■ Automibles
Toyota may now be No. 2
Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday it is too early to say it is now the the world's second largest automaker after the Japanese press reported that it may have overtaken Ford Motor Co in global sales last year. Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said the company will realease its own numbers on Feb. 5 when it announces results for the three months to December. Ford said Thursday that it sold 6.72 million vehicles globally in 2003 while Toyota said last month that it expected sales of 6.78 million vehicles by the company and its subsidiaries Daihatsu and Hino, up 10 percent from 2002. While Ford has struggled to benefit from its acquisition of Sweden's Volvo, Toyota has posted higher profits and plowed them into North America, China and Southeast Asia, boosting output and sales, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. General Motors Corp is the world's top automaker with sales of 8.59 million vehicles last year.
■ Technology
Data storage to grow: IDC
The Asia-Pacific data storage market is expected to grow this year as large enterprises gear up to meet an anticipated economic upturn, a research house study said yesterday. A large number of manufacturing, banking and telecom companies in the region outside Japan have become dependent on storage, especially as they increase their reliance on enterprise resource management (ERM) and security solutions to keep their companies on the cutting edge, according to International Data Corp (IDC). "The largest investment was on data storage," said Robin Giang, IDC's manager of IT investment and strategy research for the Asia-Pacific. "Companies spent US$4 billion on it last year." Any pickup in the data storage segment should benefit Singapore, with a data storage market worth about US$100 million a year, IDC said.
■ Trade
Chile approves S Korea FTA
Chile's Senate has ratified a free trade accord between South Korea and the South American nation. The Senate voted 41-0 on Thursday in favor of the accord, which the two countries signed last year, but asked President Ricardo Lagos to wait for South Korea's Parliament to approve it before signing it into law. Chile's lower congressional house had approved the accord earlier. However, South Korean legislators repeatedly postponed a vote on the treaty because of protests by farmers who fear the lifting of customs duties called for in the treaty would lead to a flood of Chilean farm products. open the door to massive entry of cheaper Chilean farm products into their country. Under the accord, Chile would lift tariffs on South Korean motor vehicles, cellular phones, computers, TV sets and air conditioners.
■ Surveys
CapitaLand most transparent
Singapore's CapitaLand emerged at the top of a list of the Asia-Pacific's most transparent property companies followed by Hong Kong tycoon Robert Kuok's Kerry Properties, a study said yesterday. The list from the National University of Singapore (NUS) focused on management strategies such as the annual report, corporate Web site clarity and analyst coverage. Of the 20 firms ranked most transparent in the region by NUS Professor Liow Kim Hiang, seven are Singapore developers with Keppel Land in third place. Li Ka-Shing's Cheung Kong Holdings in Hong Kong came fourth. Liow said the size of a company can impact its level of transparency.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
A new worry has been rippling across the stock market lately: Entire businesses, not just their employees, might be thrown out of work. While most economists say fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) job apocalypse are overblown, seismic shifts have happened in the past after big tech breakthroughs. The IT revolution of the 1990s led to a surge in productivity that sped up the US economy for several years. It also rendered companies or even industries largely redundant — from travel agents and stockbrokers to classified advertising and newspapers, or video rental stores. Economists expect AI would deliver higher productivity,
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