CHINA
Inflation made priority
China will make stabilizing the price of food and other necessities a higher priority, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said in a statement on a central government Web site yesterday. Wen made the comments during a trip to a supermarket in Inner Mongolia yesterday, according to the statement.
AVIATION
No AA tickets on Expedia
Expedia Inc has stopped selling tickets on American Airlines (AA) flights, the latest twist in a simmering pricing dispute between American and travel Web sites. “Expedia has chosen to no longer offer American Airlines fares on its Web site,” American said in an statement posted on its Web site. The Texas-based airline has said that it would like to sell more tickets through its own Web site, as paying to have its flights listed on sites such as Expedia can be costly.
OIL
Russia sets output record
Russia established a post-Soviet record for yearly crude output last year, even as production last month slipped from the previous month. Output last year rose 2.2 percent to 10.15 million barrels a day, the highest annual average since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK statistics unit said in a statement yesterday. Russia produced 9.93 million barrels a day in 2009, according to the statistics.
PROPERTY
Nakheel reports on debts
Nakheel PJSC, the developer building palm-shaped islands off Dubai’s coast, has paid a total of 3.9 billion dirhams (US$467 million) to its trade creditors to date, according to an e-mailed statement yesterday. Nakheel, which is seeking to delay at least US$10.5 billion of loans and bills, will seek to secure the agreement of creditors representing 95 percent of the debt by the end of the first quarter, according to the statement.
DENMARK
Early retirement to end
The government will work to gradually remove the country’s early retirement plan, which allows Danes to stop working as early as 60, to be able to fund welfare services in the future, Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said. The government proposes to end the plan for workers who presently are younger than 45 years, Rasmussen said yesterday in his New Year’s speech, transmitted by Copenhagen-based broadcaster DR.
INSURANCE
UI accepts higher costs
Union Insurance Co, (UI) an Abu Dhabi-based company, agreed a 7 percent increase in administration costs for next year and projected 32 percent higher revenue in the same period, according to a statement to the emirate’s bourse. The board also approved the creation of two units to invest in commercial and property projects, it said in the statement yesterday without giving further details.
INDUSTRY
Nunavut Iron increases bid
Nunavut Iron Ore has boosted its bid for Baffinland Iron Mines, the latest move in a battle with steel giant ArcelorMittal for the junior company’s iron ore deposit in Canada’s north. Nunavut Iron raised its offer by C$0.05 a share to C$1.45 a share, and valued the company at about C$570 million (US$572 million). “This increase means our offer remains the clearly superior choice for Baffinland shareholders,” chairman of Nunavut Iron chairman Bruce Walter, said on Friday.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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