■ENERGY
Taipower touts green effort
Taiwan Power Co’s (Taipower, 台電) plan to give discounts to those who conserve electricity has borne fruit, the state-owned company said yesterday. Since the incentive measures were introduced in July 2008, the public had conserved 7.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity — 2.593 billion in 2008, 3.756 billion last year and 984 million in the first four months of this year. Under the incentive plan, if residents use less electricity over a two-month period than they did during the same period the previous year, the company charges them a discounted rate. The conservation efforts cut electricity fees by NT$24.94 billion (US$785 million), an average of NT$2,010 for each of Taiwan’s 12.41 million households. Taipower also cut its fuel costs by NT$28.958 billion and carbon dioxide emissions by 4.66 million tonnes during the period.
■MINING
Billiton-Rio merger in doubt
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto might re-evaluate plans to merge their Western Australian iron ore operations if an agreement is not reached by the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal said yesterday. It reported BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers as saying that said the deal’s completion was hampered by a proposed new Australian tax on mining profits. “I still want to do it,” the Journal quoted Kloppers as saying on Friday. “We have many hurdles to jump through, and the tax brings in uncertainty.” The new 40 percent resource rent tax has angered the mining industry generally and sparked talk among some of reconsidering Australian projects.
■AUTOMOBILES
Daimler might exit NYSE
German car maker Daimler AG wants to pull its shares off the New York Stock Exchange because of low trading volume and to reduce the complexity of its financial reports, the company said on Friday. Daimler, the maker of Mercedes-Benz and Smart automobiles and one-time owner of Chrysler, told the stock exchange of its intentions on Friday, and has applied to delist with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, spokesman Han Tjan said. Normally it takes about 10 business days from the application date for shares to be removed from the exchange, Tjan said.
■AVIATION
EasyJet founder resigns
EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou has resigned from the airline’s board, the British group announced on Friday, amid a row over strategy. He was joined in stepping down from the board by fellow non-executive director Bob Rothenberg. “The stated reason for their resignation is that Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou wishes to gain greater freedom to exercise EasyGroup’s rights as a shareholder in the company to seek a change in the company’s strategy,” EasyJet said in a statement.
■EUROZONE
Spain considers tax hike
Spain’s government, under pressure from markets and its EU partners, said on Friday that it is considering taxes hikes to help slash the public deficit, in addition to other unpopular measures already announced. “We are considering the situation, and we don’t rule out anything,” Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said in reply to a question about the possibility of a tax increase. The remark came after Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Wednesday announced a 15-billion-euro austerity package, including a 5 percent pay cut for civil servants.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
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