BANKING
S&P lowers BNP Paribas
Standard and Poor’s (S&P) on Friday lowered the rating of French bank BNP Paribas one notch to “AA-,” citing funding and liquidity concerns, but held the ratings of the country’s other top banks steady. The ratings for Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, BPCe, Credit Mutuel, Caisse Central and the Federal Bank of Credit Mutuel were held at the lower rating of “A+.” S&P lowered the stand-alone credit profiles of these banks, but increased its estimate of the government support they would likely receive in case of difficulty. S&P said the tighter funding conditions would weigh on European banks’ earnings and were pushing the banks to reduce their balance sheets.
AVIATION
Qantas to cut 400 flights
Qantas Airways Ltd, Australia’s biggest carrier, said it would cut almost 400 domestic flights affecting 60,000 passengers for the next month as a result of labor union strikes. Bans on overtime by engineers caused a backlog of maintenance and forced the grounding of five aircraft from next week, Sydney-based Qantas said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. While a planned four-hour strike in Adelaide and one-hour stoppages in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide have been postponed for two weeks, this “will not help get these five grounded aircraft back up in the air,” said Olivia Wirth, a spokeswoman for Qantas. Workers from the airline’s engineering, long-haul pilots and ground crew unions have held strikes, used public address systems to criticize Qantas and banned overtime as they seek higher pay and job security clauses in contracts.
TRADE
China panel duties mulled
The US must take action against unfairly subsidized solar panel imports from China and other suppliers that threaten the future of US producers, a US lawmaker said on Friday. The US solar industry has been hit hard by competition from China and other countries, which offer cheap financing and other forms of subsidies to support the sector. US Representative Sander Levin, who met with solar industry representatives earlier on Friday, said that without government intervention there could be no US-made solar panels within five years. Levin, a senior Democrat in the US House of Representatives, told reporters one option would be to impose “safeguard” tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels, similar to duties US President Barack Obama placed on Chinese-made tires. However, Levin said he was also concerned about government subsidies South Korea and other producers receive, which suggests a broader approach could be required.
INTERNET
Google Buzz to end
Google is getting ready to press the mute button on Buzz, an online social networking service that turned into a massive faux pas. Buzz will be shut down within the next few weeks, according to a Friday post on Google Inc’s blog. The 20-month-old service probably won’t be missed. If anything, Buzz is destined to be remembered as Google’s botched attempt to build a social network to rival Facebook’s online hangout. Google is now focusing its social networking efforts on Plus, a three-and-a-half-month-old service that has been catching on quickly. Plus already has more than 40 million users and Google CEO Larry Page seems confident it will become an effective weapon for fighting the threat posed by Facebook and its audience of 800 million users.
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