CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Investment plans approved
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密), which makes iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc, yesterday received approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to invest US$600 million in its Chinese manufacturing units. Hon Hai’s plans were two of the eight China-bound investment projects approved by the ministry yesterday, including CTBC Commercial Bank’s (中國信託商銀) request to transfer US$131.15 million for a branch in Guangzhou.
AVIATION
CAL upping Busan flights
China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) is to double flights between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Busan, South Korea, beginning next month, it said. CAL operates one flight in each direction daily except for Friday. Starting on Oct. 26, there are be two flights per day, CAL chairman Sun Hung-hsiang (孫洪祥) said on Friday in Busan.
TRADE
Fastener promotion planned
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) will hold talks in Kuala Lumpur on Monday next week to promote Taiwan’s fastener industry. A group of screw foundries and representatives of the Export-Import Bank of the Republic of China (中國輸出入銀行) are to visit Inmax Sdn Bhd, a Taiwanese-owned firm. Fastener exports to Malaysia and Indonesia in the first half of the year grew 9.37 percent and 3.67 percent annually respectively, TAITRA said.
Staff writer, with CNA
RETAIL
UK’s Tesco revises forecast
Tesco has lowered its forecast for first-half profit by £250 million (US$409 million), its third warning this year, after finding a fault in its accounts, in the latest blow to the reputation of the UK’s biggest grocer. The firm said its Aug. 29 profit warning overstated expected first-half profit by 23 percent, an error discovered during preparations for its forthcoming interim results, which have now been pushed back to Oct. 23, from the previously stated Oct. 1. Tesco had said on Aug. 29 it expected trading profit for the six months ending Aug. 23 to be in the region of £1.1 billion. Tesco chief executive officer Dave Lewis said Robin Terrell had stepped in to lead the grocer’s UK leadership team in the wake of the firm’s accounting issue, which has resulted in four employees stepping down.
JAPAN
Iwata warns on weak yen
Japan is in danger of falling into a recession as the yen’s decline reduces the purchasing power of households and squeezes corporate profits, former Bank of Japan deputy governor Kazumasa Iwata said. “The current yen weakness is slightly excessive,” Iwata said in an interview on Friday in Tokyo. The yen is trading near a six-year low against the US dollar as diverging monetary policies from the US to Japan threaten to increase exchange-rate volatility. Rising import costs are straining the economy as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe weighs whether Japan can take another sales tax increase aimed at reining in the world’s biggest debt burden.
FOOD INDUSTRY
OSI to cut Chinese workforce
US meat supplier OSI Group LLC said yesterday it is laying off most of the workforce of a Chinese subsidiary accused of selling expired beef and chicken to McDonald’s, KFC and other major restaurant chains. Shanghai Husi Food Co Ltd (上海福喜食品) has been under investigation since a Shanghai TV station reported in July it repackaged and sold old meat. Six employees were arrested last month on suspicion of producing substandard products. Its owner OSI Group said it would lay off 340 people at the Shanghai unit. It said a small number of employees would be kept on while the investigation is underway. The Web site of Shanghai Husi says it employs about 500 people. “Over the past two months, Shanghai Husi has experienced significant financial and customer losses,” an OSI Group statement said.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan partners Dongfeng
Nissan Motor Co has formed a joint venture with Dongfeng Motor Corp (東風汽車) in China dedicated to producing premium Infiniti vehicles in the world’s biggest automobile market. Nissan and Dongfeng are to each control 50 percent of the venture that is to sell locally produced vehicles bearing the Dongfeng Infiniti badge and imported models with the Infiniti emblem, the automaker said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Infiniti China managing director Daniel Kirchert was named president of the joint venture, which is to be called Dongfeng Infiniti Motor Co. Infiniti aims to increase annual sales in China to 100,000 cars by 2018, most of which are slated to be produced in the country. The announcement comes as industry-wide sales of passenger vehicles in China last month rose at the slowest pace since March as the economy cools and the government steps up anti-monopoly probes into foreign automakers.
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