TRADE
China’s crude imports drop
China’s crude imports fell last month to the lowest in five months as slowing economic growth curtailed demand and storage tanks filled. Overseas purchases fell to 26.35 million tonnes last month from 27.95 million in September, according to preliminary data released by the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs yesterday. That is equivalent to about 6.23 million barrels a day, down 8.8 percent from the previous month and the least since May, Bloomberg calculations show. Oil imports from January through last month rose 8.9 percent to 275 million tonnes, compared with the same period a year earlier, the customs data showed.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda recalls 25,000 cars
Honda Motor Co is recalling more than 25,000 cars in the US to replace the rear grab rail brackets, which it says could interfere with the deployment of a side curtain air bag. The carmaker says no such instances have been reported and that it discovered the faulty design during internal testing. The recall affects 25,367 of the Fit LX vehicles.
PHONE MAKERS
Employees’ lawsuit rejected
Apple Inc persuaded a judge to throw out a lawsuit by employees of the company’s retail stores in California seeking back pay for time spent in “demoralizing” security searches when they left work for the day. The ruling by a San Francisco federal judge on Saturday releases the company from having to compensate as many 12,400 former and current employees from 52 stores throughout the state a few dollars a day for time spent over a six-year period having their bags and Apple devices searched at meal breaks and after their shifts.
AUTOMAKERS
VW managers ‘worried’
Volkswagen managers are worried about travelling to the US, a German newspaper reported on Saturday, saying US investigators have confiscated the passport of an employee who is there on a visit. Citing company sources, the Suddeutsche Zeitung said Volkswagen believes the investigators want to prevent the manager from evading questioning or criminal prosecution linked to the diesel emissions scandal. A spokesman for VW said: “Volkswagen employees are still travelling to the United States. Everything else is speculation.”
AVIATION
Jet deliveries rise 4.3%
Business jet deliveries rose 4.3 percent during the first nine months of this year as the US, the biggest market for mid-sized aircraft, logged slow-but-steady growth. Manufacturers, including General Dynamics Corp’s Gulfstream, Textron Inc’s Cessna and Embraer SA, shipped 465 jet planes in the period, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Mid-sized jets including Cessna’s Citation XLS+ and Embraer’s Phenom 300 led the increase with a 12 percent gain to 255 deliveries.
AUTOMAKERS
Workers reject GM deal
General Motors Co’s (GM) tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers was rejected on Friday by skilled-trades workers, preventing ratification of a contract that would have delivered more than US$2 billion in improved wages and benefits over the deal’s four-year term. The UAW said it will hold meetings at each worksite over the next several days to determine why the skilled-trades workers voted no by almost a 3-2 ratio. The union reached a tentative contract agreement with Ford Motor Corp on Friday.
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
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
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in