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.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investment project in Arizona has progressed better than expected, but it still faces challenges such as water and labor shortages, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said yesterday. Speaking with reporters after visiting TSMC’s Arizona hub and attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Maryland last week, Yeh said TSMC’s Arizona site turned a profit of NT$16.14 billion (US$514 million) last year in its first full year of mass production. “TSMC told me it was surprised by the smooth trial run of the first fab, which has left the company optimistic about the project’s outlook,”
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