AUTOMAKERS
Toyota cuts assembly target
Toyota Motor Corp cut its global production target for next month by about 15 percent as a shortage of parts continues to weigh on the world’s No. 1 automaker. The Japanese company had initially planned to make 1 million vehicles next month, but now expects to produce only about 850,000 to 900,000 units, it said in a statement yesterday. “This adjustment will affect approximately 50,000 units in Japan, and between 50,000 units and 100,000 units overseas,” Toyota said. However, Toyota’s full-year production target of 9 million vehicles for the 12 months ending March 31 next year will be maintained “due to the easing of restrictions on COVID-19 in Southeast Asia,” it said.
EUROPE
US urged to drop tariffs
French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire said the US must drop trade tariffs against European countries over digital levies after all sides joined a global agreement on overhauling international taxation. Le Maire said he has made a political commitment to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to abolish France’s levy on digital firms as soon as the new rules on sharing rights to tax profits of multinationals come into effect. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which oversaw the global negotiations, has said it aims for implementation of the deal as soon as 2023. Other European countries have made similar commitments, yet the US has not offered a guarantee that it would drop its threat to retaliate against national levies, Le Maire said.
ELECTRONICS
S Korean law tests Apple
Apple Inc was on a collision course with South Korea yesterday over new requirements that it stop forcing app developers to use its payment systems, with a government official warning of a possible investigation into the iPhone maker’s compliance. The development comes after South Korea amended the Telecommunication Business Act in August to curb the tech majors’ market dominance and stop the big app store operators such as Apple and Alphabet Inc’s Google from charging commissions on in-app purchases. The law went into effect last month, but Apple had told the South Korean government that it was already complying and did not need to change its app store policy, a South Korean official in charge of the matter said. The regulator plans to ask Apple’s South Korean unit to provide greater autonomy in payment methods, and if Apple failed to comply, would consider measures such as a fact-finding probe as a precursor to possible fines or other penalties.
ENERGY
Gas boosts Norway surplus
Norway’s trade surplus rose last month to a record level thanks to soaring revenues from selling gas from its offshore fields, its national statistics agency data showed yesterday. With a daily output of about 4 million barrels of oil equivalent, almost equally divided between oil and natural gas, Norway has been among the winners from an ongoing spike in global energy prices. The trade surplus for last month rose 28 percent from August to US$6.39 billion, the highest on record, with 61 percent of Norway’s overall exports coming from petroleum, the data showed. Norway supplied 22 percent of the natural gas consumed in the EU last year, second only to Russia’s 34 percent market share, the data showed. The overall value of Norway’s gas exports stood at US$5.8 billion for last month.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
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