■ Business
Profit margins fall
Top South Korean companies saw their profit margins fall in the past two years due to the won's strength, weakening competitiveness and rising raw material prices, official data showed yesterday. The combined operating margin of the top 30 listed companies dropped from 12 percent in 2004 to 9.4 percent in 2005 and 7.8 percent last year, said the Korea Exchange, which operates both the stock spot and futures markets plus the high-tech KOSDAQ board.
■ Internet
Web police on the hunt
South Korean police said yesterday they are hunting the Internet users who posted pornographic clips that became the most viewed videos on Yahoo Korea. The portal publicly apologized over the clips, posted for more than six hours from late on Sunday on its multimedia service "Yammi." "Our staff failed to notice the obscene video clips for hours until the clips became the two most viewed videos on the site," a spokeswoman for Yahoo Korea said. The cyber crime team at Seoul police said this kind of crime can be punished with up to one year's imprisonment or a 10 million won (US$10,600) fine.
■ Shipping
FedEx to offer new service
US logistics giant FedEx said yesterday it will offer next-business-day domestic express service in China in a bid to take advantage of the country's fast-growing economy. The new service, beginning on May 28, will offer next-day delivery services both within China and around the world. "Up to 90 percent of existing FedEx customers in China have expressed the need for a reliable domestic express service," said Eddy Chan, senior vice president of FedEx China. "This is a strong signal to us that many companies view domestic express service in China as a catalyst for growth and competitiveness in this exploding market."
■ Mergers
ABN in talks with Barclays
ABN Amro Holding NV, the Netherlands' largest bank, said on Monday it was in preliminary talks to be acquired by British bank Barclays PLC. In a statement, ABN said the talks were "exclusive preliminary discussions with Barclays PLC concerning a potential combination of the two organizations." Barclays, which would be the senior partner in a merger, said on Monday that it would update the market on its position toward ABN by yesterday. If it takes place, the deal would be one of the biggest cross-border mergers in European banking history.
■ Securities
China imposes restrictions
China has banned firms flush with new share sale proceeds from investing the money in securities in the latest regulatory move aimed at cooling stock market fever, the government said yesterday. "Companies should not directly or indirectly use newly acquired funds to buy stocks or derivatives or convertible company bonds," the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement on its Web site. Firms must use the proceeds from share sales for the intended purposes, the statement said. If the enterprises intend to spend more than 10 percent of the raised capital on items that the share sale was not originally aimed at funding, they must get board approval and arrange an online shareholder vote, it said.
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS