■ ENERGY
Seoul to hike power rates
South Korea will increase electricity prices for industrial users next month, while leaving average prices unchanged. The price for industrial use will rise 1 percent next Tuesday, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The price for night-time use between 11pm and 9am will rise by 17.5 percent, the ministry said. The government will cut the price for commercial use by 3.2 percent and for some service industries, including research and development centers and information and technology, by 13.8 percent, it said.
■ OIL
Gazprom in Tomskneft offer
Gazprom's oil unit Gazprom Neft is one of two firms to have made an offer to buy a 50 percent stake in Tomskneft from state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday. "We have received two offers to buy Tomskneft," one of which is from Gazprom Neft, said Anatoly Golomolzin, deputy head of the Russian financial regulator. He did not name the second bidder. Rosneft acquired Tomskneft in May for US$6.8 billion during the break-up of privately-owned former oil major Yukos. Critics said Yukos was bankrupted by President Vladimir Putin in order to bring Russia's vast natural resources back under state control.
■ STEEL
POSCO invests in Malaysia
South Korean steel giant POSCO said yesterday it had bought a Malaysian steelmaker as part of efforts to establish a production network elsewhere in Asia. POSCO, the world's fourth-largest steelmaker, said it had signed a deal to acquire 60 percent of Malaysia's MEGS for US$15.6 million. The South Korean company said it would upgrade the Malaysian firm's facilities, now capable of producing 120,000 tonnes of electrogalvanized coils a year, to meet growing demand in Southeast Asia.
■ TOURISM
Room rates hit record high
Singapore received a record number of visitors last month but hotel rates were also at fresh highs, the city-state's tourism authorities said yesterday. The Singapore Tourism Board said 837,000 visitors arrived in November, the largest number ever for that month. Average room rates for hotels also set a new milestone of S$226 (US$156) a night, the highest ever in any month and up almost 30 percent over last year, the board said. The city-state's hotels earned record room revenues of S$175.4 million, an increase of almost 24 percent from last year, it said. Visitor arrivals were 4.6 percent higher than a year earlier, fuelled by strong arrivals from China, India and Australia, the board said.
■ RETAILING
US sales growth slows
US retailers' sales rose 3.6 percent in holiday shopping, at the lower end of expectations, helped by a late-season spending surge on some items, data released on Tuesday by SpendingPulse showed. The figures, from the retail data service of MasterCard Advisors, offer a glimpse at the strength of this year's holiday shopping season, which was expected to grow at the slowest rate in five years. "It's more at the lower end of the expected range but more or less in line with the reduced expectations coming into the holiday season," said Michael McNamara, vice president of Research and Analysis for MasterCard Advisors.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
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