news blog from Jillian

* Still negotiating investments in two new factories* Total investment could reach $12 bln in 4-6 yearsBy Hugo BachegaBRASILIA, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Taiwan’s Foxconn confirmed it will start producing iPads in Brazil in December but is still negotiating a multibillion-dollar expansion plan in the country, senior company and government officials said on Thursday.President Dilma Rousseff first announced the Foxconn proposal to build Apple’s hot-selling tablet in Brazil during an official visit to China in April.Since then plans have been delayed because of complex negotiations over tax breaks and other benefits the company is seeking.The lengthy negotiations reflect the country’s sometimes difficult investment climate and the Rousseff administration’s ambiguous stance between a heavy government hand and the need to attract private capital.But Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou and Brazil’s Science and Technology Minister Aloizio Mercadante told reporters on Thursday the company will start assembling the iPad locally in December at its plant in Jundiai in Sao Paulo state.”They’re maintaining the deadline they had announced, which is December. The iPhone is ready for large-scale production and for the iPad they’re working with that deadline,” Mercadante said after a meeting between Gou and Rousseff.Both sides were still negotiating fresh Foxconn investments, including two new factories to assemble touch screens, Mercadante said.”We haven’t finished the process, it’s moving ahead but there’s no date,” said Mercadante, who had trumpeted the announcement back in April as a sign of growing Asian investments and high-tech industries in Brazil.Six state governments were competing to attract the factories, Mercadante said. Logistics, such as the proximity of airports, were key issues, he added.The deal involves local investors, as well as financing from state-owned development bank BNDES, Mercadante added.If all goes well, Foxconn expects to invest up to $12 billion in coming years.”We will be still investing US$12 billion in a (few) years, maybe four years, maybe six years,” Gou told reporters in a separate news conference.Brazil recently granted tax breaks on specific computer components and attraced companies such as Samsung , Motorola and Positivo Informatica to assemble tablets.

* Still negotiating investments in two new factories* Total investment could reach $12 bln in 4-6 yearsBy Hugo BachegaBRASILIA, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Taiwan’s Foxconn confirmed it will start producing iPads in Brazil in December but is still negotiating a multibillion-dollar expansion plan in the country, senior company and government officials said on Thursday.President Dilma Rousseff first announced the Foxconn proposal to build Apple’s hot-selling tablet in Brazil during an official visit to China in April.Since then plans have been delayed because of complex negotiations over tax breaks and other benefits the company is seeking.The lengthy negotiations reflect the country’s sometimes difficult investment climate and the Rousseff administration’s ambiguous stance between a heavy government hand and the need to attract private capital.But Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou and Brazil’s Science and Technology Minister Aloizio Mercadante told reporters on Thursday the company will start assembling the iPad locally in December at its plant in Jundiai in Sao Paulo state.”They’re maintaining the deadline they had announced, which is December. The iPhone is ready for large-scale production and for the iPad they’re working with that deadline,” Mercadante said after a meeting between Gou and Rousseff.Both sides were still negotiating fresh Foxconn investments, including two new factories to assemble touch screens, Mercadante said.”We haven’t finished the process, it’s moving ahead but there’s no date,” said Mercadante, who had trumpeted the announcement back in April as a sign of growing Asian investments and high-tech industries in Brazil.Six state governments were competing to attract the factories, Mercadante said. Logistics, such as the proximity of airports, were key issues, he added.The deal involves local investors, as well as financing from state-owned development bank BNDES, Mercadante added.If all goes well, Foxconn expects to invest up to $12 billion in coming years.”We will be still investing US$12 billion in a (few) years, maybe four years, maybe six years,” Gou told reporters in a separate news conference.Brazil recently granted tax breaks on specific computer components and attraced companies such as Samsung , Motorola and Positivo Informatica to assemble tablets.

* Still negotiating investments in two new factories* Total investment could reach $12 bln in 4-6 yearsBy Hugo BachegaBRASILIA, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Taiwan’s Foxconn confirmed it will start producing iPads in Brazil in December but is still negotiating a multibillion-dollar expansion plan in the country, senior company and government officials said on Thursday.President Dilma Rousseff first announced the Foxconn proposal to build Apple’s hot-selling tablet in Brazil during an official visit to China in April.Since then plans have been delayed because of complex negotiations over tax breaks and other benefits the company is seeking.The lengthy negotiations reflect the country’s sometimes difficult investment climate and the Rousseff administration’s ambiguous stance between a heavy government hand and the need to attract private capital.But Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou and Brazil’s Science and Technology Minister Aloizio Mercadante told reporters on Thursday the company will start assembling the iPad locally in December at its plant in Jundiai in Sao Paulo state.”They’re maintaining the deadline they had announced, which is December. The iPhone is ready for large-scale production and for the iPad they’re working with that deadline,” Mercadante said after a meeting between Gou and Rousseff.Both sides were still negotiating fresh Foxconn investments, including two new factories to assemble touch screens, Mercadante said.”We haven’t finished the process, it’s moving ahead but there’s no date,” said Mercadante, who had trumpeted the announcement back in April as a sign of growing Asian investments and high-tech industries in Brazil.Six state governments were competing to attract the factories, Mercadante said. Logistics, such as the proximity of airports, were key issues, he added.The deal involves local investors, as well as financing from state-owned development bank BNDES, Mercadante added.If all goes well, Foxconn expects to invest up to $12 billion in coming years.”We will be still investing US$12 billion in a (few) years, maybe four years, maybe six years,” Gou told reporters in a separate news conference.Brazil recently granted tax breaks on specific computer components and attraced companies such as Samsung , Motorola and Positivo Informatica to assemble tablets.

ELP sponsored 12,000 daily copies of the WSJ — about 16 percent of its total circulation, the Guardian said. Such sponsorship deals are controversial, but not unusual.The WSJ Europe’s publisher Andrew Langhoff quit on Tuesday, and parent company Dow Jones, a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp , said the reason was ethical issues raised by the paper’s commercial relationship with ELP.The Journal said the Guardian article was “replete with untruths and malign interpretations”.The Guardian has led an investigative campaign into phone-hacking practices at another Murdoch newspaper, Britain’s News of the World, which was shut down earlier this year as a result.ABC UK said it had examined the scheme when it was first set up in 2009 and again when it audited the July-December 2010 circulation figures, and found it to be in order.”More recently we have re-examined the scheme based on some new evidence available. There now appears to be additional new information which may give grounds for further investigation,” ABC UK’s Chief Executive Jerry Wright, who is also president of the International Federation of ABCs, said in an emailed statement.The organisation added that such investigations were confidential until complete, and their results only published in cases where complaints were upheld.ELP issued a statement denying it had been involved in any scheme to artifically boost the Journal’s circulation, or that it had been promised any editorial coverage.”ELP is not pleased that our name appears in this context which seems to be driven by internal dynamics in WSJE and the current investigative climate around News Corp organizations,” the company said.A spokesman for ABC in the United States said there was no additional audit or investigation planned of the circulation practices of the Journal’s U.S. edition.News Corp acquired the Journal, a trophy purchase for Murdoch, as part of Dow Jones in 2007.