GERMANY
Business confidence drops
Business confidence deteriorated again this month, the Ifo economic research institute said in Munich yesterday, but the decline was not as steep as expected. The monthly Ifo business climate index fell to 107.5 points this month from 108.7 points last month, while economists had been penciling in a steeper decline to 106.5 points. Nevertheless, the index is still at its lowest level since June last year, when it stood at 106.4 points.
AUTOMOBILES
Toyota launches minicar
Toyota is selling its first minicar in Japan as demand increases for the tiny fuel-efficient vehicles. Toyota Motor Corp, Japan’s top automaker, launched the tiny Pixis Space minivehicle, manufactured by group company Daihatsu Motor Co, yesterday. Minivehicles, or kei, are defined under Japanese regulations as having maximum length of 3.4m, width of 1.48m, height of 2m and engine displacement of less than 660cc.
AUTOMOBILES
Honda unveils engine
Honda Motor yesterday unveiled a new motorbike engine that it claims is 40 percent more efficient than those currently available. The 700cc, four-stroke, two-cylinder engine, a size popular in Europe, can do about 27 kilometers per liter of fuel, the company said, making it the best in the 500cc to 750cc mid-range class. The new engine will be installed in three models to be displayed at an international motorcycle exhibition in November in Milan, Italy.
VIETNAM
GDP growth drops off
GDP grew at a slower pace in the first nine months of this year compared with the same period a year ago amid high inflation and a trade deficit. The government’s General Statistics Office said yesterday that the country’s economy has maintained “reasonable” growth at 5.7 percent. Economic growth in the first nine months of last year was 6.5 percent. Inflation in the first nine months of this year surged to 18 percent from 8.6 percent a year earlier. The trade deficit stood at US$6.9 billion, down from US$8.5 billion a year ago.
ENERGY
Hayward leaves position
Tony Hayward, the former head of BP who stepped down after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill catastrophe, is leaving his post on the board of its Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, the company said yesterday. Hayward, who came under huge criticism for his role in the clean-up of the oil spill, took on the role at TNK-BP as a BP-appointed director in July last year when Robert Dudley took over as head of BP. TNK-BP is owned 50 percent by BP and 50 percent by a group of Russian billionaires.
ENERGY
Chevron pushes for LNG
Chevron Corp, the second-largest US oil company, will proceed with its A$29 billion (US$28 billion) Wheatstone liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Western Australia to export the fuel to Asia. Construction is expected to start immediately and production is scheduled to begin in 2016, San Ramon, California-based Chevron said yesterday in a statement. Talks with more potential customers for Wheatstone are continuing, Chevron said. Wheatstone will initially produce 8.9 million tonnes of the fuel a year from two processing units, or trains, Chevron has said. The project may eventually produce as much as 25 million tonnes of LNG annually, it said.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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