hike it up. As his Conservative Party’s annual conference was about to get underway in Birmingham, Cameron said he would block the budget if it was not in Britain’s interest. He said he would stand up to “outrageous” attempts to increase the EU’s overall budget in upcoming negotiations to set total spending for 2014 to 2020. Cameron also floated a “bold thinking” plan for the 27-member bloc to have two separate budgets — one for the 17 nations using the euro currency and another for the other 10, Britain included.
AVIATION
US reports on documents
The US government said on Saturday it had received EU documents on funding for the Airbus A350 after requesting them from the WTO over a month ago in an ongoing transatlantic dispute over aircraft subsidies. It is the first time the funding of Europe’s answer to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, due to make its maiden flight next year, has been drawn directly into the world’s largest trade dispute, but it remains to be seen how the WTO will act on the data. Both sides are pressing for major trade sanctions after the WTO found that Airbus and US rival Boeing had benefited from billions of dollars of unfair subsidies in a pair of trade complaints now in their ninth year. Washington has called on Airbus to stop receiving loans from its host European nations — Britain, France, Germany and Spain — and argues that the WTO should take loans for the A350 into account when evaluating penalties for earlier support.
JAPAN
Regulators probe firms
Financial regulators are investigating three companies over their involvement in a scandal in which AIJ Investment Advisors Co allegedly defrauded pension funds, the Nikkei Shimbun reported yesterday. The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission is probing Societe Generale SA, Stats Investment Management Co and United Investments Co, the Nikkei reported, without saying where it obtained its information. The Financial Services Agency may impose administrative punishment on the three companies, it said, without giving details. AIJ president Kazuhiko Asakawa was arrested in June on suspicion of defrauding pension funds of about ¥7 billion (US$89 million). The commission found the firm lost ¥109.2 billion from derivatives trades directed by Asakawa over nine years, in a scandal that has raised concerns about the safety of retirement assets in the world’s fastest-aging nation.
TELECOMS
Qatari firm to raise stake
Qatar’s telecoms giant Qtel announced yesterday its majority stake in Kuwait’s Wataniya mobile firm will be raised to 92.1 percent in a deal worth US$1.85 billion, the company said in a statement. Qtel said it has received the acceptance of shareholders owning about 200 million shares representing 39.61 percent of Wataniya at a price of 2.6 dinars (US$9.25) at the close of a tender offer on Thursday. The Qatari firm had purchased about 52.5 percent of Wataniya about five years ago in a deal worth US$4 billion. The new purchase includes 23.5 percent of shares held by Kuwait Investment Authority or the oil-rich Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund which is managing Kuwaiti overseas investments estimated at US$400 billion.
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