Beijing has fined the Chinese unit of General Motors Co (GM) nearly US$29 million for “infringing on the rights of consumers and its competitors” via price-fixing, Shanghai authorities said.
SAIC-GM Co Ltd (上汽通用汽車) — a joint venture between the US company and the state-owned SAIC Motor Corp (上海汽車), China’s biggest automaker by production volume — has been ordered to cough up 201 million yuan (US$28.94 million), representing about 4 percent of its sales in China last year, Shanghai’s top development and economic reform body said on their Web site on Friday.
“The fine is fair. We just aim to improve market order,” the state-owned China Daily newspaper cited Xu Xinyu (徐新宇), the official in charge of the GM investigation, as saying.
“SAIC-GM will respect the views of the National Development and Reform Commission,” a spokesperson from the company said on Friday, according to Chinese-language Web site Today’s Economic News.
It is the second time in weeks China has slapped a multi-million dollar fine on a US company for alleged monopolistic pricing behavior, the paper added.
Earlier this month, the country’s top economic regulator issued a 119 million yuan fine to Medtronic Inc, a US supplier of high-end medical devices.
As of Friday, China has issued 2.25 billion yuan in fines to automakers since 2014, according to the China Daily.
The penalty comes in the midst of a war of words between US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese media, after the billionaire Republican businessman suggested he might reject the “one China” policy unless Beijing makes concessions on trade and other matters.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has also repeatedly threatened to slap 45 percent tariffs on Chinese exports to the US.
He has picked outspoken China critic Peter Navarro to head the White House National Trade Council, a new office that is to oversee trade and industrial policy — leading Chinese media reports on Friday to state that Beijing ought to prepare for a trade war.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
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