AUTOMAKERS
Investors want GM payout
An investor group demand that General Motors Co (GM) give back more of its US$25 billion cash hoard confronts GM chief executive officer Mary Barra with a challenge to her plans for building the company and rewarding shareholders.
Barra and GM chief financial officer Chuck Stevens have signaled they plan to recommend returning more of the cash once the automaker knows how much it will have to spend to resolve legal issues related to the company’s recalls of millions of cars equipped with defective ignition switches. That includes a US Department of Justice criminal investigation. Former US Auto Industry Task Force member Harry Wilson is pressing GM to buyback US$8 billion in stock over the 12 months following its June annual meeting.
GOLD
India beats China to top spot
China lost its place to India as the world’s biggest gold consumer last year, data released on Thursday show, hit by collapsing jewelery demand after one year in the top spot. Indian gold demand sank 14 percent to 842.7 tonnes last year from 2013, but Chinese demand slumped 38 percent to 814 tonnes, the World Gold Council said in a report. Overall Chinese gold demand dropped four percent last year to 3,924 tonnes compared with a record amount in 2013, pushed lower as jewelery demand tumbled by a third. That marked the lowest overall level in five years and was also the third successive annual decline for the precious metal, whose two main drivers are jewelery and investment buying. World jewelery demand sank 10 percent to 2,153 tonnes last year, while China registered a 33 percent slump to 814 tonnes, according to the council.
TRADE
Canada ramps up China row
Canada asked the WTO on Thursday to arbitrate an ongoing trade row with China over its imposition of punitive tariffs on bleached wood pulp. Canadian Minister of Trade Ed Fast said an investigation China carried out that found Canada was selling pulp at slashed prices was flawed. “Canada’s position is that China’s investigation was not conducted in accordance with WTO rules and, as a result, the conclusions were flawed,” he said in a statement. The two sides tried but failed to find a negotiated solution to the dispute. “Canada is requesting the establishment of a WTO panel on China’s imposition of discriminatory anti-dumping measures on Canadian dissolving pulp,” Fast said. China imposed duties of up to 23.7 percent on Canadian exports of dissolving pulp entering the Chinese market in April last year.
MACROECONOMICS
Italy still in the doldrums
The Italian economy stagnated in the three months through December last year, failing to rebound from its longest recession on record and increasing pressure on Italiand Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. GDP in the fourth quarter was unchanged from the previous quarter when it dropped 0.1 percent, Italian statistics agency ISTAT said in a preliminary report in Rome yesterday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 19 economists predicted a drop of 0.1 percent. From a year earlier, GDP fell 0.3 percent. The eurozone’s third-biggest economy might halt its slump this year as both domestic and foreign demands rise, employers’ lobby Confindustria said this week. Its report was released after industrial output data showed a 0.4 percent increase in December that Confindustria said was probably followed by a further rise last month.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last