■ Petroleum
Coffee coming to CPC
Europe's largest coffee shop chain Cup&Cino will open coffee shops at the petrol stations of China Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油), a newspaper said yesterday. "Under the contract, Cup&Cino will open coffee outlets at six CPC petrol stations, charging NT$40 (US$1) per cup of coffee," the Apple Daily reported. "The six Cup&Cino coffee shops are all in Taipei City. Soon Cup&Cino coffee shops will appear at CPC petrol stations in suburban Taipei. Besides selling coffee, they will also sell six kinds of foods such as sandwiches or bagels," Apple Daily quoted CPC official Hsu Song-poh as saying. CPC, Taiwan's petro-chemical monopoly, operates 1,700 petrol stations across the country. Cup&Cino Kaffeesysteme GmbH & Co KG is based in Hovelhof, Germany. It is the largest coffee shop chain in Europe and has already expanded outside Europe.
■ Electronics
Matsushita plans cost cuts
Japanese consumer electronics giant Matsushita aims to cut procurement costs by 10.5 percent in a bid to boost competitiveness against Asian rivals, a report said yesterday. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, better known through its Panasonic and National brands, would reduce costs to ¥72 trillion (US$34 billion) from its earlier estimate of ¥15 trillion in the fiscal year ending March next year, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. Overhauling parts and materials procurement costs is part of Matsushita's effort to improve its cost-competitiveness against Asian high-tech makers, the daily said. The company plans to do so by jointly buying parts and materials with Matsushita Electric Works Ltd, a building materials and lighting equipment maker, which became a group subsidiary in April, it said.
■ Shipping
US rejects foreign ships
The US Coast Guard said Friday that 20 foreign-flagged vessels calling on US ports did not meet international security rules that took effect on Thursday. A total of 228 foreign vessels arrived in the US on Thursday. The Coast Guard did not disclose how many have called on US ports since then. Foreign ships must have a signed certificate from their flag country that says they comply with the new standards aimed at foiling terrorists. The Coast Guard boarded and inspected 123 foreign ships on Thursday to check identification and make sure they met new requirements, such as having working alarm systems. The 20 that failed the security test were denied entry, detained or ordered to leave port.
■ Airlines
SIA ready to buy 7E7s
Singapore Airlines (SIA) is in the "final stages" of negotiations with aerospace giant Boeing for the purchase of 7E7 "Dreamliner" aircraft, a senior Boeing executive told The Business Times in remarks published yesterday. Mike Bair, senior vice-president of Boeing's 7E7 programme, said that SIA has expressed interest in purchasing the 7E7-3 and 7E7-8 models. "I expect them to make a decision by August," Bair was quoted as saying. "We have laid down the black and white for SIA, and it is now up to them to make a decision." The 7E7 is the first new airliner that Boeing has introduced since the 777 models in the early 1990s. The US-based Boeing said the company is in talks with more than 30 airlines which could amount to more than 600 orders.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
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