■COFFEE SHOPS
85˚C plans share sale
85˚C Bakery Cafe (美食達人), which aims to expand its network in Taiwan to 180 stores this year, plans to sell shares for the first time as early as this year on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily reported yesterday, citing company spokeswoman Cathy Chung (鐘靜如). Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) is the underwriter for the sale, the report said.
■TOURISM
Chinese spent big: report
More than 600,000 Chinese tourists visited Taiwan last year, state-run media reported yesterday, amid warming relations between the two sides. The 606,100 visitors each spent nearly US$1,800 during their stay, tourism officials were quoted by the China Daily newspaper as saying. “Years of isolation between the two sides have made Taiwan an attractive place for mainland tourists,” said Zheng Lijuan, deputy general manager of a unit of travel group CITS International (中國國際旅行社).
■TELECOMS
China Mobile denies buyout
China Mobile Ltd (中國移動), the world’s biggest phone company by market value, denied a report that it was in talks to buy Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊). Tencent, operator of China’s biggest online chat software, is the country’s largest Internet company by market value. “We have no plans to buy Tencent,” Rainie Lei (雷雨), a spokeswoman at China Mobile, said by telephone yesterday. China’s DoNews.com reported on Friday that China Mobile chairman Wang Jianzhou (王建宙) visited Tencent’s headquarters in Shenzhen to discuss a possible takeover, citing people it didn’t identify.
■AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai puts out plant fire
Hyundai Motor Co has extinguished a blaze that broke out at a plant in Ulsan yesterday, South Korea’s largest automaker said. The fire occurred at about 11:25am, Hyundai said in an e-mail. Police are investigating the cause of the blaze, the automaker said. The fire damaged a cooling tower at the plant, which makes Hyundai’s sport-utility vehicles Santa Fe and Tucson, Yonhap News reported. The incident won’t affect production, the company said. No one was injured in the fire, Hyundai said. The plant is about 400km south of Seoul.
■ECONOMY
Indonesia beats forecasts
Indonesia’s budget deficit totaled 87.2 trillion rupiah (US$9.3 billion), or 1.6 percent of GDP, last year, less than a forecast 129.8 trillion rupiah, the Finance Ministry said on its Web site on Friday. Revenues and grants totaled 866.8 trillion rupiah, or 0.5 percent below the estimate, while spending amounted to 954 trillion rupiah, or 4.7 percent less than targeted, it said. Indonesia’s economy probably grew 4.3 percent to 4.4 percent last year, while inflation last year was “about 3 percent,” the statement said.
■INSURANCE
Allianz predicts recovery
Germany’s insurance giant Allianz foresees a massive recovery for the country’s economy this year, with growth exceeding official forecasts and unemployment rising only marginally, a report said on Friday. The daily Bild quoted the group’s chief economist Michael Heise as saying growth would reach 2.8 percent, comfortably above the German central bank’s prediction of 1.6 percent and the strongest since 2006. He said the good performance would be spurred by a boom in exports, stable domestic consumption, government recovery programs and recent tax cuts.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last