South Korea’s POSCO, Asia’s third-biggest steelmaker by output, scrapped a plan to build a mill in the southern Indian state of Karnataka because of delays in getting mining rights and purchasing land.
The South Korean steelmaker agreed with the Indian state to pull out of the project, the Pohang-based company said in a regulatory filing yesterday.
Both parties signed an initial agreement for the 323 billion rupee (US$5.44 billion) integrated mill project in June 2010.
SLOWDOWN
The decision came at a time when steelmakers globally are suffering from falling profitability amid the economic slowdown. POSCO, South Korea’s biggest steelmaker, in April reported a worse-than-estimated profit for the first quarter as slow demand depressed prices. Second-quarter earnings are due on Thursday next week.
Separately, the South Korean company’s proposed US$12 billion project in the eastern state of Orissa has also been delayed by eight years because farmers had refused to vacate government-owned land they occupied for generations.
WAITING GAME
POSCO is waiting to hear from the state government, which has said it has completed land acquisition for the mill, POSCO’s India unit spokesman I.G. Lee said in a telephone interview from New Delhi yesterday.
In March, a bomb explosion in a village in Orissa state killed three people involved in protests against the project. The village has been the epicenter of protests since POSCO signed a pact with the state government in 2005 for the plant.
Local residents say the planned steel mill — touted as India’s biggest single foreign direct investment — would interfere with their traditional forest-based livelihoods and uproot them from their homes.
TEST CASE
The Posco deal in Orissa state has been watched as a test case by foreign investors eager to enter India’s fast-growing economy, but wary of the potential for environmental and other concerns to derail their plans.
The company’s shares fell 1 percent to 310,000 won in Seoul trading at 2:29pm local time, compared with a 0.6 percent drop in the local benchmark KOSPI index. The stock has lost 11 percent this year, underperforming a 6.7 percent decline in the KOSPI.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
TECH CLUSTER: The US company’s new office is in the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City, a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan US chip designer Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) yesterday launched an office in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), marking a significant milestone in the development of southern Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Tainan City Government said in a statement. AMD Taiwan general manager Vincent Chern (陳民皓) presided over the opening ceremony for the company’s new office at the Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City (沙崙智慧綠能科學城), a new AI industry base and cybersecurity hub in southern Taiwan. Facilities in the new office include an information processing center, and a research and development (R&D) center, the Tainan Economic Development Bureau said. The Ministry
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
RSS