AUTOMAKERS
Jose Munoz leaves Nissan
Nissan Motor Co chief performance officer Jose Munoz, who took a leave of absence a week ago, has resigned, the first high-profile departure at the Japanese automaker publicly acknowledged as related to the arrest of former chairman Carlos Ghosn. Munoz said in a statement on LinkedIn yesterday that he made the decision after serious thinking, because the company was “involved in matters that have and will continue to divert its focus,” referring to Ghosn’s case. Nissan confirmed the resignation, effective immediately.
CHINA
Premier explains tax cuts
Tax cuts for smaller companies are mainly intended to support employment and ensure economic stability, Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) was quoted as saying in a statement posted to the government’s Web site yesterday. The State Council, or cabinet, anounced on Wednesday that it would further reduce taxes for smaller companies.
AVIATION
Vietnamese carrier launches
Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways, after repeated delays, is to start commercial flights on Wednesday, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The carrier set minimum ticket prices at 149,000 dong (US$6.39) each. The carrier would initially operate 37 domestic routes, the company said in a separate statement. Bamboo Airways would also launch international flights to Asian countries this year, starting with Japan, Korea and Singapore, it said.
TOURISM
Portugal mulls Brexit plan
Portugal wants to exempt British tourists, a major revenue source, from entry visa requirements if Britain crashes out of the EU without a negotiated deal, Lisbon said on Friday. “We are working ... on creating obstacle-free corridors that will allow fluidity for British citizens entering the national territory” at airports, Portuguese Minister of the Interior Eduardo Cabrita told reporters. About 2.6 million British tourists fly into Portugal every year, and many retire there. Lisbon has urged Britons living in Portugal to register at their town halls before March 29, the day Britain is due to leave the European bloc.
BANKING
BNP to shut trading arm
BNP Paribas SA, the biggest French bank, is shuttering its 2.5 billion euro (US$2.87 billion) proprietary trading arm, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Opera Trading Capital division of the lender, which makes risky bets with shareholders’ funds, struggled to make a profit last year amid market volatility, one of the people said. BNP Paribas has told its employees and begun informing prime brokers and counterparties about the plan, the people said.
INTERNET
German HuffPost to close
The German version of the news and views Web site HuffPost is shutting down. German publisher BurdaForward on Friday said that HuffPost Deutschland would cease operations on March 31. BurdaForward had licensed the German version of the site in 2013, running its news and revenue streams. The firm said it was ending its cooperation with HuffPost “because the partners are now pursuing different business strategies.”
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
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