TRADE
China halts US farm imports
The Chinese government has asked its state-owned enterprises to suspend imports of US agricultural products after US President Donald Trump ratcheted up trade tensions on Friday, people familiar with the situation said. State-run agricultural firms have stopped buying US farm goods, and are waiting to see how trade talks progress, the people said, declining to be identified. “The leverage that China has is its large agricultural purchases,” Darin Friedrichs, a senior analyst at INTL FCStone’s Asia commodities division, said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “This does affect US farmers and the rural US voting base that’s normally in support of Donald Trump. If they hit back before the election, that’s the obvious way to retaliate.”
PRECIOUS METALS
India’s gold imports drop
Gold imports by India last month tumbled to the lowest monthly inflow in more than three years as demand paused following record high prices in the domestic market. Overseas purchases fell 69 percent to 20.4 tonnes from 65.6 tonnes a year earlier, according to a person familiar with the data. That would be the smallest monthly quantity shipped since at least March 2016, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. Total shipments din the first seven months of the year rose about 20 percent from year earlier to 492.3 tonnes.
ENERGY
Petronas, Gabon ink deal
Malaysia’s state-owned Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has signed an agreement with Gabon for two exploration permits after the African country enacted a new hydrocarbons law last month, the government said in a statement citing Gabonese Minister of Petroleum and Hydrocarbons Noel Mboumba. Petronas already has a presence in Gabon and is the first firm to sign an exploration and production contract in the country in five years, the statement said.
ENERGY
Saudi Arabia mixes pricing
Saudi Arabia lowered pricing for next month’s sales of all crudes to Asia, while raising prices to buyers in northwest Europe and the Mediterranean region. State-owned Saudi Aramco cut pricing for its flagship Arab Light crude to buyers in Asia by US$0.75, to a US$1.70 a barrel premium over the Oman-Dubai Middle Eastern benchmark, it said on Sunday.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Just Eat Takeaway order in
Amsterdam-based Takeaway.com and British rival Just Eat have finalized the terms of their deal to create a global food delivery firm. The group, to be called Just Eat Takeaway.com, would be a market leader in Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada. The companies yesterday said they had backed the deal as outlined on Monday last week, with Just Eat shareholders receiving 0.09744 new Takeaway.com shares for each of their shares. The terms value Just Eat at about £4.7 billion (US$5.7 billion).
LOGISTICS
PostNL sticks with forecast
PostNL stuck with its guidance for this year as it yesterday reported a 24 percent increase in its second-quarter underlying cash operating income (UCOI) and agreed to sell its Postcon business. The Netherlands’ largest mail carrier reported second-quarter UCOI of 41 million euros (US$45.6 million) above analysts’ expectations, helped by lower outflows for pensions and provisions. It said it still expects its full-year UCOI to come to 170 million to 200 million euros.
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