GERMANY
Economy likely shrank
The economy, Europe’s biggest, is likely to have shrunk by about 0.25 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, the national statistics office Destatis said yesterday. “The economy is likely to have contracted by around a quarter of a [percentage] point in the fourth quarter,” Destatis official Norbert Raeth, told a news conference, without providing an exact estimate. The statistics office said earlier that while GDP expanded by a robust 3 percent over the whole of last year, most of the growth was seen in the first six months of the year.
UNITED STATES
Fed paid out US$76.9bn
The Federal Reserve paid the federal government US$76.9 billion last year, the second-highest amount in history. The central bank earned the money from investments made to bolster the US economy. The Fed reported that last year’s payment is down from an all-time record of US$79.3 billion made in 2010. Part of the decline reflected lower earnings that the Fed made from its support for insurance giant American International Group, which repaid a loan early last year, cutting the Fed’s interest earnings.
TOURISM
Incheon airport plans casino
The operator of South Korea’s main airport plans to build a US$3 billion casino resort to woo increasingly wealthy travelers from China and elsewhere in Asia, its spokeswoman said yesterday. The new resort is to be built near the airport 50km west of Seoul. The Incheon International Airport Corp is also mulling a bid for Edinburgh Airport as part of efforts to boost sources of income abroad, she said.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan expects new record
Nissan-Renault will achieve another sales record this year after posting a 10 percent jump in global sales to 8.03 million vehicles last year, alliance chief Carlos Ghosn said on Tuesday. The results put Renault-Nissan within sight of German rival Volkswagen, which posted sales of 8.13 million vehicles last year. Nissan’s sales rose 14.4 percent to a record 4.67 million vehicles worldwide last year, while Renault’s sales were up a record 4.6 percent at 2.72 million vehicles, he said. Russia’s Avetovaz, part of the alliance, sold 638,000 vehicles.
TECHNOLOGY
Kodak sues Apple, HTC
Eastman Kodak Co has filed patent-infringement lawsuits against Apple Inc and HTC Corp (宏達電), claiming the smartphone makers are infringing several of its digital-imaging inventions. The lawsuits, filed on Tuesday in a US federal court, claim that some of Apple’s iPhones, iPads and iPods and HTC’s smartphones and tablet devices infringe four Kodak patents related to image transmission. It also lodged complaints against HTC and Apple before the US International Trade Commission.
FOODMAKERS
Hostess bankrupt again
Hostess Brands Inc, the maker of Twinkies snack cakes and Wonder Bread in the US, fell back into bankruptcy about three years after completing an earlier restructuring. The Irving, Texas-based baker ended an earlier trip through bankruptcy court in February 2009 when buyout firm Ripplewood Holdings LLC and lenders took control of Interstate Bakeries Corp, which was renamed Hostess Brands. Hostess Brands filed its Chapter 11 petition in the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, listing assets of as much as US$1 billion and debt of more than US$1 billion.
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
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
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