BANKING
HSBC pulls out of Russia
HSBC Holdings PLC, Europe’s largest bank, has decided to close its retail banking operations in Russia after just two years, following in the footsteps of British peer Barclays PLC, a document showed yesterday. “We encourage all customers to close their HSBC Premier and HSBC Plus accounts before June 30, 2011,” the document sent to HSBC clients said. HSBC, whose Russian unit is among the country’s top-100 lenders by assets, will concentrate its business on servicing corporate clients, it said. The move by HSBC, which started retail operations in Russia in mid-2009, followed an announcement by Barclays in February it was to sell its Russian retail unit as it was unable to compete and would focus on investment banking. Russia’s banking sector is dominated by state-owned banks, which control about 60 percent of the system’s overall assets.
ELECTRONICS
S-LCD will cancel shares
S-LCD Corp, a venture between Samsung Electronics Co and Sony Corp, will reduce capital by about 15 percent by canceling shares. The venture’s shares will be reduced to 660 million from 780 million, cutting capital to 3.3 trillion won (US$3 billion) from 3.9 trillion won, S-LCD said in a regulatory filing yesterday. The venture had excessive cash, James Chung, a Seoul-based spokesman for Samsung, said by telephone. Sony and Samsung agreed in 2004 to set up the US$1.8 billion LCD-making venture in South Korea to capitalize on the surge in demand for slimmer TVs that would replace bulky glass-tube sets.
JAPAN
Growth downgrade expected
The Bank of Japan is expected to downgrade its economic growth outlook for the year to March next year from 1.6 percent to about 0.8 percent in light of the deadly disasters last month, a report said yesterday. However, in its upcoming Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices, to be released on Thursday, the central bank will predict a rebound starting late this year on recovering output and reconstruction demand, the Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun said. Growth of 0.8 percent would be bullish compared with the average private-sector projection of slightly more than 0.4 percent, the business daily added. The news report came as bank Governor Masaaki Shirakawa joined private economists in expecting an economic contraction in the first half due to the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
ELECTRONICS
S Korea opens iOS 4 probe
South Korea’s telecoms regulator said yesterday it had launched an inquiry into Apple Inc to see whether the US giant’s collection of location data from its iPhone and iPad users violates privacy rules. The probe follows claims that Apple traced and stored geographical data from its mobile device users in countries such as France and Germany. The South Korean Communications Commission said it had sent a list of questions asking Apple Korea to clarify why location data was collected from mobile device users and how frequently such data was recorded. Apple is also required to explain why such information is not encrypted, whether device users have a choice over data deletion or data storage and whether such data is stored on its servers, it said. British security researchers have said the position--logging feature is contained in iOS 4, the operating system for the iPhone and iPad released in June.
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
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
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