■AUTOMOBILES
Geely eyes Volvo deal
Chinese car maker Geely Automobile (吉利汽車) said yesterday it will raise about US$334 million in a deal with an affiliate of Goldman Sachs, building up cash for a possible takeover of Ford Motors Co’s Volvo Cars. Geely announced it would issue HK$2.586 billion (US$334 million) in convertible bonds and warrants to Goldman Sachs Capital Partners VI Fund. The money raised will be used to pay for potential acquisitions and other needs, Geely said in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Geely’s announcement made no mention of the company’s interest in Volvo, though a company spokesman confirmed earlier that the Hangzhou-based automaker’s parent company was considering bidding for the Swedish automaker.
■GLASS
LG Chem eyes LCD plan
South Korea’s largest chemicals company LG Chem said yesterday it would invest 3 trillion won (US$2.5 billion) by 2018 in producing glass for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels. Work will start this year on a production line to open by early 2012 and six more lines will be added in phases by 2018, the company said in a statement. When all the lines are operating LG Chem said it aims to produce more than 50 million square meters of LCD glass every year, with annual sales of 2 trillion won (US$1.7 billion). “LCD glass production is a high-yielding business which leaves a high profit margin of some 40 to 50 percent of sales,” an LG Chem official said.
■BRAZIL
Moody’s boosts rating
Moody’s Investor Services has given Brazil a boost by raising its debt rating to investment grade. The upgrade came a year after the other two major rating agencies took the same step. Moody’s says the outlook for Brazil’s economy is positive, meaning it could get another upgrade in the future. The upgrade issued on Tuesday means Brazil has been labeled by Moody’s as a safe place to invest. Fitch Ratings gave Brazil its upgrade in May last year, a month after Standard & Poor’s was the first to say the nation had reached investment grade.
■NEW ZEALAND
GDP shows slight growth
New Zealand showed signs of emerging from recession yesterday but officials said growth was so slight it did not mark a definite turning point in the economy. Statistics New Zealand said GDP rose less than 0.1 percent in the three months to June following five quarters of contraction. Finance Minister Bill English said the data showed the economy was stabilizing, but the country remained well short of a strong recovery that would lead to sustainable jobs and growth. For the year to the end of June, the economy shrank 1.8 percent, compared with 2.5 percent growth in the year ending in June last year. It marks the biggest annual decline in economic activity since 1987.
■COMPUTING
IBM to launch software
International Business Machines Corp (IBM), the world’s largest computer-service provider, is introducing its first software for netbooks, tapping into the growing market for the scaled-down laptops. The software, called the IBM Smart Work Client, will run on so-called open-sourced Linux programs instead of Microsoft Corp’s Windows, the company said yesterday in a statement. Armonk, New York-based IBM said it will start selling the software in Africa and then expand to other emerging markets.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
CALL FOR DIALOGUE: The president-elect urged Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s ‘democratically elected and legitimate government’ to promote peace President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday named the new heads of security and cross-strait affairs to take office after his inauguration on May 20, including National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to be the new defense minister and former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) as minister of foreign affairs. While Koo is to head the Ministry of National Defense and presidential aide Lin is to take over as minister of foreign affairs, Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) would be retained as the nation’s intelligence chief, continuing to serve as director-general of the National Security Bureau, Lai told a news conference in Taipei. Koo,
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues