■ TRADE
Malaysia, India eye FTA
Malaysia and India will begin negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) in January, a report said yesterday. Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz was quoted as saying that a bilateral trade pact could boost Malaysia's exports to India by 1.3 times, or US$12 billion, by 2012. The talks would aim for a comprehensive bilateral agreement covering goods and services, investments and economic cooperation, the New Straits Times newspaper reported her as saying. Last year, India was Malaysia's ninth-largest trading partner, ninth-largest export destination and 17th-largest import source.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Fiat to invest in Brazil
Fiat is to invest nearly US$3.4 billion in South America's biggest car market, Brazil, over the next three years to boost in-country production, the CEO of the automaker, Sergio Marchione, said on Friday. The lion's share of the investment -- US$2.8 billion -- will go to expanding a factory that the company already has in the state of Minas Gerais, Governor Aecio Neves told reporters. The expansion will push the plant's production from a current 700,000 vehicles per year to more than 1 million in 2010, Neves said following a meeting with Marchione and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
■ BANKING
BoCom, HSBC to team up
Bank of Communications Ltd (BoCom, 交通銀行), part-owned by HSBC Holdings Plc, plans to cooperate overseas with the UK bank, BoCom chairman Jiang Chaoliang (蔣超良) said. The Chinese lender is seeking overseas acquisitions and branches, Jiang said yesterday at a conference in Beijing, without elaborating. The Shanghai-based lender in April raised US$3.3 billion in a Shanghai share sale. HSBC, Europe's biggest bank by market value, raised its ownership in BoCom to 19 percent from 18.6 percent after buying 172.5 million shares on the open market for HK$2.16 billion (US$278 million) on Oct. 23 and Oct. 24. The London-based bank has said it wants to return its holding in BoCom to 19.9 percent.
■ MINERALS
Rusal wants Norilsk stake
Aluminum giant United Company Rusal said on Friday that it would acquire a stake of 25 percent plus one share in metals conglomerate OAO Norilsk Nickel from former general director Mikhail Prokhorov if his former business partner does not buy him out. In exchange for turning over the stake in Norilsk to Rusal, Prokhorov's Onexim group will receive 11 percent of shares in Rusal plus an undetermined amount of cash, Rusal and Onexim said in a joint statement. However, the statement said, "the transaction is conditional upon non-acceptance of an offer to buy 25 percent of Norilsk Nickel made by Onexim to Vladimir Potanin." Potanin owns Norilsk Nickel.
■ ELECTRONICS
Sanyo disputes report
Sanyo Electric Co said a Nikkei newspaper report that it plans to book an additional ¥100 billion (US$926 million) loss for fiscal year 2000 is a "presumption" and that auditors were still finalizing past earnings. The company will make the auditor's report public when it is completed, Sanyo said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday. Sanyo undervalued losses at poorly performing semiconductor and liquid-crystal-display units during a review of unconsolidated earnings for the period from fiscal 2000 to 2005, the Nikkei said yesterday. The additional loss would mean Sanyo was operating at a loss, the report said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the