Victor announces TV recall
Victor Co of Japan Ltd, maker of the JVC brand of electronics, said it will recall 18,430 of its plasma televisions as some may emit smoke and catch fire.
The company will inspect and repair the televisions free of charge, Yokohama-based Victor said in a statement yesterday.
Victor shares fell 3.4 percent to ?228 (US$1.99) at the close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The benchmark Nikkei 225 declined 1.5 percent.
Filipino remittances to double
Money returned home to the Philippines by millions of Filipinos working abroad, already 10 percent of the nation's GDP, is expected to almost double to US$21.4 billion a year by 2010, officials forecast.
Alex Aguilar, spokesman for the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, said last year cash transfers rose to a record US$12.8 billion, as the government forecast an annual increase of about 10 percent.
However, officials say this figure could go much higher and Aguilar expects the rate of overseas remittances to increase by 15 percent to 20 percent annually to about US$21.4 billion by 2010 from US$10.7 billion in 2005.
He said the composition of workers leaving for overseas is shifting to professionals and other skilled higher-paid sectors, compared to maids and construction workers who dominated workers abroad 20 or 30 years ago.
Worker deployment dropped by 3.7 percent in the eight months to August, but the tilt to highly skilled workers allowed remittances to rise 15.3 percent to US$9.3 billion, he told reporters on Sunday.
Fast Retailing targets China
Fast Retailing Co, Asia's biggest clothing retailer, plans to operate 200 Uniqlo stores in China and Hong Kong within five years, with the region set to overtake Japan as the firm's largest sales generator by 2017.
About 80 percent of the stores will be in China, senior vice president Tiger Pan (潘寧) said. Fast Retailing has five stores in Hong Kong and 10 in China.
The casual clothing chain is tapping the world's fastest growing major economy as sales stall in its home market, which accounts for about 90 percent of total revenue. Fast Retailing's sales from China and Hong Kong will double every year to about 7 billion yuan (US$939 million) by 2012, Pan said.
"Sales growth in Japan is very limited as the population is shrinking," said Pan, who is also the managing director of the Uniqlo Hong Kong unit, in an interview on Friday. "The group is shifting focus to Asia, especially to China, as the booming middle class is driving up spending."
Shares dive on Wen comments
Hong Kong shares tumbled yesterday morning on disappointment over a delay in a plan to allow mainland Chinese to invest on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The benchmark Hang Seng Index fell 3 percent, or 915.56 points, to end the morning session at 29,552.78. Turnover was heavy.
The blue-chip index has shot up 40 percent since Aug. 20, when China announced it would allow mainland Chinese to directly invest in Hong Kong's stock market, although a timetable for its introduction was never set.
On Saturday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) indicated a delay was likely, as Beijing studied the impact of the scheme on Hong Kong and the mainland markets and created a law to regulate the amount of money flowing out of the mainland.
US dollar gains ground
The US dollar gained ground against the New Taiwan dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, increasing NT$0.015 to close at NT$32.405.
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