JAPAN
House rejects bank nominee
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s nominee to the Bank of Japan board was rejected by the upper house of parliament in a victory for lawmakers pressing for more monetary easing to spur growth and end deflation. BNP Paribas SA economist Ryutaro Kono was blocked by a vote of 127 to 111 in the house, where the ruling Democratic Party of Japan has a minority. Japanese stocks pared losses on the decision, which leaves the central bank with two vacant seats on its nine-person board and gives lawmakers a platform to urge Governor Masaaki Shirakawa to take bolder action.
MEDIA
PRC paper to list Web site
The flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist party said yesterday it would raise 527 million yuan (US$84 million) by listing its Web site, becoming the first government news portal to tap the stock market. People’s Daily Online, operator of the Web site for the People’s Daily, will issue 69.1 million shares, it said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. People’s Daily Online said it would start promoting the offer today, before selling shares to investors from April 17.
OIL
Chevron fined for spill
A Brazilian prosecutor is demanding that Chevron and the oil drilling contractor Transocean pay US$10.9 billion for a second offshore spill last month, the US oil giant said on Wednesday. The new penalty “is arbitrary, speculative and not based on facts,” Chevron said in a statement. On March 4, an oil spill was detected at a depth of 1,300m, not far from the site of a bigger spill that occurred in November last year in the Chevron-operated Frade field located off Rio de Janeiro State. State prosecutors had already filed legal action against Chevron and Transocean over the November incident, also seeking US$11 billion.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford optimistic on US sales
Ford Motor Co is raising its forecast for US auto sales this year, citing improving consumer confidence, employment, low interest rates and other factors. Ford Americas president Mark Fields said on Wednesday that the company now expects full-year US sales in the range of 14.5 million to 15 million. That is up from 13.5 million to 14.5 million at the beginning of this year. Fields said Ford would likely lose market share because it would not make enough vehicles to satisfy demand. The company may add production capacity in the fourth quarter, he said.
HEALTHCARE
Covidien to acquire Oridion
Covidien PLC, a maker of healthcare products for clinical and home settings, has agreed to buy Oridion Systems Ltd, an Israeli medical-device maker, for US$346 million. The Dublin-based Covidien will pay about 21.04 Swiss francs a share, 75 percent higher than Wednesday’s closing stock price. The merger is expected to be completed in the second quarter, according to a statement. The acquisition of Jerusalem-based Oridion, a maker of devices for patient breathing safety, is intended to add to Covidien’s portfolio of devices to monitor “respiratory function for patients around the world,” Robert White, president of respiratory and monitoring systems at Covidien, said in the statement. Oridion had US$64.5 million in revenue last year. The boards of both companies have approved the deal, which is subject to Oridion shareholders’ approval, Covidien and Oridion said.
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