AUTOMAKERS
Volvo to buy Dongfeng stake
Volvo AB agreed to pay 5.6 billion yuan (US$890 million) for a minority stake in the commercial vehicle unit of China’s Dongfeng Motor Group Co (東風汽車), a transaction the Swedish company said will make it the world largest maker of heavy-duty trucks. Volvo, the world’s second-biggest truck manufacturer, will hold a 45 percent share of the unit, which will make and sell Dongfeng-brand trucks, buses and so-called special-purpose vehicles, the Gothenburg, Sweden-based company said in a statement before a press conference in Beijing on Saturday. “China is the world’s largest truck market with a total market for heavy trucks equivalent to the European and North American markets combined,” chief executive officer Olof Persson said at the press conference. The venture will improve Volvo’s position in the Chinese market and help it to become more globally competitive, he said.
INDIA
Central bank rate cut likely
The central bank is expected to cut interest rates this week for the first time in nine months in response to the government’s recent economic reform spree and slowing inflation, economists say. Policymakers are “clearly teed up for rate cuts,” banking on a further easing of inflation in coming quarters, lower government borrowing and more pro-market reforms, HSBC economist Leif Eskesen said. However, those hoping the Reserve Bank of India will announce a big cut following its policy-setting meeting tomorrow are likely to be disappointed. The bank “is likely to tread very carefully — given lingering inflation risks,” Eskesen added. Like other economists, he said he expected the bank to limit any rate cut to 25 basis points. The bank’s key repo rate — at which it lends to commercial banks — now stands at 8 percent.
UKRAINE
Russia puts in US$7bn bill
Russian giant Gazprom has slapped state gas firm Naftogaz with an unexpected US$7 billion bill for gas it had not bought last year, a source from the firm said on Saturday. Media reports said the amount claimed by Russia’s state natural gas supplier corresponded with a quantity of gas Ukraine should have imported last year, according to the contract between the two sides. A Naftogaz source, who did not wish to be named, confirmed that the company had received the bill, but said the nation had already settled all payments for gas imported last year. Russia has twice halted gas deliveries to Europe across Ukraine in recent years over its neighbor’s outstanding debts and refusal to agree to higher gas prices.
ECONOMY
Indonesia key to recovery
Indonesia may hold the key to a US$1 trillion injection into the global economy. That is how much the WTO believes is riding on talks later this year in Bali, when trade ministers hope to cut through some of the red tape that slows global commerce. Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told reporters that failure is not an option and that a strong effort is being put in to ensure that the WTO meeting in Bali is “crowned with success.” Trade ministers from 24 nations met on Saturday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Afterward, Swiss Economic Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann said the group agreed they could reach a tentative agreement on some of the key elements of a global trade deal this summer, in preparation for the ministerial talks in Bali in December.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”