AUTOMAKERS
Toyota still world No. 1
Toyota Motor Corp’s global sales for the first nine months of the year reached 7.41 million vehicles, little changed from the previous year but outpacing General Motors (GM) to keep its lead as the world’s top-selling automaker. Detroit-based GM said earlier this month that its global sales for January through last month totaled 7.25 million vehicles, up 4.6 percent from a year earlier. Toyota’s vehicle sales for the first three quarters inched up 0.1 percent. Toyota said yesterday that it sold about 2.5 million cars, trucks and buses in the July-to-September quarter, led by overseas growth.
DIAMONDS
Alrosa to raise US$1.3bn
Russian state-owned diamond miner Alrosa expects to raise US$1.3 billion in a share sale, a figure at the bottom of a previously announced range, in a government privatization drive that has been hit by delays and weak investor sentiment. Market sources said US investors, including asset management group Lazard, were the biggest buyers of the shares, purchasing up to 60 percent of the 14 percent stake in Alrosa, which vies with Anglo American-owned De Beers as for the mantle of the world’s largest diamond miner. Alrosa’s offer price of 35 roubles per share puts the company’s market capitalization at 258 billion roubles (US$8.12 billion). It had been pegged at between 35 roubles and 38 roubles a share.
INTERNET
Sohu profit falls 20 percent
Sohu.com Inc (搜狐), operator of a popular Chinese Web portal, said yesterday its quarterly profit fell 20 percent due to higher expenses, but revenues rose. Sohu said it earned US$41 million in the three months ended Sept. 30 compared with US$51.5 million a year earlier. Revenues rose 29 percent over a year earlier to US$368 million. Profits were squeezed by a 53 percent rise in operating expenses due to more staff and higher costs for marketing, especially for mobile products and online games.
GREEN ENERGY
JAG to build 13MW station
JAG Energy Co, a unit of Japan Asia Group Ltd, will build a 13 megawatt solar power station in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo.Construction will start in February and be completed in March 2015, Tokyo-based Japan Asia Group said in a statement yesterday. No financial terms were disclosed. Toshiba Corp will supply solar panels and electricity generated at the plant will be sold to Tokyo Electric Power Co, according to the statement.
CURRENCY
Russia cuts gold reserves
Russia reduced gold reserves for the first time in a year last month as Mexico cut holdings for a 17th straight month, according to IMF data. Russian reserves declined about 0.37 tonnes to 1,015.1 tonnes, while Canada’s holdings fell to 3 tonnes last month from 3.1 tonnes, and Mexico’s lost 0.1 tonne to 123.5 tonnes, the IMF data showed. Central-bank gold purchases may total 350 tonnes this year, the World Gold Council predicts, after they added 534.6 tonnes last year, the most since 1964.
INVESTMENT
G4S rejects US$2.5bn offer
G4S said it had rejected a ￡1.55 billion (US$2.5 billion) offer for its cash solutions business from British private equity group Charterhouse Capital Partners, saying the bid undervalued the unit. The company, the world’s largest security services firm, said yesterday that the nature and timing of the non-binding offer, which was made by the group on Tuesday last week, was “highly opportunistic.”
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
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