ELECTRONICS
Samsung, Sumitomo partner
South Korea’s Samsung LED and Japan’s Sumitomo Chemical Co said yesterday they would form a joint venture to produce sapphire wafers, a key material in the manufacture of flat-screen electronic displays. The 50-50 joint venture will be capitalized at 80 billion won (US$72 million) and start production of sapphire ingots and wafers from early next year, Samsung LED said in a statement. The company, an affiliate of Samsung Electronics Co, said the deal is expected to help it secure supplies and meet the rising demand for LEDs. The deal comes amid market concern about a global shortage of wafers after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Research firm IHS iSuppli said the disaster led to the suspension of a quarter of the global production of silicon wafers, which are used to make semiconductors.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Japan stops loan for bridge
Japan has put on hold a promised US$400 million loan for a river bridge in Bangladesh, as it focuses instead on reconstruction at home following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a senior Bangladeshi official said yesterday. The loan agreement with Japan was scheduled to be signed this month, Musharraf said, but it was not now clear when this might be possible. The Japanese government was part of an international consortium, led by the World Bank, that agreed last year to lend Bangladesh up to US$2.9 billion for the 6km multipurpose bridge over the Padma River. Musharraf said the project would go ahead as planned despite the delay over the Japanese loan.
BANKING
Bank shuts off Tokyo ATMs
Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd will shorten cash machine hours and suspend service at some ATMs in Tokyo and surrounding prefectures due to ongoing power shortages. The bank will operate cash machines from 8am to 7pm, and suspend some machines outside of its branches. Convenience store cash machines will operate as normal. The changes will start on April 4, the company said in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
FINANCE
Citi posts loss in Japan
Citigroup Inc’s Japanese investment banking and consumer finance business posted a loss for a third straight year last year, led by a decline in underwriting fees and brokerage commissions. Citigroup Japan Holdings Corp’s loss narrowed to ￥71.8 billion (US$878 million) for the year ended on Dec. 31 from ￥391.6 billion in 2009, it said in a statement filed yesterday to the Ministry of Finance in Tokyo. Total revenue fell 61 percent to ￥135.4 billion after the bank sold its Nikko Cordial Securities Inc brokerage unit and part of its investment banking business to Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc in 2009.
ELECTRONICS
Philips foresees major loss
Royal Philips Electronics NV predicted a first-quarter deficit from its television division close to the loss the unit had in all of last year, raising pressure on the incoming chief executive officer to fix the business. The loss will be 100 million euros (US$155 million) to 120 million euros, Philips said in a statement yesterday. Last year, Philips lost 130 million euros from televisions. Philips attributed the loss to pricing pressure. Philips will likely fail to break even with the business for a second straight year, it said. The television subsidiary has suffered as Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp cut prices to combat local Chinese suppliers, and Philips has sought to limit losses by farming out some production.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
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