STEEL
POSCO’s Q3 profit falls
South Korea’s top steelmaker, POSCO, reported an 8.6 percent fall in third-quarter net profit yesterday, blaming the higher cost of raw materials. Net profit for July to last month fell to 1.044 trillion won (US$923 million) from 1.142 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Operating profit rose 9.1 percent to 1.111 trillion won year-on-year, while sales were up 24 percent at 8.524 trillion won. “Higher raw materials costs restricted operating profit so we will focus on reducing input costs further,” the steelmaker said in a statement.
ELECTRONICS
India grants RIM extension
India has given BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) an extended deadline of Jan. 31 to provide its intelligence agencies a way of accessing all its services, a report said yesterday. Citing a home ministry note, the Economic Times newspaper said the government had decided to extend the original Oct. 31 deadline by 90 days. It will be RIM’s third reprieve as it seeks to end a three-year standoff with the Indian security agencies which have threatened to shut down services offered on its handsets unless they are given access to secure, encrypted data.
INDIA
Industrial output rises 5.6%
India’s industrial output rose just 5.6 percent year-on-year in August, a sharp decline from a revised 15.2 percent surge the previous month, official data showed yesterday. The figure was well below economists’ forecasts of a 9.9 percent expansion in output and the 10.6 percent growth posted in August last year. Manufacturing, which has an 80 percent weight in the industrial output index, grew 5.9 percent, compared with 10.6 percent in August last year, the federal statistics office said in a statement.
JAPAN
Confidence index drops
Japanese household sentiment slid for a third month last month, adding to signs of a slowdown in domestic demand. The confidence index dropped to 41.2 from 42.4 in August, the Cabinet Office said yesterday in Tokyo. A number blow 50 means pessimists outnumber optimists. The report underscores concern that personal consumption will slow in the coming months as government stimulus measures aimed at encouraging consumers to buy cars and electronics fade.
COMMODITIES
China to resume oil imports
An Argentine official said Monday that China had agreed to lift its suspension of soybean oil imports from the South American nation. “We have information that [the Chinese] are going to allow Argentine shipments of soybean oil,” Argentine Agriculture Minister Julian Dominguez told the state news agency Telam. China halted oil shipments in April of the commodity. Officials never provided an explanation for the suspension, but said it was related to Chinese health concerns.
PETROCHEMICALS
IPO could raise US$4bn
Petronas Chemicals Bhd, the petrochemicals unit of Malaysia’s state oil company, may raise as much as US$4 billion in the Southeast Asian nation’s biggest initial public offer (IPO), said two people familiar with the matter. Banks advising on the sale set an indicative price of 5.20 ringgit (US$1.67) per share, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The company had originally planned to raise about US$2 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said in June.
Taiwan will prioritize the development of silicon photonics by taking advantage of its strength in the semiconductor industry to build another shield to protect the local economy, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said yesterday. Speaking at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee, Liu said Taiwan already has the artificial intelligence (AI) industry as a shield, after the semiconductor industry, to safeguard the country, and is looking at new unique fields to build more economic shields. While Taiwan will further strengthen its existing shields, over the longer term, the country is determined to focus on such potential segments as
UNCERTAINTY: Innolux activated a stringent supply chain management mechanism, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure optimal inventory levels for customers Flat-panel display makers AUO Corp (友達) and Innolux Corp (群創) yesterday said that about 12 to 20 percent of their display business is at risk of potential US tariffs and that they would relocate production or shipment destinations to mitigate the levies’ effects. US tariffs would have a direct impact of US$200 million on AUO’s revenue, company chairman Paul Peng (彭雙浪) told reporters on the sidelines of the Touch Taiwan trade show in Taipei yesterday. That would make up about 12 percent of the company’s overall revenue. To cope with the tariff uncertainty, AUO plans to allocate its production to manufacturing facilities in
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS