Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday hailed Latin America as an “indispensable partner” as he wrapped up a tour of the region after signing a series of deals.
Abe’s five-country tour comes just after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) finished his own visit to the region, which is rich in raw materials. Its emerging economies are also a market for exports.
“Latin America has a large presence on the international stage and is an indispensable partner in my vision of diplomacy,” Abe said in a speech in Sao Paulo.
“With my visit, I want to go one step further and sign an agreement between Japan and Latin America,” he said, saying this marked a “new chapter” in the relationship between the two.
Abe recalled the economic and trade ties linking Japan and Latin America during his speech, as well as agreements signed during his tour.
On Friday, during a visit to the capital Brasilia where Abe met with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s state-owned oil giant Petrobras signed a loan of US$500 million with two Japanese financial institutions, Nippon Export and Investment Insurance and Mizuho Bank for the construction of oil platforms.
Abe, without providing details, said a Japanese company had signed a contract for Sao Paulo metro construction work.
Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan, with a population of about 1.8 million people who are of Japanese descent. About 60 percent live in the southeastern and most developed state of Sao Paulo.
The first wave of immigrants came to Brazil to escape poverty and to work on coffee plantations following an accord between the two countries.
Abe honored the memory and hard work of these individuals, saying they established themselves well over the course of 100 years of “sweat and tears.”
Abe began his nine-day tour of the region on July 25 in Mexico and then visited Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia and Chile before heading to Brazil.
In Chile on Thursday, Abe signed a series of agreements in areas ranging from mining to minimizing damage from earthquakes.
In Mexico, he struck several energy deals, including one between state oil firm Pemex and Japan’s development bank, and another between Pemex and Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp.
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