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Taiwan tech firms lead Asia
Technology firms dominated as Taiwan led China in a list of the best 200 Asian companies with annual revenues of under US$1 billion, Forbes Asia business magazine said yesterday.
Taiwan had 41 small and medium sized companies named as winners against China's 23, the publication said in a statement unveiling this year's "Best Under A Billion" ranking.
Hong Kong tied with economic powerhouse Japan with 22 companies each in the Forbes Asia list.
South Korea had 21 companies on the list, trailed by Singapore with 20, India 17, Australia 12, Malaysia nine, Thailand five, New Zealand four and Pakistan two. The Philippines and Sri Lanka had one each.
Nearly all 41 Taiwanese companies on the list are from the information technology sector, Forbes Asia said.
Eight out of 10 companies on the overall list are making their debut this year.
Region's salaries should rise
Salaries in the Asia-Pacific region are expected to keep rising next year, with India topping the hikes, a human resources consultancy report said yesterday.
Companies are likely to remain confident about business prospects and growth, the Hay Group compensation report said.
India ranked first with base salaries expected to rise 13.1 percent, followed by China with 6.2 percent, Indonesia 5.6 percent, the Philippines 5.2 percent and Thailand 4.7 percent.
Blue-collar employees in China are for the first time in three years expected to receive "almost as much increase as their white-collar counterparts" as a result of fierce market competition for skilled workers, the report said.
Singapore and South Korea shared sixth place, each with pay rises of 3.8 percent.
Vietnam followed with 3.4 percent, Malaysia 3.3 percent, Taiwan 3.1 percent, Australia 2.6 percent and New Zealand 1.7 percent, the report said.
China's after-tax tax
China will next month launch a new plan to tax state enterprises to cool the pace of investment activity and boost the government's coffers, state press said yesterday.
The government will start to take 10 percent of after-tax profits earned by the oil, coal, power, chemicals, telecommunications and tobacco industries, a report by Caijing magazine said yesterday.
Other state enterprises will hand over 5 percent of their after-tax profits. Scientific research institutions and military enterprises will be exempt from the plan for three years, it said.
The plan, which has reportedly been under debate for some time, will mark the first time in a decade that state enterprises have been obliged to pay after-tax profits to the government.
The government will jump-start the plan next month by collecting 17 billion yuan (US$2.3 billion) from last year's profits of 169 state-run firms.
Oil `basket' price at new high
OPEC's "basket" price of crude oil, based on production in 12 countries, rose to a record US$75.61 a barrel on Wednesday, the cartel said yesterday.
"The OPEC daily basket price stood at US$75.61 a barrel Wednesday ... compared with US$74.92 the previous day," OPEC said in a statement.
Oil prices have also soared to new highs on international markets and were approaching US$82 a barrel in early electronic trading yesterday.
Analysts predict that prices will remain high, with markets concerned that supply may be insufficient to meet winter demand.

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