■ENERGY
Taipower touts green effort
Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower, 台電) plan to give discounts to those who conserve electricity has borne fruit, the state-owned company said yesterday. Since the incentive measures were introduced in July 2008, the public had conserved 7.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity — 2.593 billion in 2008, 3.756 billion last year and 984 million in the first four months of this year. Under the incentive plan, if residents use less electricity over a two-month period than they did during the same period the previous year, the company charges them a discounted rate. The conservation efforts cut electricity fees by NT$24.94 billion (US$785 million), an average of NT$2,010 for each of Taiwan’s 12.41 million households. Taipower also cut its fuel costs by NT$28.958 billion and carbon dioxide emissions by 4.66 million tonnes during the period.
■MINING
Billiton-Rio merger in doubt
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto might re-evaluate plans to merge their Western Australian iron ore operations if an agreement is not reached by the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal said yesterday. It reported BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers as saying that said the deal’s completion was hampered by a proposed new Australian tax on mining profits. “I still want to do it,” the Journal quoted Kloppers as saying on Friday. “We have many hurdles to jump through, and the tax brings in uncertainty.” The new 40 percent resource rent tax has angered the mining industry generally and sparked talk among some of reconsidering Australian projects.
■AUTOMOBILES
Daimler might exit NYSE
German car maker Daimler AG wants to pull its shares off the New York Stock Exchange because of low trading volume and to reduce the complexity of its financial reports, the company said on Friday. Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz and Smart automobiles and one-time owner of Chrysler, told the stock exchange of its intentions on Friday, and has applied to delist with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, spokesman Han Tjan said. Normally it takes about 10 business days from the application date for shares to be removed from the exchange, Tjan said.
■AVIATION
EasyJet founder resigns
EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou has resigned from the airline’s board, the British group announced on Friday, amid a row over strategy. He was joined in stepping down from the board by fellow non-executive director Bob Rothenberg. “The stated reason for their resignation is that Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou wishes to gain greater freedom to exercise EasyGroup’s rights as a shareholder in the company to seek a change in the company’s strategy,” EasyJet said in a statement.
■EUROZONE
Spain considers tax hike
Spain’s government, under pressure from markets and its EU partners, said on Friday that it is considering taxes hikes to help slash the public deficit, in addition to other unpopular measures already announced. “We are considering the situation, and we don’t rule out anything,” Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said in reply to a question about the possibility of a tax increase. The remark came after Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Wednesday announced a 15-billion-euro austerity package, including a 5 percent pay cut for civil servants.
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Japan approved ￥631.5 billion (US$3.97 billion) in additional subsidies to hasten Rapidus Corp’s entry into the high-stakes artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaking arena, ramping up support for a project widely regarded as a long shot. The capital is intended to bankroll Rapidus’ work for information technology firm Fujitsu Ltd, one of the initial customers that Tokyo hopes would get the signature endeavor off the ground. The new money raises the fees and investments that the government is injecting into the start-up to ￥2.6 trillion by the end of the current fiscal year to March next year, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and
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