AUTOMAKERS
Union leader joins GM board
General Motors Co (GM) has named a union leader to its board of directors, a first for the US automaker and a rarity in US business. GM, which is paying a heavy price for the delayed recall of vehicles linked to 13 deaths, just published its worst quarterly results since emerging from bankruptcy just more than three years ago. In a statement on Friday evening, it said it was nominating United Auto Workers vice president Joe Ashton to its 12-member board. Ashton, who will represent GM’s employee pension fund, was expected to resign from his union position in June. If his nomination is approved by shareholders, he will begin his board term in August.
AUSTRALIA
State mulls power grid sale
New South Wales will consider selling its electricity network, a transaction analysts estimate could raise US$32 billion, to help fund infrastructure projects. “That is something the Cabinet and the government will consider,” New South Wales Premier Mike Baird said in an interview on Sky News in Australia yesterday. “Building the infrastructure is probably the critical issue we face.” The model of selling state assets to fund projects needed by local communities was “very compelling,” Baird said. There is a huge amount of the state’s capital tied up in the electricity network, he said.
TOBACCO
Packaging could break rules
Attempts by tobacco-producing nations to sink Australia’s landmark plain packaging law for cigarettes and cigars picked up pace on Friday, as WTO members approved a broad probe into whether Canberra has broken the rules of global commerce. Australia could learn by the end of the year whether its rules, which are widely praised by anti-smoking campaigners, fall foul of international trademark law. After facing off in Friday’s closed-door meeting of the WTO’s dispute settlement body, Australia and its adversaries — Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia and Ukraine — agreed to fold five separate challenges into a single case, sources said.
OIL
Iraq short of target
Iraq has exported an average of 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil so far this month, more than last month, but still well short of its this year’s target, due in part to repeated sabotage of a northern pipeline. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani on Saturday said exports could have reached 3.2 million bpd without the damage, and if Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region had pumped its share of oil. Iraq set an export target of 3.4 million bpd for this year, including 400,000 bpd from Kurdistan, which has not exported any oil via state infrastructure for more than one year, due to a row with Baghdad over resource rights and revenue sharing.
TRADE
UN lifts diamond embargo
The UN Security Council is set to lift a nearly decade-old embargo on Ivory Coast’s international diamond trade and plans to relax its arms embargo there, diplomats said on Friday. The 15 members of the council are set to vote on the resolution tomorrow, and they “are completely united” on the issue, one diplomat said. The diamond embargo was declared in 2005 because the stones were helping fund the Forces Nouvelles rebels that controlled the north of the country after a failed coup attempt in 2002 against then-Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo.
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km
NEXT GENERATION: The company also showcased automated machines, including a nursing robot called Nurabot, which is to enter service at a Taichung hospital this year Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) expects server revenue to exceed its iPhone revenue within two years, with the possibility of achieving this goal as early as this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said on Tuesday at Nvidia Corp’s annual technology conference in San Jose, California. AI would be the primary focus this year for the company, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), as rapidly advancing AI applications are driving up demand for AI servers, Liu said. The production and shipment of Nvidia’s GB200 chips and the anticipated launch of GB300 chips in the second half of the year would propel
‘MAKE OR BREAK’: Nvidia shares remain down more than 9 percent, but investors are hoping CEO Jensen Huang’s speech can stave off fears that the sales boom is peaking Shares in Nvidia Corp’s Taiwanese suppliers mostly closed higher yesterday on hopes that the US artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer would showcase next-generation technologies at its annual AI conference slated to open later in the day. The GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in California is to feature developers, engineers, researchers, inventors and information technology professionals, and would focus on AI, computer graphics, data science, machine learning and autonomous machines. The event comes at a make-or-break moment for the firm, as it heads into the next few quarters, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech today seen as having the ability to
WAIT-AND-SEE: Last month’s consumer price index came in at 2.8%, which boosts expectations that the Fed would proceed cautiously to lower inflation sustainably The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to keep interest rates unchanged at its policy meeting this week, treading carefully amid uncertainty over US President Donald Trump’s economic policies, which include spending cuts and sweeping tariffs. Since January, Trump has imposed levies on major trading partners Canada, Mexico and China, and on steel and aluminum imports, roiling financial markets and fanning fears that his plans could tip the world’s biggest economy into a recession. The Trump administration has also embarked on unprecedented cost-cutting efforts that target staff and spending, while the US president has promised tax reductions and deregulation down the road. However,
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