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.
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
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
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure