Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto yesterday posted a 125 percent jump in its first-half earnings to US$5.8 billion, citing recovery in its key markets.
Chief executive Tom Albanese said the results were a first-half record.
“We’ve reaped the benefits of the cost reduction efforts implemented in 2009 and we have been pushing our production hard to benefit from a strong pricing environment, leading to record first-half cash flows,” he said in a statement.
Rio said its relationship with China was a critical one, but warned that despite predictions of global economic growth this year and next, the economy “will be volatile.”
“Developing our relationship with China is a key priority for Rio Tinto,” chairman Jan du Plessis said.
He said the “outstanding” first-half performance was because of higher commodity prices, which added US$3.77 billion to underlying earnings compared with the same period last year. Du Plessis also attributed the results to cost reduction efforts, which slashed Rio Tinto’s net debt to US$12 billion from US$39 billion in June last year.
Rio said it had renewed its focus on growth, with US$3 billion approved since January for projects including the expansion of Western Australia iron ore operations and a joint venture with Chinalco at the Simandou iron project in Guinea.
“Growth is the first priority for our cash flows,” said Albanese, noting expansions or development underway in Canada, the US and Mongolia.
Chinese growth is tipped to be 9 percent, with “positive implications for metals and minerals markets,” but Albanese warned that “economic conditions on a global scale will be volatile” for the next 18 months.
“Our longer-term view remains that industrialization and urbanization, followed by India, will drive robust commodity demand growth,” Albanese said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS