Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg yesterday declined to comment on whether he had intended to block a Chinese state-owned enterprise’s (SOE) takeover of an Australian-based construction firm.
China State Construction Engineering Corp (中國建築工程), one of the world’s biggest construction companies, had planned to buy South African-owned and Sydney-based Probuild for A$300 million (US$233.2 million).
However, Probuild’s owner, Wilson Bayly Holmes-Ovcon Ltd (WBHO), told the Johannesburg Stock Exchange this week that the Chinese suitor had withdrawn its offer because Frydenberg would have blocked the sale.
“WBHO has been advised by the potential acquirer of Probuild that it has withdrawn its proposed investment application in Probuild lodged with the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board following advice that its application would be rejected by the federal government on the grounds of national security,” the parent company’s statement said.
Frydenberg declined to comment on the potential sale.
“The government does not comment on the application of the foreign investment screening arrangements as they apply or could apply to particular cases,” Frydenberg said in a statement.
China and Australia are major trading partners, but their ties markedly worsened last year when Australia called for an independent inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of China’s top grievances with Australia is Frydenberg’s decision in August last year to block the US$430 million sale of Japanese brewer Kirin Holdings Co’s Australian beverage unit to Chinese company China Mengniu Dairy Co (中國蒙牛乳業).
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) on Tuesday described Australian interference in the Probuild sale as the “latest example of how the Australian government has been politicizing trade and investment issues, violating market principles and the spirit of the China-Australia free trade agreement, and imposing discriminatory measures on Chinese companies.”
“It is a mistake to politicize normal commercial cooperation and seek political interference in the name of national security,” Zhao said.
Rebecca Mendelsohn, an Australian National University expert on foreign investment, said that the national interest question was broader than whether an asset should be in Australian or foreign hands.
“In this case, it seems the government thinks that the identity of the acquirer matters — ie, that there is no equivalence between a privately run South African firm and an SOE with alleged links to Chinese security agencies,” Mendelsohn said.
New Australian foreign investment laws came into effect on Jan. 1, which Canberra said in a statement ensured that the board “keeps pace with emerging risks and global developments.”
The board examines proposed foreign acquisitions, and advises Frydenberg on whether they are in Australia’s interests on economic and security grounds.
The changes include removing monetary thresholds that limited what acquisitions could be reviewed on national interest grounds.
Mendelsohn said that she did not think the new laws would necessarily lead to more investments being blocked.
“It does indicate the seriousness with which the government is considering the matter of national security in relation to foreign investment,” Mendelsohn said of the new laws.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
RSS