AVIATION
Aeromexico, union ink deal
Aeromexico, Mexico’s biggest airline, and its unionized workers forged a last-minute accord early on Saturday to avoid a strike that could have grounded about 300 flights and cost 150 million Mexican pesos (US$11.7 million) a day, but delayed a decision on a crucial sticking point. The union, known as ASSA, represents about 1,300 Aeromexico flight attendants. ASSA had threatened a midnight strike if it did not get a 5 percent salary hike and 3 percent boost in benefits. ASSA rejected an early proposal by the airline that combined a slightly smaller pay raise with “new competitive conditions” for future hires that the union said would unfairly slash their pay. In its final offer, the airline proposed to raise attendants’ salary immediately by 4.7 percent, boost benefits by 1.5 percent and set up a committee to make a decision on the prickly issue of new employee contracts by July 1.
ENERGY
Ghana ends fuel subsidies
Ghana on Saturday ended its subsidies on fuel, hiking the prices of petroleum products as the growing west African economy struggles with a skyrocketing deficit. “This adjustment completely removes the subsidies on petrol, diesel and liquid propane gas,” National Petroleum Authority chief executive Alexander Mould said in a statement. The statement said the cut would cause only a minimal increase in prices. However, the prices of petroleum products will be more susceptible to fluctuations on the international market. Gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas will go up by 3 percent, while diesel will rise by 2 percent. Ghana had been under pressure from the IMF to cut fuel subsides after its budget deficit ballooned to 12.1 percent of GDP last year, double its target for the year.
GAMBLING
Echo defends monpoly
Echo Entertainment Ltd plans to invest at least A$1 billion (US$960 million) to fend off Australian billionaire James Packer’s attempts to break the company’s Sydney casino monopoly. The operator of the city’s Star Casino and Crown Ltd, the gaming company controlled by Packer, have prepared rival proposals for developments on the shores of Sydney Harbour, with the New South Wales State Government saying it will approve only one project. Echo’s plan requires investment of more than A$1 billion, chief executive John Redmond said in a TV interview yesterday on Channel Nine’s Financial Review Sunday. “I have nothing against Crown or nothing against James Packer,” he said. “This is really an investment in Echo’s future. It should be only one casino and one city.”
BANKING
Woori Bank buyer sought
South Korea’s government aims to sell Woori Finance Holdings Co’s main banking unit by the end of next year after it failed three times to offload its 57 percent stake in the country’s biggest financial group by assets. “We will try to designate a new owner of Woori Bank” by the end of next year, South Korean Financial Services Commission Chairman Shin Je-yoon told reporters on Saturday, according to pool reports e-mailed from the agency yesterday. Authorities are open to selling Woori Finance’s units “in pieces,” he added. Seoul is reviving plans to sell its 5.5 trillion won (US$4.9 billion) stake after it received no bidders for the shares last year in its third sale attempt since 2010. The Public Fund Oversight Committee, which oversees sales of state assets, is studying all options to sell Woori Finance and will announce details by the end of this month, Shin said.
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