■CHINA LABOR
Honda plant workers strike
A strike has broken out at a south China factory supplying parts for Japan’s Honda Motor Co, the latest in a string of stoppages by Chinese workers demanding a bigger piece of the country’s economic wealth. The strike, at Atsumitec Co in the city of Foshan, began on Monday, with 170 workers striking after management fired about 100, a worker who declined to give his name told reporters by telephone. A Honda spokeswoman in Tokyo said the factory supplies shift levers (gear sticks) to the carmaker’s local plants.
■TELECOMS
NTT buys Dimension Data
Japanese telecom giant NTT will acquire South African information technology firm Dimension Data for £2.1 billion (US$3.2 billion), both companies said in a statement yesterday. The deal would help Japan’s top telecom operator to crack into the fast-growing African market for mobile phone and IT services. The boards of directors of both NTT and Dimension Data unanimously recommended the all-cash offer for 100 percent of the shares, the companies said.
■AUTOMAKERS
GM guarantees battery life
General Motors Co (GM) is guaranteeing the battery in its Chevrolet Volt electric car for eight years or 160,000km in an effort to inspire confidence in the new technology. The guarantee is better than warranties on GM’s conventional car engines and transmissions, which run for five years or 160,000km. The rechargeable Volt is due in showrooms in November. The vehicle can travel 65 kilometers on battery power before a small gasoline engine takes over to power the car for longer distances.
■AUTOMAKERS
VW to build new China plant
Volkswagen says it will build a new manufacturing plant in Yizheng, China which will start operating in 2013 and produce up to 300,000 vehicles a year. The automaker based in Wolfsburg, Germany, said it signed contracts to build the factory in Jiangsu Province yesterday. It says some 4,000 jobs will be created at the plant. The company says it delivered more than 950,000 vehicles in China in the first half of this year — up 45.7 percent from a year earlier.
■PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis posts net growth
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis yesterday posted net profit growth of 19 percent in the second quarter, prompting it to raise its revenues forecast for the full year. Net profit reached US$2.44 billion during the second quarter, up from US$2.04 billion a year ago. Net sales were also up 11 percent at US$11.7 billion. Novartis said in a statement that the company now expects its sales growth at constant currency to reach “mid to high-single digits,” while earlier it had forecasted growth of about 5 percent.
■ELECTRONICS
Sanyo Semiconductor sold
Japanese electronics maker Sanyo Electric will sell its semiconductor business to US-based ON Semiconductor for US$336 million, both companies said yesterday. The purchase of Sanyo Semiconductor will be a cash and stock transaction and is to be completed by year’s end, they said. The acquisition “is another significant step by ON Semiconductor to solidify its position as a premier global supplier of high-performance, energy efficient silicon solutions,” ON Semiconductor president and CEO Keith Jackson said.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
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