SOUTH KOREA
Inflation eases, but still high
Inflation last month eased from the previous month, but stayed above the central bank’s target range for the ninth straight month, official figures showed yesterday. The consumer price index rose 4.3 percent last month compared with a year earlier, a marked slowdown from the 5.3 percent year-on-year increase in August, which was the largest rise in three years. However, last month’s figure still surpassed the central bank’s 2 to 4 percent target range, in a sign of continuing price pressures. Core inflation, which excludes volatile oil and food costs, rose 3.9 percent last month from a year earlier, down slightly from 4 percent in August.
MINING
Hanlong to buy Sundance
Chinese firm Hanlong Mining (漢龍礦業) yesterday announced it had reached an agreement to buy Australia’s Sundance Resources, after sweetening its offer to A$1.65 billion (US$1.57 billion). Hanlong made a A$0.50 per share bid in July to take over Perth-based Sundance, an iron ore, copper and gold miner with projects in central Africa. It said yesterday it would acquire 100 percent of Sundance shares after lifting its offer to A$0.57 cash per share. Sundance shares last traded at A$0.43.
ENERGY
Heritage acquires oil stake
British company Heritage Oil PLC has acquired a controlling interest in a Libyan company licensed to provide oil field services, including offshore and land-based drilling. Heritage yesterday said that it paid US$19.5 million for a 51 percent stake in Sahara Oil Services Holdings Ltd. Heritage said the acquisition would allow it to play a significant role in Libya’s oil and gas industry. Sahara Oil Services was established in 2009 and is based in Benghazi. Heritage says it established a base in Benghazi this year and has been dealing with senior members of the National Transitional Council. Heritage CEO Tony Buckingham said his company was now well placed to win exploration and production licenses.
PORTS
London port to open in 2013
Port operator DP World said it planned to open a long-awaited deep-sea port outside London in 2013. The Dubai-based company yesterday vowed to have the first stage of the massive terminal, known as London Gateway, up and running by the fourth quarter of 2013. DP World said it had been working on the port since early last year and would pump another US$1 billion into the project over the next three years. It didn’t say how much it has spent so far. It expects the project to generate a further 700 construction jobs and 300 port jobs in Britain in the coming months. DP World is the world’s third-largest seaport operator. It is part of Dubai’s indebted state conglomerate Dubai World.
AUTOMAKERS
US auto sales up 9.9%
US auto sales rose almost 10 percent last month, allaying concerns of a double-dip recession as major automakers forecast stronger sales through the remainder of the year. Among the Detroit automakers, General Motors’ sales rose 20 percent, while those at Ford Motor and Chrysler group were up 9 percent and 27 percent respectively. However, sales by Japanese makers Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co were down almost 18 percent and 8 percent respectively. Industrywide, auto sales rose 9.9 percent last month from a year earlier. The annualized sales rate hit 13.1 million vehicles, the strongest sales rate since April.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
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