■ Plastics
Nan Ya teams up with PPG
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) plans to team up with PPG Industries Inc of the US to build a NT$3 billion (US$89 million) glass fiber kiln in China, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported, citing Nan Ya executive vice president Wu Chia-chau (吳嘉昭). The plant will have annual capacity of 33,000 tonnes, making it the biggest in the world, supplying the material used in circuit boards of electronic products, the paper said. PPG Industries will provide the technology and Nan Ya will be in charge of production and operations, the paper said. Nan Ya, based in Taipei, is Taiwan's biggest plastics maker. Pittsburgh-based PPG Industries, the world's No. 2 maker of car paint, makes protective coatings, flat glass, fiber glass products and specialty chemicals.
■ Regulation
Halliburton investigated
Halliburton Co said Friday its involvement in a Nigerian gas plant project had become the subject of a formal inquiry by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. French prosecutors are already combing through the details of Halliburton's involvement in the plant, the US oil services group said.The investigation is focused on whether a Halliburton joint venture broke US anti-bribery laws in order to win construction contracts for the gas plant. US Vice President Richard Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive officer between 1995 and 2000. The company is already being investigated by the US government amid allegations it overcharged the military for fuel delivered to Iraq.
■ Economic Policy
Zimbabwe's inflation drops
Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate slowed slightly to 448.8 percent last month from 505 percent the previous month, officials figures showed yesterday. Despite the drop in the rate cited by the state news agency ZIANA, inflation in Zimbabwe remains among the highest in the world. Zimbabwe's inflation peaked in November last year to hit 619.5 percent having leapt some 94 percentage points from the previous month making it the single largest jump since the economy began its slide some three years ago. The government in November last year predicted that the southern African country's inflation rate would hit 700 percent in the first three months of this year before climbing down.
■ Financial Aid
Jordan wants Marshall Plan
Jordan's King Abdullah II wants a program for the Middle East modeled after the Marshall Plan, which is credited with saving postwar Europe from economic and political disarray. In an address Friday to business leaders, the king said he had approached US leaders about such a project before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "The plan is needed now more than ever, to give people hope and offer them an alternative to hate and division," he told 500 people at a hotel in downtown Chicago. "I'm talking about a Marshall Plan, as it were, for the recovery of the Middle East." Abdullah didn't say if the US alone should take part in putting together such a plan, nor did he say how much it might cost. The four-year Marshall Plan cost US$13 billion (about US$100 billion in today's dollars) and helped rebuild Germany as well as 14 other war-damaged European nations after World War II.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
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