The Netherlands’ third-largest bank, ABN Amro Group NV, said on Wednesday that it is ratcheting up its battle against smoking and will no longer extend credit to clients in the tobacco industry.
The Amsterdam-based bank’s decision came as it announced a new partnership with the Netherlands’ Heart Foundation in the fight against smoking, which might kill 20,000 people every year in the country of 17 million, according to a recent study.
“Our core value is that everybody has a right to be healthy,” said Marianne Verhaar, the bank’s director of relationship management for institutions and charitable organisations.
“The core activity of those in the tobacco industry is not compatible with our core values,” she told reporters. “Therefore we have drawn up a moratorium when it comes to extending credit to tobacco producers.”
The move also stops any new investment in the tobacco industry and is the first by a major bank in the Netherlands, the Trouw newspaper reported.
“The move could have a big impact. It means that other banks and investment funds would also have to take a stand,” the paper said.
Existing contracts with tobacco industry clients will be respected, but will not be renewed and no new contracts will be signed, an ABM Amro official told the daily.
Verhaar said ABN Amro was planning to lobby others in the Dutch financial sector to follow its lead.
The bank, which has more than 6 million clients worldwide, decided to change its tobacco policy at the end of April, she said.
Its new partnership with the Heart Foundation includes looking at ways to integrate a payment-sharing app with the foundation’s fundraising activities.
A recent study by Amsterdam-based SEO Economic Research estimated the cost of smoking to Dutch society at about 2,000 euros (US$2,268) per person per year.
The WHO attributes more than 7 million deaths worldwide to tobacco use every year.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six