■TRADE
PRC buying group in Taipei
A delegation from China’s Sichuan Province is arriving today to attend a procurement meeting in Taipei tomorrow, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) officials said yesterday. The delegation, led by Sichuan communist party secretary Liu Qibao (劉奇葆), is expected to place orders for agricultural products, consumer products, electrical appliances, flat panels and machinery, TAITRA said in a press release. Officials from 56 Sichuan-based firms will accompany Liu, including Sichuan Changhong Group (四川長虹集團), Chengdu Construction Engineering Corp (成都建築工程集團), Sichuan Changzheng Machine Tool Group (四川長征機床集團), Sichuan Kelun Pharmaceutical Co (四川科倫藥業公司) and Sichuan Yadong Cement Co (四川亞東水泥有限公司).
■CHEMICALS
Sinochem buys Peregrino
Sinochem Group (中國中化), China’s biggest chemicals trader, agreed on Friday to pay US$3 billion to Statoil ASA for 40 percent of the Brazilian offshore Peregrino field. The companies also agreed to jointly seek more opportunities in Brazil and elsewhere, Statoil CEO Helge Lund said. “Both companies see many opportunities for value creation through increased recovery and exploration for additional resources in the decades to come.” Statoil, Norway’s largest oil and natural gas company, said last year it was considering cutting its stake in Peregrino to reduce risk and raise funds to develop other projects.
■INTERNET
Facebook to tighten security
Facebook Inc, owner of the world’s most popular social-networking site, plans to announce changes to privacy settings after users said they wanted simpler ways to manage what information is shared online. The company will introduce the changes “shortly,” it said in an e-mailed statement. The company has been grappling with concerns about privacy after it introduced tools last month that let users recommend products and Web sites to their friends.
■COMPUTERS
HP expands laptop recall
Hewlett-Packard Co (HP) is expanding a voluntary recall of laptops due to the risk of fire from overheating batteries, the company and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Friday. The commission said that since an initial recall in May last year, HP has received additional reports of overheated and ruptured batteries.
■AUTOMOBILES
Ford recalls cars in Brazil
US carmaker Ford on Friday issued a recall of Ka models sold in Brazil because of an electrical defect that posed a fire risk. The recall affected Ka cars made since 2008, Ford said in a statement. That amounted to 155,000 vehicles, according to the National Automobile Dealership Federation. There was a “possibility” of the electrical system coming into contact with the chassis, Ford said.
■BANKING
FDIC settles WaMu case
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) has approved a global settlement of the bankruptcy case involving Washington Mutual Inc (WaMu), one of the largest US banks to fail as a result of the financial crisis. “This agreement will result in substantial recoveries to the receiver and resolve potential claims that could have taken years and millions of dollars to litigate,” FDIC’s general counsel Michael Bradfield said on Friday. WaMu was closed by regulators who orchestrated its sale to JPMorgan Chase on Sept. 25.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
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