EUROPE
Trade deal with UK ratified
The European Parliament yesterday voted overwhelmingly to ratify the EU’s post-Brexit trade deal with the UK, but warned London to stick to its commitments, officials said yesterday. The vote ratifies the bare-bones trade deal that was sealed on Christmas Eve last year after nine months of bad-tempered negotiations. It has been in force provisionally since Jan. 1. The deal provides the framework for Britain’s new relationship with the 27-member union, five years after British voters shocked the world by voting to end its 47-year membership. In the final tally, 660 European lawmakers voted in favor of the trade deal, while five voted against the pact, the results showed.
SOUTH KOREA
Samsung heirs to pay tax bill
The family of late Samsung Electronics Co Ltd chairman Lee Kun-hee yesterday said that they would pay more than 12 trillion won (US$10.8 billion) in inheritance tax for his estate and donate his vast private art collection to state curators. Lee, who is credited with transforming Samsung into the world’s largest smartphone and memorychip maker, died on Oct. 25 last year, with an estate local media valued at about 26 trillion won. The inheritance tax bill — one of the largest-ever in South Korea and globally — has been closely watched due to its potential to dilute the family’s controlling stake in Samsung. The family said it planned to pay the bill over five years in six installments, starting this month.
TECHNOLOGY
Huawei revenue shrinks
Huawei Technologies Co’s revenue shrank for a second straight quarter after US sanctions devastated the embattled Chinese technology giant’s smartphone business. Huawei reported a 17 percent decline in sales to 152.2 billion yuan (US$23.5 billion) in the first three months of this year, the company said in a statement. That follows an 11 percent decline in revenue in the fourth quarter last year. Its profit margin rose 3.8 percentage points to 11.1 percent, which translates into net income of 16.9 billion yuan, as the company trimmed costs and received a US$600 million patent license fee.
RETAIL
Sainsbury’s profit falls
British supermarket group Sainsbury’s yesterday reported a 39 percent fall in full-year underlying profit as strong food sales during the COVID-19 pandemic were outweighed by extra costs and a decision to forgo business rates relief. Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second-largest grocer after Tesco PLC, said that it made an underlying pretax profit of ￡356 million (US$494 million) in the year to March 6. Grocery sales rose 7.8 percent and general merchandise sales increased 8.3 percent, but the company said it incurred an extra ￡485 million in costs due to the crisis.
UNITED STATES
Biden taps trade official
US President Joe Biden has selected Celeste Drake, a long-time trade expert from AFL-CIO, to be the first director of his initiative to steer more US federal funds to US manufacturers and producers, a White House official said. Drake would be responsible for ensuring that the federal procurement process rewards US-based businesses, including small companies and minority entrepreneurs. Her office would be based out of the US Office of Management and Budget. Most recently, Drake worked as head of government affairs for the Directors Guild of America, which has more than 18,000 members.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
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